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Oral Answers to Questions
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Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)
The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Leo Docherty)
We are committed to striving to provide a gold standard of care and support for all veterans. This year, we have allocated £17.8 million to the veterans health and welling service—Op Courage at the NHS—and recently committed a £2.7 million boost over the next three years to further expand services supporting those who experience complex mental or physical trauma or alcohol and substance misuse.
Mark Jenkinson
I thank my hon. Friend for his support for our veterans. At Christmas, I delivered hampers of fresh local produce to over 100 veterans across the Workington constituency to thank them for their service. Does he agree with me that as the party that looks after all who have served, it is right that we take every opportunity to repay that service?
Leo Docherty
I thank my hon. Friend and put on the record my gratitude for the fantastically energetic way in which he supports veterans in the community. He briefed me last year on the hamper project and I commend him for the tangible benefit that he provides and energy with which he supports veterans in Workington.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Steve Barclay)
The most important thing to support businesses in the voluntary sector is to come out of the covid restrictions and reopen our economy. Boosters remain the best way to save lives, reduce the pressure on our NHS and keep our country safe. It is a great tribute to those working in our NHS that almost eight out of 10 eligible adults in England are now boosted.
Geraint Davies
A year ago, Phil Grant of the DVLA tragically died of coronavirus. He was a man in his 60s with a heart condition who had previously been allowed to work from home during the first lockdown and was forced to go to work. A year on, just pre last Christmas, unions and management agreed that, after 700 cases of coronavirus at the DVLA, there should be new arrangements for people to work from home and a rota system to allow safety. The Government intervened and stopped that from being instated on the grounds that omicron was not as dangerous. Since then, we now have a cumulative figure of 1,700 coronavirus cases at the DVLA. Will the Minister intervene to enable the scheme agreed by both unions and management to be implemented for at least a couple of months and meet me urgently so that the safety of workers and their families can be protected?
Steve Barclay
I recognise the seriousness of the case. On behalf of all colleagues in the House, I am sure, I express our sympathy for the family concerned. As he will know, it is difficult to comment on individual cases. He will also be aware that under plan B, employees are encouraged to work from home where possible. I am happy to flag the case to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, who oversees the body concerned. My right hon. Friend is balancing the need to address those employment issues with the importance of getting testing boosted when it comes to HGVs, cars and others. But he will pick up the case and I will raise it with him.
Liz Twist
During the pandemic, charities have played a hugely important part in supporting people, particularly those in need of help and more vulnerable older people. Does not the Minister agree that it would have been better to have involved those charities in the planning right from the start? Can we learn that lesson for the future?
Steve Barclay
The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the importance of charities, including in the pandemic response more widely. That is why we have had a package of £750 million of support for charities, which indicates their importance and how they have been involved throughout the pandemic.
Mr Virendra Sharma
Ealing food bank in my constituency is doing tremendous work feeding those struggling the most. Those in greatest need already cannot afford to feed themselves and their families even while in work. If the Government move to charging for testing, will the Minister commit to funding lateral flow tests for the most vulnerable to prevent unwanted covid-19 outbreaks?
Steve Barclay
The reality as we meet today is that we continue to offer universal free testing. Actually, the UK is an outlier both in terms of the sheer quantum of testing that we have delivered—more than any other country in Europe—and the fact that we have not charged to do so. Testing has played a key role in our response, along with the booster campaign, but we need to balance that with value for money and the cost, which is very significant.
Stephen Morgan
MAKE, based in Fratton, is an amazing, award-winning service that is supporting men struggling with their mental health during the pandemic through its Breakfast OK project, which provides a safe space for them to share their experiences with others with similar issues. What specifically is the Minister doing to support Portsmouth social enterprises to flourish and succeed at a time of rising demand and lengthening waiting times for vital mental health services?
Steve Barclay
I will have to pick up on the specific organisation the hon. Member references, but as I said in my answer a moment ago, we have had a package of £750 million of support. We have worked with a number of organisations, including our school sector with holiday clubs and other support that has been offered. I am very happy to look at the specific case he highlights to the House.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
At every twist and turn during this pandemic, the Government have dangerously dithered and delayed instead of being ready and resilient. The reality is that Labour brought in the Civil Contingencies Act in 2004, but the Conservatives have deprioritised and underfunded vital emergencies infrastructure since 2010. While I welcome the temporary funding for local resilience forums announced last year, it is just a meagre £7.5 million. It is tiny sum in the grand scheme of resilience needs, and it runs out in three months’ time. This leaves us unprepared to face the omicron variant, and potential future variants and emergencies, so will the Minister commit to properly and sustainably funding local resilience forums and ensure they are never again left without the resources they need to keep us all safe?
Steve Barclay
The hon. Lady is right on the importance of local resilience forums, but she is not right to say that the Government have not responded. There has been over £400 billion of support from the Government as part of our pandemic response. On specific measures, I refer her to the statement by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on 21 December 2021 announcing further measures. I will not run through the full quantum of them, but just to take one, there are the one-off grants of up to £6,000 per premises to support the hospitality and leisure sector. We have also taken wider measures to support businesses, such as reducing the isolation period, the daily contact testing and addressing issues within specific sectors—whether that is in social care or in the transport sector. There has been a whole range of measures from the Government, including the funding support, and as she mentioned in her question, much of that is continuing until the end of March.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The Minister without Portfolio (Nigel Adams)
Developing a thriving low-carbon hydrogen sector in the UK is a key piece of this Government’s plan to build back better with a cleaner, greener energy system. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change has ministerial responsibility for this sector, and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy published the UK’s first hydrogen strategy last year, building on the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution.
Ian Paisley
I thank the Minister for his answer. The Minister will know that hydrogen covers all regions of the United Kingdom, and I hope he agrees with me that we need to create a golden thread that brings together all the Departments of Government so that we can maximise and make sure we do not miss out on the hydrogen revolution for the United Kingdom, because it will be a game changer for our economy. Does the Minister agree that such a Minister would help create a contact point for the engineering supply chain across all of the UK, which is worth billions of pound to our economy?
Nigel Adams
I know the hon. Gentleman is a doughty champion for this sector, with the Wrightbus company in his constituency, of which he is rightly proud. He should be aware, and I know he is aware, of the £100 million of new funding for the net zero innovation portfolio, which will support industry to switch to low-carbon fuels. The supply chain of course needs to be an integral part of that, and it will certainly be taken into consideration as we develop this policy. I look forward to the opportunity of possibly visiting the site in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)
In December 2020, we published the Government’s response to the consultation on the Green Paper on “Transforming Public Procurement”. We intend to bring forward these detailed and ambitious legislative proposals when parliamentary time allows. The reforms will make it easier for buyers to take account of previous poor performance by suppliers, which is an important factor in deciding whether to award contracts, and there will be clearer and stronger rules about excluding suppliers that pose an unacceptable risk.
Bob Blackman
I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer. What action will he take to get contractors to supply the service for which they are contracted, rather than necessarily cancelling them? However, if they continue to underperform, what action will he take to cancel those contracts and get suppliers in who do the job properly?
Michael Ellis
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his excellent question. As he knows, the Prime Minister is bringing forward some of the biggest reforms in decades in this country. One of them will be in procurement, which is worth £300 billion a year to our economy. We have seen underperformance and it is of course current Government policy to ensure that suppliers’ past performance in adhering to contracts is taken into account when awarding new contracts. Under the public contract regulations, contracting authorities can use selection criteria, but we will make across-the-board improvements and reforms in the procurement system. I know that my hon. Friend will look forward to that and its benefits.
Daniel Zeichner
The Government maintain buying standards for food and catering services. The relevant Select Committee, campaign groups such as Sustain, and Henry Dimbleby with his food plan have all made the point that those standards should be brought up to date. The shadow Chancellor has pledged that Labour will ensure that public bodies have to report on how much British produce they buy. What are the Government doing on that, or is it just open season for Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and the rest?
Michael Ellis
The Conservative party is a party of free trade and a free economy. I do not know about the Labour party. We are improving procurement and thereby having a major effect on the economy. The hon. Member, like everyone else, will have to wait for the details of how the new rules will be implemented and how they will work, but, through a Green Paper, we have asked everyone to feed in their ideas and suggestions for detailed policies. Based on that, a Bill is currently being prepared for introduction to Parliament and I know that the hon. Member will look forward to that.
Nick Smith
Given that the Government’s VIP lane for personal protective equipment contracts has been ruled unlawful, will there be immediate publication of contracts after emergency procurement to restore faith in the system? It would help avoid having the Government hauled so embarrassingly through the courts.
Michael Ellis
I do not accept that characterisation of any technical breaches that may have occurred. If the hon. Member looks at the judgment, he will see that the court ruled yesterday that the Government’s industry call to arms was open, transparent and justified in a time of national emergency. Actually, the court found that it was highly unlikely that the outcome would have been substantially different if a different assessment process had been followed.
Nia Griffith
During the pandemic, UK companies stepped up to the mark and changed production lines to meet our needs and increase our resilience. They were encouraged to think that they would get ongoing business for helping out during the PPE shortages. A local SME in my constituency invested more than £700,000 in automating its hand sanitiser production, but now finds that most of its UK Government Department customers have gone back to their original foreign suppliers. What will the Minister do to recognise the resilience that British firms provided, improve the uptake of British-made products by Government Departments and ensure that build back better is not just a slogan?
Michael Ellis
I would appreciate it if the hon. Member wrote to me with that particular example. I know that companies in her constituency are ably supported by her and I would like to hear more about that example. She is right that companies across the United Kingdom provided support at a time of national emergency, and they should be thanked for that.
Kate Osborne
The shocking news this week that the Government broke the law by handing out contracts worth huge sums to those with political connections shows that cronyism is rife in the Tory party. When will all the emergency procurement procedures end and all the emergency covid contracts finally be published?
Michael Ellis
I do not accept that characterisation. The court found that we did not rely on referral to the high priority lane when awarding contracts in certain cases, but that it was a technical matter, and that we were open, transparent and justified in what we did. “Justified” is a key word. As for emergency procurement, that is perfectly routine. It happens all the time, every year, including outside pandemics for various reasons. That will have to continue, but we are looking, in a new procurement Bill, at different ways of proceeding.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
Frustratingly, pre-Brexit, “EU procurement rules” was always trotted out as a reason why local firms, local farms and others never got a look in when it came to local public service contracts. Post Brexit, will the Government take a proactive lead to support local procurement, which benefits local small businesses especially, as well as farmers and local food and drink producers? That would also help to reduce food miles.
Michael Ellis
The short answer is yes. Thanks to the work of my noble friend Lord Agnew, who has been working on this matter for a considerable time, my hon. Friend can look forward to further progress.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
The Government’s use of emergency procurement during the pandemic has raised concerns around the transparency of contracts, potential conflicts of interest and the unsuitability of suppliers. Nearly two years on, Government Departments can still use those emergency regulations to bypass open competition and scrutiny. That is unacceptable, and it implies that Departments have failed to plan ahead to meet demand. Will the Minister explain why that has been allowed to continue?
Michael Ellis
The availability of an emergency mechanism for procurement existed prior to the pandemic. It has taken place under Governments of all political colours, and it will continue to take place occasionally. The contracts signed by Government with third parties are myriad, and there will frequently be circumstances of supply, or circumstances that relate to particular individual cases where emergency mechanisms have to apply. That is routine and it continues on a regular basis when it has to.
Rachel Hopkins
Good procurement that benefits the whole country needs good decisions made by a civil service that reflects the society it serves. However, the civil service fast stream recruitment over the last three years—from 2019 to 2021—resulted in more successful applicants coming from homes in London than the whole of the midlands and north of England put together. Although young people whose parents did not go to university made up more than half of external applicants, they made up only less than a third of those who were offered jobs. What is the Minister doing to rectify that regional and class discrimination in the civil service fast stream recruitment?
Michael Ellis
Procurement or otherwise, I am proud of our civil service, and I hope that the hon. Lady is, too. She criticises the civil service and makes a class warfare-type assertion about it—I do not accept that. This country, under this Government, is levelling up. We are levelling up across the country and making reforms in all our mechanisms of government, including in the national health service, housing, the economy and transport, and we are doing it in the civil service, too.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Steve Barclay)
Our new national cyber-strategy was launched in December. It builds on the previous five-year strategy, which reinforced the UK’s position as a global leader in cyber, second only to the US and China in independent studies. The new strategy sets out how the UK will continue to be a leading, responsible and democratic cyber power, and able to protect and promote our interests. It is supported by £2.6 billion of investment over the next three years.
Sally-Ann Hart
What further steps is my hon. Friend taking to ensure that the UK’s use of cyber-space enhances the UK’s economic and social prosperity and national security, and ensures a strong, cohesive and resilient society while maintaining our core values of freedom, fairness and the rule of law?
Steve Barclay
My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. That is why the strategy sets out a whole of society approach, including a focus on building skills and the highest standards in cyber-security across society. Over the last five years, we have seen the cyber sector grow significantly, with more than 1,400 businesses generating revenues of £8.9 billion last year alone, and supporting 46,700 skilled jobs. That is also why we are targeting key sectors as part of that strategy, such as through the CyberFirst programme, which will ensure that 6,500 pupils from 600 schools can benefit, in particular by attracting girls into that competition so that they are a part of the cyber-strategy.
Margaret Ferrier
A cyber-attack last March on the UK Defence Academy was recently reported to have caused significant damage despite ultimately being unsuccessful. Those behind the attack remain unidentified. What measures are the Government considering to improve identification of malicious hackers and impose consequences on them?
Steve Barclay
That is an extremely important point, and the hon. Lady is right to highlight it to the House. First, that is why we are putting in more funding: £2.6 billion over three years, as opposed to the previous £1.9 billion over five years. On her particular point about deterrence, that funding is outwith the funding provided to the National Cyber Force, which is going into Preston and the north-west as part of our levelling-up agenda. That will have a key role in the deterrence aspects of the risk that she quite rightly identifies.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)
All Ministers are subject to the ministerial code, which requires Ministers to ensure that no conflict arises, or could arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise.
Catherine West
It was so good to hear the Paymaster General praising civil servants, so could he please explain why the Foreign Secretary overruled civil servants’ advice and went to a £3,000 lunch in a private members’ club owned by a Tory donor, and he calls that abiding by the code? Will the Paymaster General immediately include that in the investigation being undertaken into the other boozy parties in No. 10 Downing Street?
Michael Ellis
It is absolutely ridiculous to characterise the matter in the way that the hon. Lady does. The reality of the matter is that the Labour party engages in trade union entertainment on every possible occasion. There is no conflict of interest in the matter she describes. Indeed, all the matters that are brought to the attention of the relevant authorities are properly dealt with.
Mr Speaker
That is not a very good answer, to be quite honest. I am not impressed with that.
Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)
It would seem to be quite a hard life being a Prime Minister at the moment. In WhatsApp messages to Lord Brownlow that surfaced last week, the Prime Minister described his No. 11 flat as a “bit of a tip” that is desperately in need of a lick of paint, some gold wallpaper and the offices of a leading fashion designer. In return for expediting this, the Prime Minister assured Lord Brownlow that he would take a look at his idea for a great exhibition festival. So we have a new term in British politics: wallpaper for access. Can the Minister give a serious explanation as to why this exchange with Lord Brownlow was not passed on to the independent adviser on ministerial interests but was passed on to the Electoral Commission for its investigation? Out of interest, does he have the Prime Minister’s new number?
Michael Ellis
As set out in the letter, Lord Geidt has not changed his assessment that no conflict of interest arose from the support provided by Lord Brownlow. The Prime Minister correctly declared an interest, as required under the ministerial code, and Lord Geidt now considers the matter closed.
Peter Gibson (Darlington) (Con)
The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Leo Docherty)
We are putting the employability of veterans at the heart of our veterans strategy. We are rolling out a national insurance holiday for employers of veterans and guaranteeing job interviews for veterans applying to join the civil service. We know that veterans make fantastic employees and that military service does indeed give skills for life.
Peter Gibson
I thank the Minister for that answer. Could he outline for the House every step that is being taken to ensure that all veterans get access to and information about every opportunity and every job vacancy?
Leo Docherty
We are determined to ensure a gold standard when it comes to communicating the availability of support and opportunity for veterans. That is why we have invested £500,000 in this financial year alone to help deliver the Veterans’ Gateway service, which is an online portal for all veterans’ welfare needs. The Office for Veterans’ Affairs continues to promote all services and opportunities available to veterans.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)
Following the long-standing practice of successive Administrations, Her Majesty’s Government do not comment on individual disciplinary matters. The terms of reference for the Cabinet Office’s investigation have been published and the Government have committed to publishing the findings of that investigation.
Andrew Gwynne
But now we know that there were parties at Downing Street in lockdown and the Prime Minister was present. It is serious. He knowingly breached the rules that he himself set for the country. He broke the law, and over recent weeks he has told the House things that turned out not to be true, breaking the ministerial code. Allegra Stratton paid the price for joking about parties at Downing Street—parties that the Prime Minister attended. Why is it always the little people who get the chop to save this unsaveable Prime Minister?
Michael Ellis
As the hon. Gentleman knows, this matter is under the purview of a senior civil servant—the second permanent secretary at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, who is an expert having been director general of propriety and ethics. She is carefully looking into the matter. She is a highly respected civil servant with probity, independence and integrity, and she will report in due course, swiftly. So the hon. Gentleman will no doubt wish to wait before he jumps to any unwarranted and unevidenced conclusions.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Steve Barclay)
The Government are driving a wide range of regulatory reforms, from shaping the approach for new technology such as data, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles, to reforming existing regulations to better suit the UK, including on financial services. In addition, a range of smaller reforms will make a material difference to specific industries, and we are digitising regulation and reviewing all EU retained law.
Jonathan Gullis
Despite years of Labour trying to block Brexit and keep us tied to mirroring EU rules and regulations, it is this Prime Minister who got Brexit done, and we are therefore able to reform procurement rules, blocking companies with a poor track record of delivery from winning public contracts. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if Labour had its way, we would be in a scenario whereby companies failing to deliver for the taxpayer with their money could still win public contracts?
Steve Barclay
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He highlights an extremely important Brexit opportunity around our £300 billion procurement spend. As we heard earlier, we now have the ability to use our public procurement in new and innovative ways, particularly to drive social value within communities. That will make a big difference as part of our wider levelling-up agenda.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)
On 15 December, the Prime Minister announced the appointment of the right hon. Baroness Hallett—Heather Hallett—as chair of the public inquiry into covid-19. The inquiry is set to begin its work in the spring of 2022.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I thank the Minister for that answer, but it would appear that discussions on this have not been a priority. The terms of reference for the inquiry have not even been set yet. Bearing in mind the Prime Minister’s distant relationship with the truth, will the Minister outline exactly how the public, and Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, can have any faith in this inquiry at all?
Michael Ellis
We have appointed a very senior figure from the judiciary—a recently retired lady justice of appeal from the Court of Appeal. The Prime Minister has confirmed that the inquiry’s detailed terms of reference will be set out in due course, and the bereaved families and other groups will be consulted before they are finalised. The process will be done carefully and properly and with consultation and consideration for all.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Might the Paymaster General consider the approach that was adopted when the infected blood inquiry was set up, whereby those infected and affected have been at the heart of the consultation around the terms of reference? Sir Brian Langstaff made it his first priority to ensure that those people were at the very heart of the infected blood inquiry that he now so ably chairs.
Michael Ellis
May I take this opportunity to thank the right hon. Lady again for the support she has provided and the work she has done on the infected blood inquiry? It is no exaggeration to say that she has been instrumental in achieving what has been achieved so far—there is still a lot to do, of course. In answer to her question, of course it would be the wish of everyone concerned to involve the bereaved as much as possible. Baroness Hallett, a Cross-Bench peer, will have command and control of this matter, if I can put it that way, just as Sir Brian Langstaff does in the infected blood inquiry. I am sure that all concerned will have heard what the right hon. Lady has had to say.
Mr Speaker
We are going to topicals early, so there will be a great opportunity to get more people in. Let us start with David Simmonds.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Steve Barclay)
I would like to begin by paying tribute to the Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who was a hugely respected figure throughout the House. When I first arrived in Parliament, I worked very constructively with him on the important issue of gangmasters, on which he had long been a champion, particularly in respect of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. He will be greatly missed on both sides of the House. We send our condolences to colleagues opposite and, in particular, to Harriet, for their great loss.
May I also take this opportunity to place on the record my thanks to Sir Dave Lewis for all his work with the supply chain unit in helping to ensure greater resilience of supplies in the run-up to Christmas and that some of the wilder concerns that were highlighted about shortages at Christmas did not materialise? That is a great tribute to his work and that of the supply chain unit.
Today, the Cabinet Office is launching a Government campaign on an issue that I know unites all of us in this House: tackling the abhorrent crime of child sexual abuse. The Stop Abuse Together campaign empowers parents and carers to help keep children safe from harm by recognising potential signs of abuse, and by building trust by speaking to children regularly and finding further support where they have concerns.
As the lead Minister for cyber-security, I find it shocking and tragic, as I am sure all Members do, that this is the worst year on record for child sexual abuse online. The Internet Watch Foundation reports a threefold increase in imagery showing seven to 10-year-olds who have been targeted and groomed by predators during the pandemic. The charity investigated more than 360,000 reports of suspected criminal material in 2021, which is more than it dealt with in the previous 15 years. An estimated one in 10 children in England and Wales will experience sexual abuse before they are 16 and many will not tell anyone at the time. We all want to play our full part in keeping young people safe, online and in person, and this important campaign launched today can help bring them the protection they need.
David Simmonds
I very much welcome what has just been said.
Colleagues at the London Borough of Hillingdon have told me of the benefits to the procurement process that they see from the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, so what measures does my right hon. Friend have in mind to promote the benefits that that Act can bring to public sector procurement, and especially in how it might support the levelling-up agenda?
Steve Barclay
My hon. Friend knows from his own time in local government how important that Act is in requiring that people who commission public services think about how they can secure wider social, economic and environmental benefit. That is why we are going to extend the terms of that provision. As the Paymaster General set out a moment ago, the new procurement legislation will further empower local authorities, and others procuring on behalf of the taxpayer, to drive better social value, for example by targeting contracts to businesses that employ a larger proportion of those with disability. I think these measures will be supported across the House, and they build on much good work that has already been done in local authorities across the country.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Earlier, in his response to the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), the Paymaster General talked about poor performance. The Government’s VIP lane for personal protective equipment procurement was not just dodgy, but actually illegal. That was not my opinion, but the judgment of the High Court yesterday. Once again, this Government have been shown that they cannot seem to stay on the right side of the law. Listening to the Paymaster General, anybody would think that they had won their case in the Court yesterday. Time and again, Cabinet Office Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and told us that detailed diligence and full financial checks were done. Yesterday, the Court found that the Cabinet Office simply did not have the resources necessary to undertake due diligence. Officials simply searched online to confirm that one company existed, and another received a red warning but it was not passed on. Can he tell us how much, from those two contracts alone, was spent on equipment that was not even used by the NHS?
Steve Barclay
With respect, what the right hon. Lady omitted was that the court acknowledged that it is highly unlikely that the outcome would have been “substantially different” if a different assessment process had been followed. What the House would quite rightly challenge the Government on is, first, whether anything different would have occurred had there been a different approach; and secondly, the fundamental point of whether, at a time of national crisis, the Government were straining every sinew to ensure that the clinicians at the sharp end of our NHS had the PPE that they needed, and the answer is that they did do that.
That is why we paid higher procurement costs when I was in my role as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It is why colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care strained every sinew possible to get that procurement. What the Court said was that it was highly unlikely that the outcome would have been “substantially different”. That is the key finding of the case yesterday, but, of course, we will look closely at that case—it was only yesterday—to see what lessons can be learned.
Angela Rayner
There was no answer to the question about the billions of pounds that were wasted on the dodgy contracts through that VIP fast lane. I encourage people to read that judgment, because the Government at the moment seem to think that it was all good and rosy.
When the Paymaster General was sent to cover for the Prime Minister this week, he told the House that
“a fair and impartial investigation takes place before there is a judge, jury and executioner.”—[Official Report, 11 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 430.]
The terms of reference for that investigation are clear. They say:
“Any matters relating to the conduct of Ministers should follow the process set out in the Ministerial Code.”
That process is also clear. The rules say:
“The Prime Minister is the ultimate judge of the…appropriate consequences of a breach”.
So, will the Prime Minister act as the judge and jury even though he is also the man in the dock, or will his Conservative colleagues find their integrity and finally act as executioners to his premiership?
Steve Barclay
The right hon. Lady is conflating two different issues. On the first issue, the reality is that more than 16.5 billion PPE items were delivered, and that was the key challenge, at a time of national crisis, that the Government were set to ensure that those on the frontline were protected, as they needed to be. The Court’s judgment yesterday was very clear. As I said a moment ago, it is highly unlikely that the outcome would have been “substantially different” had a different process been followed.
On the right hon. Lady’s second item, the Prime Minister addressed those points in the House yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions, when he apologised. He recognised the extraordinary sacrifices that have been made by the British public over the past 18 months, and it is right that Sue Gray, a highly respected senior civil servant, as the Paymaster General said, is allowed to complete her inquiry so that the full facts can be established.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
Steve Barclay
I do agree with my hon. Friend. These civic honours are a rare acknowledgment, awarded by Her Majesty herself, to celebrate a place’s individual heritage, its sense of community and the fact that residents have worked so hard to create a special environment. That is being recognised. The platinum jubilee will be a historic moment in time that brings people together and helps us to renew our nation as we emerge. I am delighted that Dudley, among a number of places, has put itself forward for Her Majesty’s consideration.
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Repeatedly throughout the pandemic, the devolved Administrations have asked their people to do the right but often difficult thing, which, to their enormous credit, they have. Does the Minister think that the Prime Minister’s remarkable admission that he attended an illegal Downing Street party during a period of strict national lockdown will strengthen or undermine the relationship between the Government in London and those in Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh?
Steve Barclay
The fact that yesterday I, together with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, was on a call with the First Minister of Scotland, the First Minister of Wales and others underscores the commitment on all sides across the Union to work together on the common challenges we have faced throughout the pandemic. At both official and ministerial level, people have been willing to set party differences aside to respond to a common challenge. Building on the conversation yesterday, that response shows a willingness to work together, and I think that is what the public in Scotland and across the United Kingdom want their elected representatives to do. Certainly in my role I am extremely keen to continue that positive engagement with the First Minister and others in the interests of our electorate.
Brendan O'Hara
I assume, therefore, that the answer is, “No, it will not strengthen that relationship.” Still on the illegal party in Downing Street during a strict national lockdown, when did the Minister first become aware that the party had taken place? Now that the Met is finally taking an interest in this matter, what advice has he sought from the Attorney General, ahead of speaking to the police?
Steve Barclay
To the direct question the hon. Gentleman raises, I first became aware when it was covered in the media—I am sure at a similar time to him. We cannot anticipate the conclusions of the current inquiry, as the Prime Minister said to the House yesterday, and we should allow that inquiry to conclude.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
The Minister for Defence People and Veterans (Leo Docherty)
I am very pleased that my hon. Friend has raised the matter and the fact that he has met the UK Veterans Hearing Foundation. The issue is very important and I will be very pleased to meet him to discuss it further. I also put on record my gratitude for all the energetic work he does in his constituency to support veterans, including local veteran Councillor Bill Service of Didcot Town Council.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
Steve Barclay
With respect to the hon. Lady, I do not accept the characterisation she places on the civil service.
Steve Barclay
I was actually going to come on to what I hope is a constructive point, because the underlying concern the hon. Lady raises is fair. I am very happy to pick up on the issue with the disability and equalities unit that sits within the Cabinet Office. It is important that we have the right processes in place, particularly with fast streamers, because if we are to have better representation at senior civil service level, including at perm sec level, then we need to get the ladder in place for other ranks in order to have the trajectory through. So I do not accept her characterisation, but she raises an important point and it is one that I will pick up with the disability and equalities unit. I will write to her on the point she raises.
Sir Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) (Con)
In considering ministerial responsibility for the hydrogen sector, will the Minister bear in mind that 95% of hydrogen is so-called blue hydrogen derived from natural gas and that, if we really are to have a hydrogen revolution that puts Britain on the map, we need more green hydrogen derived from renewable or nuclear power?
The Minister without Portfolio (Nigel Adams)
May I first congratulate my right hon. Friend and Lady Goodwill on the fantastic news from Her Majesty’s new year honours list? The good people of Scarborough and Whitby will be rightly proud of their Member of Parliament. He is right to ask that question. The strategy that we are implementing supports multiple production technologies including both electrolytic green and carbon capture-enabled blue hydrogen production. We are not limiting ambition for any one technology by arbitrarily splitting our 5 GW ambition between green and blue hydrogen. Following the consultation, we will develop an approach to different production routes, including the less developed ones to which he refers, by early this year.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Steve Barclay
As a former member of the Whips Office, I know that it is always a triumph how different issues can be used in support of a private Member’s Bill. I am sure that my colleague the Chief Whip will look at the Bill’s terms in detail.
As for the Union, the Prime Minister is the Minister for the Union, and its importance was reinforced by the recent machinery of Government change and the leading position taken by the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. We want to level up across the entire Union of the United Kingdom. I referenced the call that I had yesterday with other Ministers and colleagues in the devolved Administrations as part of the ongoing covid response on which we are working closely together. The Union is fundamental to the Government—it certainly informs much of my work as a Minister—and the Prime Minister and ministerial team are hugely committed to it.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
The Nationality and Borders Bill is a crucial step forward to preventing illegal immigration and abuse of our asylum system, but the Home Office clearly cannot solve the problem on its own. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on cross-departmental efforts to stop small boats crossing the channel?
Steve Barclay
My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point that is a key issue for the illegal migration taskforce, which I chair. I will meet the Home Secretary later today, and I met the Foreign Secretary yesterday. He is right that our response is a whole of Government endeavour and I am sure that the Home Secretary will update the House further on our progress.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
The Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)
Well, natural justice also requires something on which to impose justice and as yet we do not have any result from the inquiry, so, if I may say so, the right hon. Member is putting the cart before the horse. I would say that the Prime Minister is a man of integrity, as I have said before, and the ministerial code has always been under the purview of the Prime Minister since it was created.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I want to thank my right hon. Friend and the noble Lord Agnew who, with the Cabinet Office and the Home Office, have managed to bring more than 500 brand-new jobs to the city of Stoke-on-Trent as well as further investment in developing a site. Will he update the House on progress for the Stoke-on-Trent relocation and on the wider move that is taking civil servants out across our United Kingdom?
Steve Barclay
My hon. Friend is right to mention the importance of the Places for Growth agenda not just to Stoke, but across the entire United Kingdom. It is fundamental to greater diversity in our civil service—diversity of place, as well as gender and race—and I am very happy to have further discussions with him about the role of Places for Growth in Stoke. As he knows, it fits within a range of Government programmes that are committed to levelling up Stoke, including those that he and other Stoke MPs highlighted to the House at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday.
Sam Tarry (Ilford South) (Lab)
The Government’s VIP lane for personal protective equipment contracts has been ruled by a judge to be unlawful. The judge found that the
“operation of the High Priority Lane was in breach of the obligation of equal treatment…the illegality is marked by this judgment.”
The House needs to know what steps Ministers will take to ensure that there are no corrupt processes, particularly involving contracts to Conservative party cronies. In particular, I would like to hear confirmation from Ministers today in relation to some of the serious questions about PPE Medpro. Will the Minister agree to release details of the financial checks done on that company, including its connections to a Conservative party peer?
Steve Barclay
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I think that question perhaps predated the various discussions we have had, including with the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), in the course of these departmental questions. As I said, we have delivered more than 16.5 billion PPE items. The court found that it is highly unlikely that the outcome would have been substantially different. We have had questions in the House on, for example, the contracts with PestFix and Ayanda, and the court found that we did not rely on a referral to the high-priority lane when awarding those contracts. It is right that the House considers properly the judgment yesterday, but that judgment shows that the outcome would not have been substantially different.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
We will face local elections later this year. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on what action will be taken to make sure that personation does not take place and that postal and proxy voting is in accordance with the law?
Steve Barclay
My hon. Friend raises an extremely important point. He will be well aware, following the recent machinery of government change, that that subject no longer falls within the purview of the Cabinet Office, so I do not want to incur the displeasure of Mr Speaker by straying into the territory of ministerial colleagues. However, I will ensure that the relevant colleague is alerted to the very good point that my hon. Friend highlights.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I remind the Minister for Defence People and Veterans of my request to him about the charity Beyond the Battlefield, which does amazing work for veterans who suffer from poor mental health and particularly those who often go under the radar and are not accounted for in the stats process. In Northern Ireland, its work is phenomenal. Will the Minister consider allocating funding to assist with its privately funded veterans centre in Portavogie in my constituency, which is due to open next week? The Minister would be very welcome to come along with me to visit it.
Leo Docherty
I would be very pleased to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss that further.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
Does the Cabinet Office agree that the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), is a “lightweight”?
Steve Barclay
I think he is a hugely talented colleague. I work extremely closely with him and I look forward to doing so. One of the points that has come out through departmental questions is the commitment from many across the House, although not those on the Scottish National party Benches, to the importance of the Union. That is an absolutely central commitment of the Government and the Prime Minister and the entire Cabinet are committed to defending it.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
Can I give a bit of friendly advice to the Paymaster General, who has been valiantly defending the indefensible? When the ship is about to sail, you jump on it because it is leaving without you. The ministerial code matters, standards in public life matter and trust in politics matters. The case against the Prime Minister is clear. Why is the Paymaster General destroying his own integrity to save a man who has none?
Michael Ellis
It is very kind of the hon. Gentleman to be concerned about my position and I am very grateful to him. My position is clear: the Prime Minister answers to the people of this country and to this House. He came to the House yesterday, at Prime Minister’s questions, and he apologised. He has said—and I agree—that we should wait until the result of the investigation that is in progress. That would be the case with any individual facing any allegation anywhere in this country. One waits until due process is complete. The hon. Gentleman ought to accept that that would be the case, whether that view comes from his party, my party or anywhere else.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Despite the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s words at the Dispatch Box, the reality is that his Cabinet colleagues yesterday were calling the Scottish Conservative leader a “lightweight” and irrelevant because he was up in Elgin. Is it not the case that there has never been a Union of equals? It is always “Scotland, know your place,” and that was demonstrated yesterday.
Steve Barclay
Again, that is a question that pre-empts the discussion that we have had in the House today. I flagged to the hon. Gentleman’s colleague a moment ago the very constructive discussions that I, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and indeed the Paymaster General had with the First Minister of Scotland yesterday. We touched on the role—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman wants to heckle through the answer, that is entirely up to him; I was just running through the various things that we do as part of our commitment to places for growth. The Cabinet Office has a commitment to our office in Glasgow: we had a hugely successful COP26 event that showcased the great talents of Glasgow, of Scotland and of the United Kingdom. That is part of our wider commitment to the Union, which is four-square at the heart of our agenda as a Government.
Underpayment of Benefits: Compensation
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions if she will make a statement on the historic underpayment of benefits to 118,000 benefit claimants and the Government’s plans for compensation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
I would like to start by extending an apology to Ms U for the experiences that have been highlighted in the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s report. The Department will, of course, formally apologise and make additional payments now that that the PHSO report has been published.
I should remind the House that the employment support allowance was introduced in 2008, and from March 2011 the Department began reassessing people in incapacity benefits for eligibility for ESA, which saw some claimants underpaid. The Department’s priority was that all people get the financial support to which they are entitled. It undertook a special exercise to review all cases that were potentially affected and paid arrears where due. We realised how important it was to get this matter fixed and ensure that people get the benefits that they are owed as quickly as possible. We therefore set up a dedicated team, with up to 1,200 staff at the peak of the workload. This has enabled us to complete this important work at pace.
I remind the House that the exercise to correct past ESA payments and pay arrears, following conversion from the previous incapacity benefits, was completed last year, and the then Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), made a statement to the House in July 2021. All cases have been considered and reviews completed, where the information has been provided, and arrears due were paid. As of 1 June 2021, we have reviewed approximately 600,000 cases and made 118,000 arrears payments to those who are eligible, totalling £613 million. The Department published an update on the exercise last Thursday on gov.uk, which sets out further detail on the progress that it has made on processing the cases.
Jonathan Ashworth
May I start by paying tribute to the Greenwich Welfare Rights Service and to my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford)? It is a reminder of the value and the vital importance of welfare rights advisers, who do so much for our constituents despite grappling with swingeing cuts under the last 10 years of Conservative Government.
The report came about because a vulnerable person with significant long-term health needs, recovering from a heart bypass, was forced to endure years of hardship, trying to live on less than 50% of what she was entitled to, for a sustained period because of mistakes made by the Department for Work and Pensions when it migrated 100,000 claimants from incapacity benefit to contribution-based employment and support allowance between 2011 and 2014. The ombudsman’s report today not only vindicates Greenwich Welfare Rights and hon. Members who pursued the case, but is damning for the Government.
The DWP’s incompetence and failure to provide compensation has been judged as maladministration. Does the Minister accept that, as a consequence of the Department’s incompetence, more than 100,000 people were unable to access passported benefits and extra support such as free prescriptions, despite being highly vulnerable and often having long-term health needs?
The ombudsman rules that refusal to offer recompense for that was inconsistent with the Department’s own principles of remedy. With respect, and although I welcome the apology, it is no good Ministers’ putting their fingers in their ears and pretending that there is not a bigger problem here. This stands as—in the words of this report—“an unremedied injustice”, impacting on some of the most vulnerable people in society.
Will Ministers remedy that injustice via compensation for those affected, as the ombudsman and the Department’s own principles recommend, or will the Minister deny compensation to 118,000 disabled people and people with long-term health conditions who lost out through no fault of their own? Frankly, when disabled people face a cost-of-living crisis with rising heating bills, when 600,000 disabled people are struggling with a universal credit cut, and when disabled people face their support being cut this April because inflation is heading to 6%, does this sorry saga of maladministration not prove once again that disabled people are worse off under this Government?
David Rutley
I agree absolutely with the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about welfare advisers. They play a vital role, whether in Greenwich or in Macclesfield, where we have the Disability Information Bureau, and provide the extra support that people in very vulnerable circumstances often need. He highlighted the situation involving Ms U; as I said in my apology, it was very concerning, and those compensation payments will be paid, as I have reassured him.
On the point about broader compensation, of course we only received the report this morning—it has only just been published—so we will consider it and review its recommendations, as is entirely right. We would also say that if people believe they should have further compensation and want to contact us at DWP, they can contact us through the various helplines that have been set up. There is a team working specifically on this broad issue, and if they prefer, they can go through the complaints process, so those avenues are available to those individuals. In these situations we are typically not compelled to come forward with compensation payments, but we will consider the wider points and the views put forward by the report.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
I know from the individual constituent cases I have dealt with how distressing it is when people’s benefits are underpaid. One issue here is dealing with compensation payments, but the other is taking the steps to ensure something like this does not happen again. Can my hon. Friend assure me that those steps, if they have not been taken already, are in the process of being taken?
David Rutley
Lessons really have been learned from this situation, and if underpayments are made, that can have a real impact on people’s lives. Lessons will be learned from this. While it is not my departmental responsibility, I will take this away and work closely with the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work and the Secretary of State, who is not able to be here today, to see what further lessons we can learn as a result of this report. As I have said, we must formally reply to the report as well.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Under this Tory Government, we have had the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign scandal, the universal credit cuts, pensioners now losing £500 a year and a cost-of-living crisis that they are doing nothing about. They really do not care. It is outrageous that it has taken the ombudsman to determine that compensation is due to the 118,000 claimants underpaid for up to seven years. Of course people should be paid compensation for having been forced to live in poverty, so what are the timescales for providing justice to those claimants?
In August 2021, there were still 76,000 cases open for review. What is that number now? What are the Government doing to assess the extra top-ups that were due, such as enhanced disability, severe disability, carer and pension premiums, that have not yet been considered for all the 118,000 underpaid claimants? Scope estimates that at present 42% of families on disability benefits live in poverty. What are the Government’s plans to rectify that? Pension credits are consistently underclaimed; when will they make that an automatic entitlement, and when will there ever be a level playing field between the DWP’s responsibilities and the way it treats claimants?
David Rutley
The hon. Gentleman has made a number of points. Arrears have already been paid to the 118,000, but the team are still in place, so when people are deceased and the surviving parties feel, on the basis of the report, that they could be eligible to receive such arrears, they can do so. I have already explained how those who feel they should receive further compensation can find out more about the process of investigating that. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to do more to increase people’s awareness of the pension credits that are available. He also mentioned people with vulnerabilities. We want to help those people, which is why we established the household support fund and made additional funds available in Scotland as well.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
During the period of the inquiry the benefits system was incredibly complicated, involving many mutually exclusive benefits. I well remember talking on the helplines to civil servants who did not know which elements were mutually exclusive and which were not. Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the need to ensure that the system is straightforward, that people can understand it, and that people are paid the compensation and the benefits they are due? We are talking about the most vulnerable members of society.
David Rutley
My hon. Friend has made some good points. I know that he has a proven track record in this area, given his campaigning work both locally and nationally. The benefits system is indeed complicated. Universal credit has helped to simplify it by putting benefits into a single bundle, but as the new Minister on the welfare delivery block, I am aware that the system is still complex even under the universal credit banner. I shall be working hard to ensure that we can communicate clearly with some of those most vulnerable people in explaining what benefits are available; and, as I have said, we will review the report and see what further lessons can be learnt.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. May I just say to Members who were not present at the outset that they should not expect to be called, and ask them please not to try to take advantage? I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee, Stephen Timms.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I welcome this important report, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question.
What is the position relating to the payment of interest in cases such as this? The ombudsman found that these failings had had a severe effect on Ms U’s existing mental and physical health problems, and no doubt the same is true for quite a number of the other 118,000 people affected. Will the Department work out, proactively, who should be receiving compensation? One of the ombudsman’s recommendations is that the Department should report to the Select Committee on its progress in considering his report and the decisions that it makes on how to remedy its own failings. Will the Department accept the recommendation and report to the Committee, and if so, when can we expect that to happen?
David Rutley
Obviously the primary responsibility is to respond to the report, and we will do that, but I—and, no doubt, the Secretary of State—will note the right hon. Member’s point, and will make appropriate responses to his Committee. I have mentioned the 118,000 people who have received the arrears, and, as I said earlier to the Opposition spokesman, the right hon. Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth)—I am sorry, I should have said “the shadow Secretary of State”: I do not want to understate his importance—there are mechanisms for those who feel they have grounds for further compensation to get in touch with the Department and explore that further.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
The benefits system is crucially important to my constituents. The Resolution Foundation has praised it, and has praised universal credit for its resilience during the pandemic. Will the Minister commit himself to maintaining that resilience for the benefit of everyone in the country?
David Rutley
My hon. Friend has made a good point. There are people who criticise universal credit, but, as I said earlier, it is a simplifying mechanism. It proved to be very resilient in response to the pandemic, and it helped millions of people at a crucial time. We have learnt lessons in that regard, but, as we have said before and as I have reiterated today, there are wider lessons that we also need to learn, and we will do so.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
I wish to pay tribute to Greenwich Borough Council’s welfare rights unit for identifying this error and for the tenacity with which it pursued it on behalf of my constituent. This will affect the 118,000 other people who have also been wronged. My constituent suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, arthritis, hypertension and Graves’ disease. This decision left her to survive on far less than she was entitled to between 23 May 2012 and 11 August 2017, amounting to £80 a week. The DWP, having made this error, compounded the problem by refusing to allow her to complain to the independent case examiner and by failing to tell her about her right to go to the ombudsman.
The ombudsman has now recommended that, within one month of the final report, the DWP should write to my constituent to apologise for the impact of maladministration on her life, make a payment of £7,500 to compensate her for the impact and apply the appropriate rate of interest to the benefit arrears payment of £19,832.55. Will the Minister give me an undertaking that the DWP will comply with the ombudsman’s recommendations on behalf of my constituent?
David Rutley
As I said right at the beginning, the hon. Gentleman has represented his constituent’s case well, as I would expect. We apologise unreservedly for the situation in which his constituent, Ms U, found herself. We will pay the compensation and the interest, as set out in the report. That will happen, and I very much hope we can get the apology over to her well before the month set out by the ombudsman. I will gladly discuss this further with the hon. Gentleman after this urgent question.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman said in its judgment:
“It is human to make mistakes but not acting to right wrongs is a matter of policy choice.”
In this case the choice has been made by the very organisation that is responsible for supporting those most in need. Will the Minister please outline how many people in my Vauxhall constituency were impacted by underpayments? This decision has had a devastating impact by causing financial hardship for some of the most vulnerable people. They need that compensation now, so can he confirm that it will happen?
David Rutley
I understand the hon. Lady’s point. I genuinely do not know how many were in the Vauxhall constituency, as we do not have that level of data. As I set out, there are mechanisms that her constituents who might have concerns can follow up. We will formally respond to the report, as I set out.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
Such incidents are obviously very regrettable, so having robust IT systems and finding ways to design out the human element that might have caused these mistakes is clearly very important. Can the Minister assure me that every possible effort will be made to ensure such incidents do not happen again?
David Rutley
We all make mistakes, and this was clearly a big one. All I can say is that we will learn the lessons. We made an active response when we found out the scale of the problem. We did the review, and then we put 1,200 staff into this exercise to rectify the situation. We did not take it lightly. We responded actively to the situation once we found the error.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I think all hon. Members here know this is not the first time the ombudsman has found maladministration in relation to the Department for Work and Pensions. Before Christmas I wrote to the Minister about two of my constituents who seem to have been given incorrect advice by benefit advisers in relation to being on remand and being released without charge. They are suffering financial hardship as a result. I listened to what he said about reading the report and taking its recommendations, but what is the DWP doing when these issues are highlighted to it by MPs and rights agencies to ensure we deal with them at an early stage?
David Rutley
I am relatively new in post—I have been here about three or four months—and all I can say is that I take a very active interest in the correspondence from MPs across the House. I hope people are aware of that. I will gladly separately follow up either in writing or in a meeting about the particular points that the hon. Member makes. We need to learn lessons. Our postbags are invaluable sources of information that sometimes are not really seen by officials or civil servants in the same light. It is an invaluable source of information to help me do my job. I will gladly follow up.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
The problems highlighted by the ombudsman’s report were not only predictable, but in some respects were predicted. Welfare rights workers are brilliant at what they do on behalf of our constituents, but they are often swamped by the demand, but would they be necessary at all if the Department was doing its work properly, efficiently, in a timely fashion and getting its determinations right for our constituents in the first place? Can the Minister outline how many people in my constituency of Gateshead were affected by this ministerial and departmental maladministration? If he cannot do so now, will he do so in writing in short order?
David Rutley
I would like to, but unfortunately we do not have that data at that individual level. [Interruption.] As I was about to go on to say, let me see what is available, and I can follow up. What I will say is that an error has been made here—I accept that—but we all know that many, many people who work in the Department for Work and Pensions do a fantastic job and are committed to serving people who are very vulnerable. Through this error, I would not want to cast a view across all DWP civil servants; they do a remarkable job. I accept that we made an error in this situation, and I will follow up on the points the hon. Member makes.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
The Government and this Department have a track record of having to be dragged to the ombudsman or dragged to court to make the most basic human decisions. In Scotland, we put dignity and respect at the heart of everything we do with regards to social security. Does the Minister not agree that that would be a much better approach than having to be dragged to court or the ombudsman to make decisions that should have been made in the first place?
David Rutley
I understand the point the hon. Member makes. There are obviously competing challenges here. We are here today worrying about the concerns of some very vulnerable people, but we also need to look at the taxpayers’ demands, too, and there are challenges, as the Scottish Government will discover as they start to take on more benefits. We work closely with the Scottish Government in their desire to take on more responsibility for welfare provision, and all I would say is that things are not always straightforward; there are very challenging circumstances, as Members on the Opposition Benches who have been in these offices will know. I accept the challenge, but we are working together with the Scottish Government to give support here. We will learn the lessons from this case and move forward.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
May I just say that it is very disappointing that this had to be an urgent question today, rather than a statement from the Government? It is also very disappointing that the Minister does not have the basic information that most constituency MPs will want to know, which is how many of our constituents have been affected by the maladministration of his Department. Can he reassure me that he will employ the same energy his Department uses to pursue those who receive overpayments to ensure that those people who should get compensation and payments for benefits that they did not receive will do so?
David Rutley
Yes. We are a very large operational Department that takes care of the needs of millions of people. It is disappointing to me when we make errors. I work as hard as I can day in, day out to ensure we do not make errors. Sometimes we do and they are genuine and then we need to rectify them speedily. Sometimes they are fraudulent situations, and when we have a figure of £8.4 billion for fraud, partly because of the increase in welfare payments around coronavirus, we have to go through procedures, because some people, sadly and disappointingly, are trying to rip off the taxpayer and take money away from people who deserve it. There is a difficult balance. I understand the point that the right hon. Lady makes and I can assure her I am working hard on those points.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is not the first time that there has been a finding of maladministration at the DWP; there was a similar judgment on the pensions of 1950s-born women. That does prompt questions about the DWP’s competence.
On this specific issue, I was going to ask the Minister how many people in the Denton and Reddish constituency are affected, but he does not have that data, which I find astounding, quite frankly. That is basic data that Members of Parliament need. Why is the onus on individuals to come forward to the DWP? Why is he not being proactive in going out to the individuals who are affected? That seems like common sense to me.
David Rutley
We were very active in engaging in with the 118,000 people to make sure that their arrears were paid. As I said, if people still believe that arrears are owed or that they should receive further compensation, they can get in touch with the available helplines. We will, as I said, consider and review the report, which we received—as it was published—only today.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will know that the UK was found to be in breach of the human rights of people with disabilities by the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He will know that some 7 million people live in food insecurity and food poverty in Britain. In Wales, we earn only 70% of the UK average, so thousands of vulnerable people in Swansea have been hit by this. Will he ensure not just that those people are paid, but that payments are made to charities for disabilities, and that we look again at universal credit uplift and perhaps a universal basic income so that the poorest do not continually fall through the net during the cost-of-living crisis?
David Rutley
I think I have highlighted what we are going to do in response to this particular situation. The hon. Gentleman makes some other points about what we are doing on food security and for those vulnerable people. As he knows, we have created an additional support fund—in England, it is called the household support fund—of £500 million across the UK. A chunk of that money—around £21 million, from memory; it is over £20 million anyway—has gone to Wales, and the Welsh Government are using it to help vulnerable people. We recognise that there are people who need further support.
On universal basic income, people who have tried that out—ask the Finnish Government—said that it is not the way forward; it is untargeted and does not provide a work incentive. I do not think it is the way forward. Of course, we can always improve our welfare approaches, but that is not the approach that would help.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The Minister has said that we are talking about some of the most vulnerable people, so does he not think it shameful that 42% of families relying on disability benefits are still living in poverty? Can he tell us what long-term strategy his Government have to address that and lift those families out of poverty? Will he make sure that the DWP will permanently continue virtual and telephone health assessments to help remove some of the barriers for disabled people who need the support? Often, that is the most stressful part of the entire process of claiming support.
David Rutley
More needs to be done to make those processes simpler. Again, this specific area is not part of my portfolio or brief, but we have made significant progress in getting disabled people into work, and we want to move that forward with the disability strategy and a clear action plan. I know that my colleague the Minister for Disabled People will actively drive that forward across the nations, and will work very closely on that with the Scottish Government as well.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his replies. There is no doubt that the inaccuracy of benefit payments will have a detrimental impact on individuals and their families throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Many of those 118,000 people are vulnerable and face the injustice of arrears. Those moneys belong to those people. Will the Minister confirm a timescale in which those affected are likely to receive their compensation? How many of the people to whom unpaid money is due are from Northern Ireland? What amount of money is due for Northern Ireland? I would appreciate an answer today, but if the Minister does not have the figures, I am very happy to wait for a written response.
David Rutley
The exercise to pay the arrears to the 118,000 people is complete. As of 1 June 2021, we have reviewed 600,000 cases. The 118,000 arrears payments were made to those who were eligible, and a total of £613 million has been paid. I will follow up on the hon. Gentleman’s other points.
Business of the House
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg)
The business for next week is as follows:
Monday 17 January—Remaining stages of the Elections Bill.
Tuesday 18 January—Second Reading of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill [Lords] followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Charities Bill [Lords].
Wednesday 19 January—Remaining stages of the Building Safety Bill.
Thursday 20 January—Debate on a motion on the Uyghur tribunals, followed by general debate on lawfare and the UK court system. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 21 January—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 24 January will include:
Monday 24—Opposition day (9th allotted day—2nd part). There will be a debate on a motion in the name of the Scottish National party, subject to be announced, followed by remaining stages of the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 25 January—Remaining stages of the Judicial Review and Courts Bill.
Mr Speaker, may I conclude this announcement by paying tribute to Jack Dromey because it is the first opportunity for me to do so and to pass my sympathy to the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)? It is such a tragedy for her. It is a loss to the House, a loss to the Labour party and the Labour movement, but also a loss to politics more generally. We mourn with the Mother of the House and her family.
Thangam Debbonaire
First, I thank the Leader of the House for his tribute to our friend Jack Dromey. I find it hard to talk about, so I will wait until the tributes, but I join him in sending our love, support and sympathy to the Mother of the House. The loss of Jack will be felt so keenly by so many and it is a real tribute to him that so many people have said so and so obviously fulsomely.
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. I was listening intently to him. He will have noticed that I was gazing, waiting for the words to drop from his mouth. Given the publication of the Standards report into the conduct of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), I should not have to ask, but in the light of recent actions on a previous case, will he please confirm when the Standards motion will be laid, and whether the Government will mount the same level of defence as they did for the former constituency neighbour of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham, Owen Paterson?
Last week, the Leader of the House revealed his socialist tendencies in calling for the scrapping of the national insurance rise. Last night, in the media, he revealed his Scottish National tendencies. [Interruption.] Didn’t he just? Indeed, I do not think that Scottish National party Members are as rude as he about his Scottish colleague. Is it now Government policy to attack their own party? Does the right hon. Gentleman think it is appropriate to dismiss the leader of the Scottish Conservatives as a “lightweight”? In the light of all that, could we have a statement on where the Government see the future of the Union?
First, the Prime Minister said no rules were broken. Then he said that he did not know about any parties, then that he needed to wait for the internal investigation, and now he has admitted that he was at one of them, but he did not know it was a party. The Prime Minister was the one setting the rules. Are we really expected to believe that he did not understand them? As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) said—and goodness me, I wish I had thought of it—what a
“shower of shenanigans”—[Official Report, Wednesday 12 January 2022; Vol. 706, c. 573.]
Can the Leader of the House direct us to the part of the coronavirus legislation where there is an exemption for the Prime Minister and those in No. 10 to break the rules and hold a boozy gathering just so that they can enjoy the nice weather? Does he really think that the Prime Minister cannot tell the difference between a party and a work meeting? And while I am at it, may I ask the Leader of the House whether he knows the difference? It is completely unsurprising that the public—the public—have concluded that the Prime Minister is lying to them and that he is laughing at them while he does. [Interruption.] It was the public—I did refer very carefully to the public and I did not make any accusations myself.
Throughout some of the most difficult months of this pandemic, all my constituents, and I am sure all the Leader of the House’s constituents, were following the rules that the Prime Minister set. On that day—when hundreds of people died from covid, it was illegal to meet any more than one person and that was allowed in an outside setting only—a bring-your-own-booze party was held at No. 10. I know that the Leader of the House has previously dismissed this as “brouhaha” and that the Prime Minister only attended the party for 25 minutes—I think that is what he said last night—but to all those who were unable to say goodbye to dying loved ones, unable to comfort family and friends, 25 minutes would have meant the world. But they, unlike the Prime Minister, followed the rules because they believed they were the right thing to do. How does the Leader of the House defend any of this as acceptable behaviour?
As if that is not enough, the Tories have been busy wasting even more taxpayers’ money this week. While our hard-working NHS staff were going without personal protective equipment, the Government were busy lining their mates’ pockets with PPE contracts. They are still covering up key documents and critical messages. Minutes have gone missing. A judge has ruled that the Government’s so-called VIP lane for handing out crony contracts was unlawful. So will the Leader of the House commit to a fully independent investigation to get to the bottom of how £3.5 billion of taxpayers’ hard-earned money was handed out in crony contracts and ensure that the Government cannot do this again?
When they are not wasting taxpayers’ money, the Government are voting against helping people with their bills. Working families feeling the pinch with rising prices deserve security, prosperity and respect, but this Government are not delivering that. I know the Leader of the House will say that there is a global gas price crisis, but I am sorry—it is 10 years of Conservative failed energy policy that has left us and our constituents uniquely exposed. The Conservatives’ dither, delay and incompetence have created an energy price crisis felt by everyone.
On Tuesday, the Government could have fixed this by backing Labour’s plan. Will the Leader of the House please explain why the Government refused to back the windfall tax that would have helped to support families and keep bills low, because if it was not clear then, it certainly is now—this is a Government who have lost their grip and working people are paying the price?
Mr Rees-Mogg
As regards the Standards report into my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), I had a discussion this morning with the Chairman of the Standards Committee, and the Government, as is normal, look forward to bringing forward the motion as soon as possible. The business statement for next week was prepared before we had received a copy of the inquiry, but that will be brought forward swiftly.
The hon. Lady went on to the Opposition day that was held earlier this week. The problem with that Opposition day was not the main subject that it tried to get to, but the process it was using, where the Opposition decided that they would take over the Government and suspend Standing Order No. 14. There is one very important thing that you have to do to control the Order Paper in this House, and that is to win a general election. The Labour party, in December 2019, failed to win a general election. It was won by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister with a majority of 80, and that is why, under Standing Order No. 14, the control of time in this House belongs to the Government. I would suggest to the hon. Lady that if she wishes to take control of the Order Paper, she wins an election—something that the socialists have found extraordinarily difficult in recent years and I expect they will continue to do so.
Then we come on to the issue of PPE, which has been raised before, and it is worth giving exactly the same answer: we needed PPE urgently. The normal procedure for procurement takes three to six months. We needed it immediately—there was not the ability to hang around. Interestingly, the judgment that came forth yesterday said that the contracts would have been awarded in the same way anyway and they were awarded not by Ministers, but by civil servants. Exactly what happened with the vaccine success was what was done with PPE. It was essential to ensure that the national health service had what it needed.
The hon. Lady challenged me about my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross). My hon. Friend has an office within the Conservative party and it seems to me that people who hold office ought to support the leader of the party. That is the honourable and proper thing to do. But the United Kingdom is something that we can celebrate and debate in this Chamber daily. It is the foundation—the cornerstone—of the success of the nation as a whole. We are very fortunate to have the United Kingdom that we have and we are particularly fortunate to have the Scotland Secretary that we have, who is such a formidable figure in Scottish politics and offers the strongest, firmest and clearest leadership.
Let us come to the most important issue that the hon. Lady raised, which relates to events in Downing Street on 20 May 2020. First, I remind her that the Prime Minister came here yesterday and apologised. He said that with hindsight it was not what should have happened or what he would have wanted to happen. It is being investigated by Sue Gray, a civil servant of the highest integrity and of the greatest reputation. I think that everybody understands, on all sides of the House, that people were obeying the rules and that these rules were very hard for people to obey. I received a message last night from a friend of mine who was unable to go to the funeral of his two-year-old granddaughter. One cannot hear these stories without grieving for people who suffered. Decisions were taken at the beginning of the pandemic that affected people up and down the country and they were very hard. We must consider, as this goes to an inquiry and we look into what happened with covid, whether all those regulations were proportionate, or whether it was too hard on people. As we hear of these stories, we inevitably grieve for those who suffered, those who could not visit people they loved—their family—and could not attend funerals. But I think the key is that this is being looked into, Sue Gray will report, the Prime Minister has made his apology clear and, as he said yesterday, he understands—as do I—the “rage”, his own word, felt by people who they were making these terrible sacrifices. There is no doubt about that and the Prime Minister’s position was absolutely clear.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I was going to ask the Leader of the House about my private Member’s Bill tomorrow on abolishing the licence fee and the support I seemed to get from the Prime Minister for it. Unfortunately, however, this morning, my office was yet again vandalised. It is not fair on my staff in Wellingborough and it is not fair for other Members who have suffered similarly. So my question to him now is: may we have a debate next week on the security of Members in this House and the importance of that to our democratic process?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I am very concerned, as I know you will be, Mr Speaker, about the issue that he raised on the security of his office and the risk taken by his staff. I can reassure him that the review of MPs’ security with the Home Office and the Metropolitan police is going ahead well, that an updated letter went to you, Mr Speaker, and the Home Secretary at the end of December, and that you have both approved work to continue. It is so important for the sake of democracy that Members are safe in their offices and I am sure that the police will take this attack extremely seriously. It is difficult for me to promise a debate because we do not debate security matters publicly, for very obvious reasons in relation to security itself.
Mr Speaker
May I just reaffirm that all Members’ security and safety is taken very seriously? I have quickly made a note of what the Member has just said, but I would not expect a debate on Members’ security on the Floor of the House because, as the Leader of the House said, it is something that we do not discuss.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I suppose the only statement we want in the next few days is one confirming that the Prime Minister has written to Her Majesty the Queen to offer his resignation. The absurd and laughable defence that he did not know he was at a party has insulted and offended a nation, who now just want him gone. For the Leader of the House to stand there and say that somehow the rules were wrong just compounds this.
There are three options available to the Prime Minister: first, he somehow manages to find some self-respect and dignity, and goes of his own volition; secondly, Conservative Members somehow find a collective backbone and compel him to go; or, thirdly, we all wait until an election, and a good proportion of them will go down with him. That is what they are left with.
Now, of course, the Scottish Tories know exactly how the rest of Scotland feels after the Leader of the House poured his scorn and contempt upon them last night. According to him, the democratically elected Scottish Tory leader is an insignificant figure—a “lightweight”, a nobody—presumably just like every single Tory MSP who agrees with their Scottish leader. The Scottish Tories are supposed to be the praetorian guard of their precious Union, and the Leader of the House has just undermined them and thrown them under the proverbial bus. If this is how the Government treat even the Scottish Tories, why should the Scottish people even entertain being any part of their useless Union?
Does the Leader of the House want to take this opportunity now to apologise to the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) for his remarks last night, or is he prepared to make them once again in this House just to confirm what we in Scotland all know, which is that this is a Government who could not care less about Scotland and Scottish democracy?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The problem with the hon. Gentleman’s approach to business questions is that he is so angry every week that one never knows whether it is real or synthetic. He could have called for the Prime Minister to resign at every business questions at which we have exchanged pleasantries since I became Leader of the House, other than during his brief sabbatical away from the role, so I think his call for the Prime Minister to resign is not one of which any notice will be taken.
The Prime Minister won an election, and that is the basis on which our democracy in this country works. He won a majority of 80, and he has done so much to the benefit of this country in the last two years. If we look at the whole panoply of decisions made with regard to covid, the Prime Minister has consistently got them right. He got the vaccine right, he got ending the lockdown in the summer right, he got the refusal to impose new restrictions before Christmas right, and he got furlough and the £400 billion to support the economy right.
Again and again, the Prime Minister got the decisions right that mean this country is coming out of the pandemic in a better position than other countries across the world. It is something we should recognise, and that required good, solid, decisive leadership. That is not beginning to say that every decision made was perfect—that would not be within human nature—but the result of what has happened following the decisions that the Prime Minister has made has been to allow this country to do better than others as we come out of this pandemic.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Could we have a debate or a statement about developers that build on greenfield sites and do not tell the people who buy their houses that Japanese knotweed is present when they know it is present? They should do a survey, and they should alert people to it. I have constituents who now cannot sell their houses because developers such as Persimmon are not dealing with the problem seriously and getting rid of it so that they can sell their houses on. Could we have a debate on that?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend has raised the point so very effectively. Japanese knotweed is the most common of four invasive knotweed plant species in the UK, and landowners have an obligation to stop knotweed on their land spreading from their property. Soil or plant material contaminated with non-native and invasive plants such as Japanese knotweed can cause ecological damage and may be classified as controlled waste. This is a matter to be raised with the Environment Agency, and I will do that on behalf of my hon. Friend. People do not have to remove knotweed from their land unless it is causing a nuisance, but they can be prosecuted for causing it to spread into the wild.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for next week, particularly the two debates on Thursday under the aegis of the Backbench Business Committee on the Uyghur tribunals and on lawfare and the UK court system.
Due to the very heavily subscribed application for the Holocaust Memorial Day debate on 27 January, we are at the moment considering converting a whole afternoon to that debate, which I hope does not cause any problems with clashes with other events. We have now received the application for the Welsh Affairs debate to coincide with the week of St David’s Day on 1 March.
On Tuesday, I chaired a meeting with Network Rail and London North Eastern Railway about the proposed timetable changes on the east coast main line. At over 500 miles long, it is a line that LNER shares with nine other operating companies, and it is quite clear that the complexity of the timetabling problems is caused in the main by lack of line capacity north of York. Can we have a statement on what the Department for Transport is going to do as a matter of urgency to increase capacity on the east coast main line north of York?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee for giving me advance notice of his debates and that the Holocaust Memorial Day debate may be a full day’s debate. I will take that as lobbying me to try to deter statements on that day; Mr Speaker may well take it as an attempt to lobby him to deter urgent questions on that day. We have our separate responsibilities.
The integrated rail plan investment expenditure is going to be £96 billion: a great deal is being done to ensure that the rail system has the funding it needs. The £26.2 billion Department for Transport budget for 2024-25 is a real-terms increase of 1.9%, but there is £35 billion-worth of rail investment over the spending review period. Enormous sums are going in, and the hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of where they should specifically go; an Adjournment debate may be the most suitable option.
Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)
Next week, the last piece of roof metalwork is due to be installed as part of the restoration of the 26 individual cast iron roofs of the Palace of Westminster. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Mary Gallagher and the team involved in this historic project, which has been done on time and within budget, and in wishing the restoration and renewal programme every success in following the roof projects team’s impressive example?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I thank Mary Gallagher for the work she has done. “On time and under budget” is not a phrase that one often hears in relation to projects in the public sector, let alone within the House of Commons, so this is absolutely terrific news. As we come to debate in due course the rumours that we hear of a potential 20-year decant, and enormous sums of money for restoration and renewal, we will have to think about how well the roofs programme was done. It is an indication of the historic nature of this building that the roof has a very unusual form, and it has been very carefully repaired—within budget, as my hon. Friend says. Keeping careful control of taxpayers’ money should be our watchword.
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I am delighted to say that the unsuccessful attempt by the board of Liverpool Victoria to demutualise and sell up to the controversial American private equity giant Bain Capital just before Christmas was unsuccessful, but it revealed a series of legislative and regulatory weaknesses in the rules governing mutuals. Almost 90% of the owners of Liverpool Victoria rejected the board’s dismal deal, but will the Leader of the House nevertheless find time for a debate about how to strengthen the mutual sector and its rules?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising that. Historically, mutuals have been a good way of providing financial services and pooling risk—and, indeed, pooling profits for investors. Sometimes mutuals have been demutualised with very significant profits for the mutual owners, which has been quite welcome to them, but of course it is always important that people should be treated fairly and that boards observe their fiduciary duty. The hon. Gentleman is sitting next to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee; I suggest that he has a quiet word to seek a debate.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
There are many unsung heroes in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke, but I want to commend one in particular: Isaac Rotherham, a pupil at St Mary’s Church of England Primary School in Tunstall who turned nine on 27 December. Rather than asking for a list of presents for himself, he asked for a list of items needed by the homeless. Isaac handed the 200 to 300 items over to legendary Stoke City manager Lou Macari, who now runs the Macari Centre, which provides support and shelter for homeless people. During the covid pandemic, the centre provided covid-secure accommodation for roughly 40 people in glamping-style pods. Will my right hon. Friend join me in wishing Isaac a belated happy birthday and applauding him and Lou for all they have done for the local community across Stoke-on-Trent, Kidsgrove and Talke?
Mr Rees-Mogg
It is an honour to join my hon. Friend in wishing Isaac a belated happy birthday. I am sure that the whole House will applaud Isaac and Lou for what they have achieved and for the incredible support that they have provided for the homeless. I am glad to say that the number of households that are homeless or threatened with homelessness is now below pre-pandemic levels. Good progress has been made on our manifesto commitment to end rough sleeping: our most recent rough sleeping snapshot shows that levels have fallen by 43% since 2017. The Government’s ambition to end rough sleeping within this Parliament still stands; we are working on the sector to build on the recent progress. Isaac and Lou are an inspiration to us all, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing another success of Stoke to the attention of the House.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
I have met many constituents who have post covid-19 syndrome, also known as long covid. Many of them are workers—teachers, healthcare professionals, police officers—who caught covid working as part of this country’s frontline response to the covid-19 pandemic. With that in mind, will the Government provide time for a debate to allow MPs to bring the experiences of their constituents with long covid to this Chamber, giving the Government the opportunity to explain how they intend to deliver on their obligation to those workers and support them in the long term?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady raises a point of considerable importance that will be of concern to hon. Members across the House in representing their constituents. I can tell her that NHS England and NHS Improvement is spending £224 million to expand NHS long covid treatment and rehabilitation services and establish 90 long covid assessment services, including paediatric hubs for children and young people. I am sure that we still have a great deal to learn about the condition, but I can reassure her that NHS England is taking steps.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
One of the familiar names on high streets up and down the country is Wilko. It is crucial to the vitality of St Peter’s Avenue in Cleethorpes, but unfortunately the company has announced the store’s possible closure, which is of obvious concern, particularly to the staff. The Government have done a great deal to support our high streets, but this is clearly another example of the difficulties that companies are facing. Could I urge the Leader of the House to consider a debate to further explore what can be done to ensure that companies such as Wilko retain their outlet in Cleethorpes?
Mr Rees-Mogg
As always, my hon. Friend is a great champion for his constituency. I can tell him what the Government have been doing. The £4.8 billion levelling-up fund includes help to regenerate town centres and high streets. Considerable measures have been taken to spur innovation and investment across the country and help business to build back better from the pandemic. We are increasing the British Business Bank’s regional financing programme to £1.6 billion, providing capital to businesses across the country; extending the temporary £1 million annual investment allowance cap to March 2023, providing more up-front support to help businesses to invest and grow; and reducing the burden of business rates by more than £7 billion over five years. All those things should help high streets, but the support that my hon. Friend gives by encouraging people to use their high street and go to the shops will also be important in maintaining a competitive high street.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I have a British constituent who is still trapped in Afghanistan. She is an eight-year-old child—just eight—and is being kept from her mum and little sister because of successive Passport Office failures dating back to 2014. We have made frantic efforts to get her out, before and since the flights stopped. On one day, she was in a Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office minibus, so close to the airport, for 24 hours—an enormous risk—but was turned away because she had been given nothing to show and no support to get through the checkpoints and the gates. I have written to the Foreign Secretary and others many, many times, but there has been no constructive answer and no action. This little girl is in grave danger, and she believes her mum does not love her. We have to bring her home. Will the Leader of the House intervene with his friends in the Home Office and the FCDO to get an answer and some action as soon as possible from someone?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very sorry to hear about that eight-year-old girl. The hon. Lady puts her case very forcefully. I have said before at this Dispatch Box that whenever right hon. and hon. Members have individual constituency cases I will do whatever I can to take them up with the relevant Departments, to try to get answers. I cannot promise the answer, because that is not within my purview, but if she writes to me with all the details, I will certainly take it up with both the Home Office and the Foreign Office as necessary.
Sarah Atherton (Wrexham) (Con)
As we know, the Welsh NHS is managed by the Welsh Labour Government in Cardiff, and the biggest challenge facing my constituents is access to healthcare. Twelve hours in A&E is now normal, as are two weeks to get a repeat prescription and patients having to travel over the border to access minor injury units. I understand that that is not this Government’s jurisdiction, but can my right hon. Friend suggest ways that I can hold the Welsh Labour Government to account for my constituents?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this concerning matter, and I also thank her for her personal contribution to the health service, not just before becoming a Member but throughout the pandemic; I understand she returned to frontline nursing in 2020 to support the fight against covid-19. The poor performance of the NHS in Wales is, as she rightly says, a devolved matter and the precise policy is a matter for Cardiff Bay rather than Westminster, but those problems in the end affect the whole United Kingdom, with people coming across into England for minor injuries because of failures in the Welsh health service.
I am glad to say that on 18 January the Welsh Grand Committee will meet in Parliament to debate strengthening the Union in Wales—[Hon. Members: “Hurrah!”] I am glad it is so widely supported across the House; at last we have achieved bipartisan support. It will be a good opportunity to contribute to the debate, and I expect that many right hon. and hon. Members will be able to use their parliamentary standing to hold the socialist Welsh Government to account.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
When the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill left this House it was woefully under-scrutinised, since which time the Government have ladled amendments into it hand over fist in the other place. Those amendments include many draconian restrictions on our prized freedoms, especially the right to protest. Can the Leader of the House give me some assurance that, if the Government are successful in getting those amendments through the other place, when the Bill comes back to this House we will be given proper time—at least half a day or a day—to debate those amendments and not just the usual one hour?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. This House and the other place are both here to protect the freedoms of this nation and of the individuals within it, but also to protect their right to go about their lives in an orderly way. Therefore, there must be a balance between the right to protest and the right of people to go about their business. Amendments from the House of Lords go through a normal process. The precise timing for any consideration of Lords amendments is a matter for discussion; his representations have been made and I have heard them, but it will depend on the other business going through the House at the time.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Today, trade talks kicked off in New Delhi between the United Kingdom and India. As my right hon. Friend will know, the EU has been trying to do a trade deal with India since 1997, without any success. The opportunities for the United Kingdom and India of a mutually agreed trade deal are clearly enormous, so could my right hon. Friend arrange for a statement to be made next week on the objectives the UK has in achieving this trade deal, so that Members across the House can contribute their ideas on how we can get the best deal possible for both the United Kingdom and our friends in India?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend raises an important point. India is one of our closest and most important allies, and I think will become closer and more important over the decades ahead. I can tell him that there will be questions to the Department for International Trade next Thursday, which would be an initial opportunity to raise those important matters. However, the Chairman of the Backbench Business Committee is still in his place, and—without trying to lobby him, because I have no standing to do so—I think this would be a worthy subject for debate and many Members would be interested in how our friendly relationship with India can become even better.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
I am sure that many Members present have experienced the never-ending struggle of trying to get a timely response from the Home Office. In Luton North, we have hundreds of cases that have exceeded the 20 working day response time. It is simply not good enough, especially for those waiting on immigration and asylum cases who want to get on with their lives—they want to get jobs, feel safe and contribute to our society. I would ask for a debate, but what I really want is some answers for constituents.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I take this issue extremely seriously. I think it is part of my role as Leader of the House to chase up Departments when answers are not forthcoming punctually. I have done that for quite a number of right hon. and hon. Members, and I am happy to continue to do so. Earlier this week, I wrote to all other members of the Cabinet reminding them of the importance of giving timely and good answers to written questions. I will happily take up the hon. Lady’s individual case if she contacts my office.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
In 2006, Gunner Lee Thornton from Blackpool sadly lost his life during his second tour of Iraq. Lee loved his country and serving in the Army. Lee’s mum Karen has been campaigning for a suitable memorial for him, but, despite contacting Blackpool Council on multiple occasions, she has yet to receive a response. A petition requesting that Blackpool Council honours Lee’s service by, for example, looking to name a local road after him, has attracted a great deal of local support. Does my right hon. Friend agree that surely it is right that those who make the ultimate sacrifice serving the country receive a fitting tribute? Will he find time for a debate on how we can suitably recognise those who make the ultimate sacrifice?
Mr Rees-Mogg
We should be so grateful to people like Gunner Lee Thornton who are willing to lay down their lives for the country. It is, as my hon. Friend says, the ultimate service, and it is right that they should be memorialised locally. That is a proper way of remembering them, and that is surely our duty. We always say that we will remember them, and it is right to do it locally where their families and friends will be able to see the permanent memorial. I encourage my hon. Friend to continue his campaign. I think that the specific issue would benefit from an Adjournment debate to discuss the individual facts. I think that there would be so much agreement about the proper memorialisation in a wider debate that it would be rather more a series of statements in support of my hon. Friend.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
It is telling, is it not, that the only Scottish Conservative willing to defend the Prime Minister is the Scottish Conservative on the Prime Minister’s payroll? The Leader of the House’s withering dispatch yesterday of the Scottish Conservative leader evidences the disdain with which Scotland is viewed by the Westminster elite and demonstrates that Scotland is a possession and not a partner of this Union. Can we have a debate about how we smoothly and transactionally move Scotland out of this Union and into a brighter independent future?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Gentleman. Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are equal fundamental parts of the United Kingdom, without which there is no United Kingdom. Our great history, our great tradition and our success as a nation has been built on this Union. How did we, a small country, a small island off the coast of the European continent, become one of the great empires in the world? It was thanks often to the work of people from Scotland. Why was it that, when I used to live in Hong Kong, there was Aberdeen in Hong Kong? It was because of the contribution of the Scottish people to making the whole of the United Kingdom a great nation. That is celebrated on the Conservative side of the House and is something that we glory in as our great, shared, joined history. It is our history of ties of kinship, of ties of blood and of ties of involvement in each other’s lives. In response to the hon. Gentleman’s absolute question and fundamental point, people who hold office in the Conservative party are honour-bound to support the Prime Minister.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
There are currently no statutory requirements for a planning authority to consult immediate neighbours in another planning authority, nor are there any requirements to consult anybody at all in relation to the issuing of certificates of lawful use. The current framework therefore provides for greater opportunities for green-belt development by the back door, and that is happening right now between my constituency and neighbouring South Staffordshire. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate on planning policy in relation to the requirements for public consultation?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Certificates of lawful use are exactly what they say and if the use is lawful then people are allowed to do it. If, on the other hand, enforcement action is taken, or people get it wrong and they should have applied for planning permission, then they have to apply for retrospective planning permission and can be forced to take buildings down. Local planning authorities are meant to co-operate with each other, but do not necessarily have to consult on individual applications. They all, however, have an overriding obligation to co-operate, because development can have knock-on effects from one community to another. I reassure my hon. Friend that protecting the green belt is a firm manifesto commitment. We are looking to improve the planning system to make it work more effectively, but also to ensure that restrictions are carried out properly. We need to build more houses. We need to ensure that people have homes they can live in and to make the dream of home ownership available, but it must be done in a proper and considered way.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Can we find time for an urgent debate on pensions injustices, so that I and many other Members across the House can raise the case of members of the Pensions Action Group, including members of the financial assistance scheme and many former Allied Steel and Wire workers in my constituency? I pay tribute to our late friend Jack Dromey for all the support he gave, typically, to those seeking justice on pensions during his time as shadow Minister. Many are suffering because of the failure to link their pensions to inflation, which is now going up massively. Some are now receiving 40% less than they were entitled to. With them, we met the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) in summer last year and provided detailed submissions afterwards, but received a reply only in November, with little comfort or support for those pensioners. The Leader of the House might think they are going to go away, but I assure him that they are not. It is important that we have a debate, so we can all put our cases to the Minister.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point that private pension schemes are much more effectively regulated than they once were to try to ensure protections for pensioners, but many of them are still dependent on the underlying business and the ability of the business to afford the pensions. The Pensions Regulator has a responsibility to do that. It also has a fund to support pension funds that become insolvent or businesses that become unable to afford their pension obligations. None the less, he is right to stand up for his constituents who are expecting pensions they do not get. For a debate, however, in the first instance I point him to the Backbench Business Committee.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
The Mayor of London is failing to maintain and upgrade tube stations in my constituency. South Kensington, the gateway to our world-class museums, unbelievably has no step-free access to the District and Circle line, and the Piccadilly line does not even stop at South Kensington at the moment. Ladbroke Grove in north Kensington, which is vital to access north Kensington, again has no step-free access. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Mayor of London needs to get his act together and provide suitable transport links for my constituents, and will he contemplate a debate on the matter?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am contemplating having a set question every week to which the answer is, “The Mayor of London is failing,” because this is a continued theme of questions I get about what he is not managing to do. My hon. Friend raises a very important question about mismanagement. Bear in mind that £4 billion of emergency funding has come from the taxpayer to Transport for London, and that when London transport was run by the Prime Minister when he was Mayor of London, in that halcyon age of 2008 to 2016, services were much better. Disabled access is of fundamental importance and this failure of the Mayor is further evidence of his mismanagement.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
The judge in the High Court ruling that deemed unlawful the Government’s red carpet-to-riches VIP lane for personal protective equipment suppliers, stated:
“There is evidence that opportunities were treated as high priority even where there were no objectively justifiable grounds for expediting the offer.”
Some 32 billion items of PPE, valued at £14 billion, were bought through directly awarded and negotiated contracts. Rather than giving us history lessons in his reply, as he so often does during business questions, what action is the Leader of the House going to take to ensure that VIP lane procurement is investigated, and will he set time in Parliament for debates accordingly?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I suggest the hon. Lady reads the judgment, because it was absolutely clear that the contracts would have been awarded to the same people, and that they were done by civil servants, not by Ministers. I reiterate what I said to the shadow Leader of the House—that it was a matter of emergency, of urgency, and of need. There is dither and delay with the socialists. They never want to get on with anything. They always put process ahead of achieving things. They would still have us in lockdown and not able to move about. They love regulation, because that is what they believe in. What Her Majesty’s Government did was get the PPE that was needed and the vaccine that was needed. To do that, yes, of course, they had to short-circuit some elements of procurement, which normally takes three to six months.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
The first part of the inquiry into the Manchester arena bombing has just been published. As the House will know, on 22 May 2017, Islamist suicide bomber Salman Abedi murdered 22 people and injured hundreds more at the Manchester arena. Despite the fact that Salman Abedi was known to security services as an Islamist extremist with multiple terrorist connections, he was not questioned when he returned from Libya just a few days before the attack. Given that and given similar failures to stop attacks in Liverpool and Southend, can we have an urgent debate on the Prevent strategy and the Government’s wider counter-terrorism strategy? We must not bury our head in the sand.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and I welcome the Home Secretary’s publication of the consultation findings on the Protect duty. As he rightly highlights, the Manchester arena attack was a tragic event, and it is so important that we bring forward legislation to support public safety while not placing excessive burdens on smaller businesses. The Government’s overriding priority must be, is and always will be keeping the people of the United Kingdom safe. Prevent is having an effect in stopping people being drawn into terrorism. Prevent is about working in areas where there are risks of radicalisation, and it offers support predominantly through local community partnerships.
The independent review of Prevent is looking at the effectiveness of the Government’s strategy to protect vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism. The Government will carefully consider the findings and the recommendations of the review and assess the implications for the future of Prevent. I obviously note my hon. Friend’s points about the better monitoring of those who come into this country, which I am sure has been a great concern to many British people following these attacks. We have Home Office questions on Monday, so I urge him to raise this directly with the Home Secretary then.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
It is reported—I am sure the Leader of the House will know this with his new interest in Scottish politics—that the Prime Minister is not welcome to speak at the Scottish Conservative conference in March. This will be the first time that the party leader has been unwelcome. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on that and tell us whether the Secretary of State for Scotland would be welcome at such a conference? Does this demonstrate not only that the Prime Minister has run out of road with his own party and with the public, but that this Union has well and truly run out of road, and that we need a debate on Scottish independence now?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady does me an injustice. I was the Conservative and Unionist candidate in Central Fife in 1997, so I have long had an interest in the United Kingdom. I made the case in 1997, which I have made consistently since, for the benefit of the United Kingdom, and it has always been important for Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Prime Minister is one of our party’s great assets, and I note that our best results in Scottish parliamentary elections were when one B. Johnson was Prime Minister.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give me his assessment of a problem that I am having with the Department of Health and Social Care? I wrote to the then Minister, the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately), in May of last year and received a reply on 6 January from the Minister for Care and Mental Health, the hon. Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan)—my inquiry seems to have survived the reshuffle. What assessment does he make of this, and does he believe that there needs to be some cleaning up and some strong encouragement to provide timely replies to Members of Parliament and stop this sloppy practice? Or is this about people just thinking any which way, because it is from the top that a fish tends to rot?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am glad that the hon. Lady asked that question while I am sitting next to the Minister for Health, because I have said in this House on a number of occasions that Members have a right to expect timely replies. I have taken this up with various Departments. Earlier in the pandemic, I was very sympathetic to the Department of Health and Social Care because of the burdens that it faced, and it was not unreasonable that there was a delay. By the time we got to May last year, responses ought to have become more timely. I can only apologise that the delay in the response has been so long, until 6 January. We have a right, on behalf of our constituents, to seek redress of grievance—not on our behalf, but for those we represent—and, as Leader of the House, I will always do my best to ensure that that right is upheld.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Following the right hon. Gentleman’s disparaging remarks about the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), can we have a statement from him about exactly what he meant by that? For example, does he think that the leader of the Welsh Conservatives is a lightweight figure, and can he name him?
Mr Rees-Mogg
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales is called Simon Hart.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
My constituents Amanda, who works for the ambulance service, and her husband James have been forced for the past month to provide incredibly complex care to Amanda’s father, John. John is entitled to receive NHS continuing healthcare between 7 am and 8 pm every day, but because County Durham clinical commissioning group simply cannot find a care provider with the staff to fulfil his care package, James and Amanda are having to stop work to provide this care, which they can provide only due to her profession. They are exhausted, and it is because the care system is broken. I know at first hand the stress of caring for a loved one while holding down a job, so can we have a debate on the current staffing crisis in care, and will the right hon. Gentleman facilitate a meeting with the Minister for Care and Mental Health to discuss this issue?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I thank the hon. Lady for raising this very difficult case. I recognise that there are problems in social care that the Government are trying to tackle. There is a £5.4 billion package for social care over the next three years and we will have the end of the lottery that leads to catastrophic costs with the £86,000 cap. The White Paper put forward plans to spend more than £1 billion over the next three years on system reform. The hon. Lady raises an important and troubling case. It is recognised that there are difficulties, but urgent steps are being taken, with very significant amounts of taxpayers’ money, to put these problems right.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
We had a statement this week from the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities about the problems that those in high-rise flats and flats under the height of 18 metres are having with fire safety. A statement is fine, and what he had to say was welcome, but it does not give us the opportunity as Back Benchers, all of whom have cases in our constituencies, to raise the detail of those cases. Can we have a debate in Government time in which we can put the detail before the Secretary of State so that he understands our constituents’ problems?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I think I granted that before the question was asked, because on Wednesday 19 January, there will be the remaining stages of the Building Safety Bill, which will be an opportunity to debate this matter.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Stronger safeguards are needed to stop online consumers choosing “buy now, pay later” options to pay for products without knowing the risks. As new research by Which? reveals, many people do not think that they are taking on debt when using that payment method, the use of which has soared in recent years. Will the Leader of the House make a statement on the need to regulate this unregulated area of the credit market, including the need for much greater transparency on the risks that consumers face when using “buy now, pay later” options?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady is right to raise this. People ought to know what they are doing when they buy things online and ought to have consumer protections. There is a debate coming up later today on the draft Online Safety Bill, and that debate is entitled to cover these sorts of areas, so I encourage her to participate in it.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
May we have a Government statement on improving internet access in the south-west? It appears that a notspot in Devon is the reason why the Chancellor was unable to contact the Prime Minister yesterday to offer his support.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but I wonder whether I may give an advert for Truespeed, which has come to Somerset and is doing terrific work in ensuring that my constituents are connected? Connecting Devon and Somerset has also been working very hard to improve the quality of broadband. However, it has to be said that when it comes to mobile telephony, there are still some parts of the south-west where the signal goes down and it does not seem to come back particularly quickly.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I read the Government’s record on covid slightly differently from the Leader of the House. Yes, the Government did really well on vaccines and take-up, but we had the biggest economic collapse of any advanced economy in the world, and I think we probably still have the highest death rate per 100,000.
My big anxiety this year is the financial situation facing families in my constituency. Gas and electricity bills are likely to go up by 50% in April. The cost of petrol and diesel has already gone up by 25% this year, compared with last year. We have the national insurance increase and a 7.1% increase in basic inflation. The average family in my constituency—I have done the figures—will be £1,535 worse off every year, and for those on universal credit the figure is £2,575. Many families are just on the cusp of collapsing financially. They would need an 18% pay rise this year to meet that figure, and that simply is not going to happen. So what are the Government going to do? When will they come here and acknowledge that we really do have a crisis facing thousands of families?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is not right to say that we have the worst death rate of any major western country, because other European countries have worse rates.
In relation to the economic figures, we use a more up-to-date way of calculating GDP, so if people are still paid to work in a school but that school is not open, we do not count that towards our GDP, whereas most countries do. It is very important, when making these statements, to ensure that the comparators are correct.
Let me come to the hon. Gentleman’s question, because I think the whole House recognises the difficulties that our constituents may be facing during the course of the year. On his underlying point, most of our constituents live to their income level, and therefore big swings in costs have a powerful effect on people pretty much regardless of their income level. Those problems are recognised, so what are the Government doing? Well, there is £4.2 billion of taxpayer support to help with the cost of living. The national living wage will go up to £9.50 from April. Some 2 million families will get an extra £1,000 through our cut to the universal credit taper and increased work allowances. There will be seasonal cold weather payments of an extra £25 a week for up to 4 million people during colder periods. Fuel duty has been frozen for the 12th year running, saving car drivers £15 every time they fill up compared with pre-2010 plans. Local housing allowance has been increased in cash terms this year, worth an extra £600 on average to 1.5 million households. The energy cap remains in place. We have provided the £500 million household support fund so that local authorities can offer their residents help with food and utility bills, and there are winter fuel payments to over 11.4 million pensioners, worth up to £300. So there is very considerable support, but I understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying, because it is a worrying time for many people.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
This morning the all-party parliamentary group for “left behind” neighbourhoods released a report on health inequalities showing that people from one of the 225 most disadvantaged parts of the country are 46% more likely to die from covid than people living in other parts of England. The report also shows these people work longer hours and have fewer years of healthy life, at a cost of about £30 billion to our economy. Will the Government make a statement on how health inequalities will fit into their levelling-up agenda? Without that, levelling up will not mean what we all want it to mean for these particular communities.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Lady is right to raise that point, and I am aware of the report and the very troubling figure of a 46% higher possibility of dying from covid depending on where people live in the country and the level of prosperity. I do not want to go through all the figures I have just given to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), but they are part of this question and part of levelling up. It is about helping people with their bills, it is about increasing the national living wage to make sure that being in work pays and it is about reducing the withdrawal rate of universal credit, but it is also about ensuring healthcare is available to everybody. The support—the billions—going into the national health service will ensure there is good healthcare across the country. There may be challenges, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Sarah Atherton) mentioned, in relation to what happens in Wales and the devolved authorities, which will be in a different category.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
This Monday is Blue Monday, a Samaritans event to mark what is often a low point for many people. Following the pandemic, we know that many people are feeling tested. May I invite the Leader of the House and hon. Members to join me online for Blue Monday to share a cup of tea to mark the event? May I also take the opportunity to praise my colleagues in the Samaritans of Tyneside who will be joining us to talk about their work?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I join the hon. Lady in thanking the Samaritans of Tyneside, and Samaritans across the country, for their work in saving people’s lives and helping people at the most desperate point in their life. I wonder whether she would like to join me in my office on Monday, when I would be delighted to give her a nice cup of tea. I will have coffee, even if she decides to have tea. I so enjoyed going online for Blue Monday last year, at her invitation. If this year we are able to do it together, I think that would be even better.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
People up and down the country, including in my Bath constituency, are gathering this weekend to protest against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. That illiberal Bill is an attack on our liberal democracy, and it includes a crackdown on the right to protest peacefully. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) mentioned, the Government have now shoehorned a large number of amendments into the Bill in the other place. It will shortly return to this House and we will possibly have only one hour, maybe three, to debate that controversial Bill. Further to the answer the Leader of the House gave to my right hon. Friend, what conversations has he had with his colleagues and the business managers about the time allowed for the Bill to ensure that my constituents and people across the country are properly represented when it comes back for debate?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I note that the hon. Lady mentions her constituency. I thought on this occasion she might be talking about the seemingly illiberal behaviour of Lib Dem councillors on Bath and North East Somerset Council and the serious accusation of their bullying another councillor who has left the Lib Dems because of the way he was treated. He has made serious accusations of racist bullying, and I thought the hon. Lady might want to apologise for the level of illiberalism going on in her own patch.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
In 2015 the Government lost a Supreme Court case on clean air brought by ClientEarth. The Leader of the House will know that, as a result, a ministerial direction was placed on the 10 Greater Manchester authorities to bring air quality within safe levels for human health and instructing a category C clean air zone, which is about to go live in May. The Government gave Greater Manchester just £120 million to fund the retrofit, which is woefully inadequate for the task and, as a result, the direction is now harmful to many small businesses that are unable to comply. Will the Leader of the House use his good offices to urge the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to look again at his direction?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I say to the hon. Gentleman that £120 million is a very significant amount of money, and that Greater Manchester has a devolved settlement and a socialist Mayor who must live up to his responsibilities. That is what happens when these mayoralties are created.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
My 30-year-old constituent Calum Campbell has dyspraxia, and all his life his mum has had to fight the Department for Work and Pensions for support. Even so, he has now lost his personal independence payment award. Our office assisted Calum’s wife with a mandatory reconsideration, but the DWP ignored the key information put to it, chose not to speak to Calum for updated information, and upheld its original decision simply by looking again at the original information—that is really a joke of a decision. Will the Leader of the House request that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions intervene to make sure that Calum gets the support he deserves?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I once again thank the hon. Gentleman, who often raises important constituency cases. I reiterate my commitment as Leader of the House to help Members, whenever possible, with constituency cases. If he would be kind enough to write to me with the details in relation to his constituent Calum, I will certainly take it up with the DWP as soon as possible.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The Scottish Tourism Alliance found this week that one in three businesses in Scotland are likely to fail this year. Retaining the reduced rate of VAT is essential to supporting the hospitality sector and preventing businesses from passing mounting costs to consumers who are already struggling with the cost of living. Will the Leader of the House schedule a debate, in Government time, on the retention of the 12.5% VAT rate for hospitality businesses?
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Lady makes a very important plea for her constituents. It is really important to keep businesses and to tackle the cost of living issues that we all face. However, I fear that she knows what I am going to say next: matters of taxation are for the Chancellor.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
May I commend to my right hon. Friend today’s publication by the Environmental Audit Committee of its report on water quality in rivers? I take this opportunity to thank the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), who is in his place, for the opportunity that he has provided us to make a statement on the report in Westminster Hall this afternoon. In our report, we have made recommendations about the strategic policy statement that the Government will shortly be issuing to Ofwat. When that happens, will my right hon. Friend encourage the Environment Minister to make a statement to the House on that policy statement?
Mr Rees-Mogg
I am delighted that the Environmental Audit Committee has come forward with that report. I believe it has an absolutely brilliant Chairman who ensures that its reports are always well worth reading, and I am glad that he has a debate about this one in Westminster Hall later. The Osmotherly rules set out how responses will be made to Select Committee reports, and those will of course be borne in mind for the response coming from the Department and the Minister, but I will pass on my right hon. Friend’s request for a statement.
The issue with statements, as my right hon. Friend knows only too well, is the pressure on parliamentary business and the other matters that we have to decide. We have had a demand to receive information and for more time for House of Lords amendments, and we have pressures on Back-Bench business, but I hear his request, and a request from him is always taken seriously.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the Leader of the House for making his business statement and for responding to questions for over an hour.
Wera Hobhouse
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Leader of the House has just accused my Liberal Democrat colleagues in Bath and North East Somerset Council of racism. Independent processes against those allegations, including from BANES Council, have already been held, and all allegations have been dismissed. Will the Leader of the House please withdraw his allegations?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call the Leader of the House.
Mr Rees-Mogg
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The councillor concerned is still making those allegations and does not believe the processes have been satisfactorily carried out, so I would point to what he has said.
Covid-19 Update
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
Let me start by paying tribute to Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, who, after four years as deputy chief medical officer, will be returning to his role at the University of Nottingham at the end of March.
There are not many clinical advisers who can be recognised solely by three letters, but JVT’s unique and straightforward approach to communication has seen him rapidly become a national hero. I will use some words that I think he might particularly like. We are grateful for having had him on loan for so many years. He has been a top signing, and he has blown the whistle on time. I am sure the whole House will want to join me in wishing Jonathan Van-Tam—Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam—all the very best.
With permission, Mr Speaker. I will now make a statement on the covid-19 pandemic. We have started this year as the freest country in Europe, thanks to the decision we made to open up in the summer and the defences that we have built, but we must not lose sight of the fact that the virus is still with us, and that there are still likely to be difficult weeks ahead. According to data published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics, there are encouraging signs that infections are falling in London and the east of England, but they are still rising in other parts of the country, and the data does not yet reflect the impact of people returning to work and school; so we must proceed with caution.
Omicron’s far greater transmissibility still has the potential to lead to a significant number of hospitalisations. There are already nearly 17,000 covid-19 patients in hospital in England, and, owing to the lag between infections and hospitalisations, the NHS will remain under significant pressure over the next few weeks. It is encouraging, however, that during this wave we have seen no increase in the number of covid-19 intensive care patients, and there are early signs that the rate of hospitalisation is starting to slow.
We know that omicron is less severe, but no one should be under any illusions: it is severe for those who end up in hospital, and that is far more likely if they have not had the jab. In many major cities in the United States where the levels of booster vaccination are comparatively lower than the UK, pressures on intensive care are approaching the levels of last winter, and in Chicago they have already exceeded the peak from last January. So we must stay vigilant, and keep fortifying the pharmaceutical defences that we have built—some of the strongest in the world.
Let me now update the House on how we are making those pharmaceutical defences even stronger, and how we are giving the NHS and the country what they need to withstand this omicron wave. Our primary defence is, of course, the vaccination programme. Some 79% of eligible adults in England have now had a booster, including more than 91% of over-50s, who we know are more vulnerable to the virus. Per capita, we are the most boosted large country in the world. Data published on Friday by the UK Health Security Agency shows that about three months after those aged 65 and over received their booster, their protection against hospitalisation remains at about 90%. These vaccines do not just protect ourselves and our loved ones; they protect the country’s progress too. The reason we have been able to start the year with much greater freedom than last year, with children back at school, shops opening their doors and this Chamber bustling with activity, is that so many people have made the positive choice to be vaccinated.
There are, of course, a small minority of people who could get the jab if they wanted to, but have chosen not to. Let us be clear: those people have been able to enjoy the freedoms that they enjoy today because they are standing on the shoulders of the nine out of 10 people across the UK who have stepped forward to get the jab. If we are to maintain the collective protection that we have built, we need everyone to choose responsibly and take the simple step that will help to secure greater freedom for us all.
People working in health and care look after some of the most vulnerable in our society, so they carry a unique responsibility. Last month, this House approved our plans that anyone working in health or wider social care activities regulated by the Care Quality Commission will need to be vaccinated against covid-19 if their role involves direct contact with patients, unless of course they are medically exempt. That includes NHS hospitals, the independent sector, and GP and dental practices regardless of whether they are working in the public or private sector. Uptake over the past few months has been very promising: since the Government consulted on the policy in September, the proportion of NHS trust healthcare workers vaccinated with at least a first dose has increased from 92% to 94%, and we remain committed to putting these measures into force on 1 April.
Our next line of defence is testing. We are doing more tests than any other country in Europe. We raised the distribution of free lateral flow tests from 120 million in November to 300 million in December to meet the demands of the omicron wave, and we expect to make approximately 400 million tests available over the course of this month—four times the pre-omicron plan.
Our third line of defence is antivirals and treatments, for which we have built the most advanced programme in Europe. We have now secured almost 5 million courses of oral antivirals and are leading the whole continent in the number that we have procured per person. We are already making these cutting-edge antivirals and treatments available directly to patients. Last month, we contacted 1.3 million of those at the highest risk from covid-19, such as people who might sadly be suffering with cancer or people with Down’s syndrome, and sent them a PCR test kit that they can keep at home. If they test positive, they can access either a monoclonal antibody or an antiviral; either it can be sent to those patients at home or they can access it through a clinician at one of the 96 covid medicine delivery units that now exist across England.
We are also making oral antiviral treatments available more widely through a national study. If any of our constituents who are over 50, or are between 18 and 49 with an underlying health condition, get covid-19 symptoms and test positive, they are eligible. They can sign up for the trial, if they are interested, by visiting panoramictrial.org. The more people who sign up, the more widely we can deploy these treatments.
With those three defences—the most boosted, the most tested and the most antivirals—it is no wonder that we are the freest country in Europe. This country is leading the world in learning to live with covid.
Just as we have strengthened these defences to keep people out of hospital, we are taking measures to ensure that the health service has what it needs. As part of that work, we have looked at every available route to secure the maximum capacity possible across the NHS. We have been working with the latest technology to create virtual wards where patients can be monitored by clinicians remotely in their own home. We are bringing on stream extra beds in hotels and hospices, where people can be safely discharged once they are ready to leave hospital. We are putting in place new Nightingale surge hubs within hospital grounds to provide extra resilience should we need it. We are also making use of the independent sector: this week, we announced a new three-month agreement that will allow NHS trusts to send a wider range of patients, for example those in need of cancer care, to the independent sector for treatment.
These measures, taken together, are our insurance policy, helping us to plan for the worst while we hope for the best. As with any insurance policy, we hope that we will not need to use it, but it is the role of any responsible Government to prepare for all reasonable outcomes so that we can keep this country safe and protect the progress that we have made.
Finally, I have always said to the House that any curbs on our freedoms must be an absolute last resort and we should not keep them in place for a day longer than absolutely necessary. With that in mind, we have been reviewing the isolation period for positive cases to make sure that the measures we have in place maximise activity in the economy and education, and minimise the risk of infectious people leaving isolation. UKHSA data shows that about two thirds of positive cases are no longer infectious by the end of day five, and we want to use the testing capacity we have built up to help these people leave isolation safely. After reviewing all the evidence, we have made the decision to reduce the minimum self-isolation period to five full days in England. From Monday, people can test twice before they go, leaving isolation at the start of day six. Those two tests are critical to these balanced and proportionate plans, and I urge everyone to take advantage of the capacity we have built up in tests so that we can restore the freedoms to this country, while we are keeping everyone safe.
We have now entered the third year of this country’s fight against covid-19. Thanks to an incredible national endeavour, we are now better protected than ever before. But this virus is not going away; there will be more variants, and no one can be sure what threat they might pose. But we can be sure that our pharmaceutical defences—vaccines, testing and antivirals—are the best way to protect our health and our freedoms as we learn to live with covid. I commend this statement to the House.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. I also pay tribute to Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam, who has provided outstanding public service throughout the pandemic. It was not the government resignation we were looking for, but the timing brought to mind the now infamous and deleted tweet from the UK Civil Service:
“Can you imagine having to work with these truth twisters?”
JVT already has a knighthood, but working with the Prime Minister he must have the patience of a saint. On behalf of the whole Labour party, we thank him for his service and wish him well for the future. He is truly a national treasure.
We welcome the announcement the Secretary of State has made on the reduction of the covid isolation period to five days, on condition that two negative tests are produced. So let us hope that he sorts out testing. Before Christmas, he told us that there were no issues with supply, but over Christmas NHS staff and other key workers were unable to access tests because the Government had not noticed that the deliverers had shut up shop for Christmas. Workforce shortages are one of the biggest challenges facing the NHS and the wider economy during the current wave of the omicron variant. This measure will help people get back to work faster and safely, which is great news for the Prime Minister, who, through a terribly unfortunate coincidence of timing, is isolating today, unable to face the cameras or the public. How good of the Secretary of State to help the Prime Minister back to work in time to face the music again at Prime Minister’s questions next week—the Leader of the Opposition looks forward to seeing him.
But what took the Secretary of State so long? Is it really because the Government had misread the policy of the Biden Administration? How many days does the Secretary of State think the NHS has lost and the economy has lost because they could not read the policy being used in the US? The Secretary of State has been briefing that it is UKHSA’s fault—how brave of him to blame officials. But the CDC—Centres for Disease Control and Prevention—advice to the Biden Administration is open access and available on its website. Did he not read it? Doesn’t anyone in this Government take responsibility any more—or is “blame the staff” now the essence of the ministerial code?
We are not out of the woods with covid-19 yet. We hope that the omicron variant has passed its peak in London, but we know it is yet to peak across vast swathes of England and that NHS services are under enormous pressure. Today, we learned that NHS waiting lists were at an historic 6 million before the omicron wave arrived. Twenty-four hours in A&E is not just a television programme; it is the grim experience of patients in too many cases. Week after week, we see more evidence of unacceptable delays for patients.
Now we know that the Government are lowering standards and normalising longer waits in the NHS: 12 hours to be seen in A&E, two years for referral to treatment and an hour just to be transferred from an ambulance into hospital—assuming someone can get an ambulance and has not been told to phone a friend or call a cab if they are suffering from a stroke or suspected heart attack, as has happened in at least one trust in the north-east of England. Does the Secretary of State really believe those waits are acceptable, or is it just the case with this Government that when they break the rules, they change the rules?
The Secretary of State will want to blame pandemic pressures alone, but we went into the pandemic with NHS waiting lists already at a record high of 4.5 million, staff shortages at 100,000 and social care vacancies at 112,000. Patients are paying a heavy price with delays, and the country has paid a greater price with lockdowns, because a decade of Tory policies left the NHS without the capacity and resilience to withstand the annual pressures of winter, let alone the unique pressures of a global pandemic. Where is the workforce strategy for the recovery? Where is the elective care recovery plan? Where is the sign that this Government have any understanding of the responsibility they bear for the crisis, let alone a plan to fix it for the future?
Finally, can I ask what on earth the Secretary of State thought he was doing yesterday when he leapt to the Prime Minister’s defence? His first duty is to public health. He also has a duty to the health and social care workforce. If doctors and nurses had brought their own booze to work, they would have been fired. The Prime Minister has undermined trust and confidence at a critical moment in the pandemic. Who is he to ask others to do the right thing when he does not practise what he preaches?
In conclusion, the Secretary of State has a duty to inoculate the Government’s pandemic response from a toxic, radioactive Prime Minister. The public have concluded that the Prime Minister is unfit for office. The Secretary of State needs to be careful in his defence that they do not draw the same conclusion about him.
Sajid Javid
First, I notice that the hon. Gentleman did not mention the huge increase in booster vaccinations in this country since he last stood at the Dispatch Box facing me. He just heard me say it, so he knows we are the most boosted country in Europe and the most boosted of any large country. He knows how much that has helped, yet there was not one word of thanks from him to the NHS, the volunteers, the military and everyone who helped to do that. There was not one word of thanks from the hon. Gentleman. It will be noted by the British public. I did notice, though—[Interruption.] Would the hon. Gentleman like to return to the Dispatch Box? I will sit down.
Wes Streeting
I am not sure that is in order, but what I said from a sedentary position is that the Prime Minister is not fit to lick the boots of NHS staff in this country.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. We will not have that again, please. No interventions like that, please.
Sajid Javid
Again, the hon. Gentleman had another fresh opportunity to thank the NHS staff for the enormous work they have been doing not just throughout the pandemic but in December, and especially for everything they have done to boost so many people, but there was not one word of thanks from him.
I was pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman welcome the new self-isolation policy. He asked whether enough tests are available. He might have heard me say earlier that we have quadrupled the number of lateral flow tests available this month to approximately 400 million, which is more than four times the original pre-omicron plan. I was confused by his response to that, because he seemed to be suggesting that we should be subcontracting our covid policy to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. If I heard him correctly, he was suggesting that just because another country—in this case, the US—has changed its policy, we should automatically follow suit and do what it does.
We have just taken back control from the EU. We have just left the European Medicines Agency, and here the hon. Gentleman is, just months later, suggesting we subcontract our policy to another state. That tells us all we need to know about the Labour party’s approach. He suggests we take the same approach as the US, and he of all people should know that while the US might have an isolation period of five days, they have no testing. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman heard me earlier, but let me remind him: the UK Health Security Agency data shows that approximately 30% of people are still infectious at the end of day 5. That is why we require two tests.
The hon. Gentleman was suggesting that we should have the same policy as the US, which requires no testing, and for everyone to leave isolation at day 5, regardless of whether they have tested or not, and wear a face mask for the last five days. The hon. Gentleman has to decide whether he wants these decisions to be made here in the UK, based on expert UK advice from some of the best advisers anywhere across the world, or to subcontract them to another state.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman talked about the NHS and capacity. He will know that as a result of the omicron emergency, it has sadly been necessary for the NHS to make changes. Of course that has had an impact on electives. The most urgent electives such as cancer care will be protected, and he heard me talk earlier about the deal that has been done at least for the next three months with the independent sector. I hope he supports that and the measures that the NHS is taking to protect capacity.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
I welcome today’s announcement. We have one of the best vaccine programmes in the world and as a result we can look forward to a time of living with covid with justified confidence. This is a very important step forward.
As the Secretary of State knows, last week the Health and Social Care Committee published a report on what is going to happen now that the NHS is starting to think about tackling the covid backlog. We said that we were worried that that would be derailed by a workforce crisis, with shortages in nearly every speciality throughout the NHS. When is the covid backlog plan going to be published? Will it have details about what is going to happen in areas such as emergency care and general practice social care, all of which have a direct impact on the ability of the elective care programme to deliver? Will it deal with what the Health Foundation says is a shortage of 4,000 doctors and nearly 19,000 nurses who will be necessary for that elective recovery programme? Finally, when is he going to publish the workforce strategy? Will that have independently verified assurance that we are training enough doctors and nurses for the future?
Sajid Javid
First, I thank my right hon. Friend for his support for the changes that the Government have announced today. He is right to raise the importance of the workforce, especially when it comes to dealing with the backlog. He may know that since September 2020, 20,000 more clinicians have been working throughout the NHS, but we do need to plan properly for the NHS workforce in the long term. The Government are working on a workforce strategy and I look forward to discussing that with him and the members of the Committee that he so expertly chairs in due course.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
In response to the news that all Tory MSPs and the leader of the Tories in Scotland have called for the Prime Minister’s resignation following his covid-rule-breaking party, the Tory Leader of the House resorted to personal attacks. Does the Secretary of State for Health think that attacks from members of his Government on those who criticise covid lockdown regulation violations is conducive to encouraging public compliance with covid restrictions—with all the implications that that has for the NHS and staff, who are already under enormous pressure?
If the Prime Minister cannot or will not follow his own rules, why does the Health Secretary think he can possibly continue to argue that the public should follow them? Is not the Prime Minister’s credibility on regulating and issuing public health instructions, as we continue to face covid restrictions, in tatters? The longer the Secretary of State supports the Prime Minister’s breach of these regulations, the longer his own credibility will suffer. Does he truly and sincerely think that the Prime Minister is the best person within his party’s ranks to lead the UK Government’s ongoing battle with covid?
Sajid Javid
The Prime Minister stood at the Dispatch Box yesterday and apologised; he set that out very clearly from this Dispatch Box. As he said, and as I think most people have accepted, it is right to wait for the completion of the investigation by Sue Gray.
Greg Clark (Tunbridge Wells) (Con)
I join the Secretary of State in his tribute to Professor Jonathan Van-Tam for his remarkable public service, and I welcome the announcements that he has made today. Restrictions have an impact beyond covid, and we should be as responsive in lifting them as we are in imposing them. Given the news he has given us today that over 91% of over-50s have been boosted, can he confirm that we are on track to lift the plan B restrictions when they expire on 26 January, and will he include in that the advice on face masks in classrooms, for which a particularly weak evidence base was published?
Sajid Javid
I thank my right hon. Friend for his support for these new measures. He speaks with considerable experience. He is absolutely right to talk about the impact of restrictions beyond health. He has heard me, and other members of the Government, say before that no restrictions—none at all—should be in place for a moment longer than is absolutely necessary. He will know that the plan B restrictions, unless this House were to decide otherwise, will sunset on 26 January. On what happens next in terms of the Government’s own view, we will set that out as soon as we can.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State talks about the importance of having insurance policies, and in managing risk as he is, that is of course the proper thing to do. However, on Friday, he issued a ministerial direction to the NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, to authorise the use, as he touched on his statement, of private sector providers, and this is at a very high cost. It requires a minimum income guarantee for those private hospitals of between £75 million and £90 million a month, and if the surge requirement is used, that could rise to £175 million a month, as the chief executive sets out in her letter requesting the direction. Where is that money going to come from, and why, at this stage of the pandemic, are we still being held over a barrel, as the taxpayer, by the private sector? Could not the Secretary of State at least have negotiated a better deal?
Sajid Javid
The deal that the hon. Lady refers to was negotiated by the NHS, and I think it has done an excellent job in its negotiations. It is also absolutely right for the chief executive of the NHS to write to the Government—to write to me—to request such a direction, because the NHS’s job is obviously running the NHS, but the Government’s job is to think beyond the NHS and the impact of covid beyond just health. The hon. Lady should know by now that the more capacity we have in the NHS, the less need there is for restrictions. What I can say for sure is that had we not taken out this insurance policy with the independent sector and got this extra capacity, she would be one of the first to stand up in this House asking us why we did not work with the independent sector.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement about reducing the self-isolation period. I have a number of constituents who have not seen their relatives in care homes for a considerable time. A member of my own family can have one visitor but has been confined to her small room for coming up to five weeks now because every time there is a case anywhere, everybody is kept in their rooms and cannot go in the garden or the communal areas. Will my right hon. Friend look at these guidelines again, because of course we want to protect care home residents, but the way they are being implemented is having a considerable impact on those people’s physical and mental health?
Sajid Javid
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this most important of issues. In the way he phrased his question, he reflects just how difficult it is to strike the right balance in care homes between protecting the residents but also making sure that they can get the visits that are so important for them. The approach that we have taken in England is different from that in other parts of the country. We do allow more visitors. We are supplying a record number of tests to care homes, not only for the residents but for the staff. For the reasons that he has so clearly laid out, we keep this under review and will remove restrictions as soon as it is safe to do so.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement, particularly his reference to cancer patients and his commitment to apply the latest technology. May I respectfully draw his attention to yesterday’s excellent debate in Westminster Hall about access to radiotherapy services? In particular, I draw his attention to the fact that modern radiotherapy is extremely precise, cost-effective and non-invasive, and it does not affect the immune system. Can I urge the Secretary of State to provide the required additional resources needed to modernise radiotherapy services throughout the UK and to catch up with cancer?
Sajid Javid
I very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman has shared with the House. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend that debate, but the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) did, and she will also be meeting the all-party parliamentary group on radiotherapy and listening more. I know the hon. Gentleman agrees with me that it has been absolutely right during this very difficult time for the NHS to direct more resources especially to looking after more covid patients and to the booster programme, but it has also been right to protect cancer care.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
As the world improves with the vaccine programme that we have had and continue to have, which has been brilliant in this country, could I ask the Secretary of State to urge doctors who are not on the covid frontline to actually see their patients face to face again, because doctors in hospitals and GPs are still not doing this fully and people’s problems are being missed?
There is also a problem as the world opens up that if someone who has had covid needs to travel, they cannot take a PCR test because that shows they are positive even though they may have long since had it—they are not positive for covid any more, but it still shows positive on a PCR test—and they cannot prove to the country they are going to, and many people are wanting to travel more now, that they do not have covid, so people can actually be stuck for 90 days during which they cannot go out of this country to any country that requires a negative PCR test because they cannot get one.
Sajid Javid
First, I agree with my hon. Friend about the points she has made on these issues. On her final point about travelling, as she has seen just in the last few days, the UK Government keep our travel rules under constant review. The moment we have been able to safely remove any of those rules based on the evidence, we have done so, and I know my hon. Friend has respected that. When it comes to the rules of other countries for British citizens wishing to travel for holiday, business or otherwise, those are of course their rules. However, we are working at many levels—in my Department, the Department for Transport, the Foreign Office and others—with those countries to see how we can best co-ordinate on such rules.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I am delighted that JVT is returning to the University of Nottingham, but I am worried about what he will hear from local clinicians. This week, I received an email from a doctor working in our local NHS. She says:
“I am crying as I write this. For years now the talk has been that the NHS is ‘at breaking point’. Well that point has passed. We are broken. We are on our knees.”
Of course, covid has taken a huge toll on staff, but we went into the pandemic with huge waiting lists and chronic staff shortages as a direct result of under-investment and mismanagement over the previous decade. Has not the right hon. Gentleman’s party failed my constituent and her NHS colleagues?
Sajid Javid
As I have mentioned, JVT’s move is the country’s loss, but Nottingham’s gain, and I am glad that the hon. Lady is delighted. On investment in the NHS, she will know that, even before covid-19, the Government had already set out, in the long-term plan for investment in the NHS, the extra £30 billion going into the NHS by the end of that period, with huge investment in areas such as cancer care, mental health care and electives. Then during the crisis, which has of course been very challenging for our health and care services, as it has been across the world, we have set out over £40 billion of extra investment, including this year, to help us get through this crisis.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I welcome the change in the self-isolation rules that the Secretary of State set out. It is a good indication that the Government can be flexible on policy, so let me have another go on the subject I raised yesterday. My right hon. Friend heard the exchange I had with the Vaccines Minister. She agreed with me from the Dispatch Box that persuasion was the best and right way to get health and social care workers to be vaccinated. However, telling a health and social care worker that they will be sacked if they do not get vaccinated is not persuasion, but coercion. Will my right hon. Friend reflect on whether it is sensible on 1 April to continue to try to implement a policy that, according to the Government’s estimates, will mean 73,000 NHS staff and 38,000 domiciliary care workers losing their jobs? When a policy is not working, it is right to ditch it, isn’t it?
Sajid Javid
First, I commend my right hon. Friend for the scrutiny that he has constantly provided of the Government’s covid policy. He did that long before I was Secretary of State and I am pleased that he has continued to provide that scrutiny, which is very valuable. It is most valuable to me when he supports the policy, as he did on self-isolation today, but it is still valuable when he challenges the Government to think again about policy. That is very important. I addressed the policy he raised of the vaccine as a condition of deployment in the health and social care sector a bit in my statement. He will have heard that we are committed to it, but that is because it is right that, in those settings where there are people who are more vulnerable than others, they are put first. We know that vaccines limit transmission and that as a result it is safer for patients if the individuals who provide that care—the health and care workers—are vaccinated. The policy is about putting patients first, was voted for by the House with an overwhelming majority, and the Government intend to implement it.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State put a lot of emphasis on testing in his statement. Inspired Outsourcing in my constituency would agree with him. It provides contact centre services, and some of its workers are key workers so cannot work from home. It has been using twice-weekly testing to keep its workers safe, but has run out of tests. It cannot get hold of any tests apart from by paying what would effectively be £2,000 a month to a private provider recommended on the Government’s website. Does the Secretary of State believe that small businesses such as Inspired Outsourcing should have access to free lateral flow tests? How can it get hold of those tests today in Newcastle, because that is what it needs to keep its workers safe and provide protection to us all?
Sajid Javid
That is an important point. When the country first discovered omicron, the tests that were in stock were not designed for another huge wave. However, the people who run testing at UKHSA responded very quickly by ordering almost any lateral flow tests that meet our standards that they could find. As I said in my statement, in December, we had 300 million as opposed to the 100 million that was originally planned and, in January, there will be four times the pre-plan amount. In answer to the hon. Lady’s specific question, whether for a workplace, for visiting a care home or other reasons, people will be able to get access to the lateral flow tests now that millions more have arrived in the country. They have been distributed and people can get them online or from pharmacies.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I am very grateful to the excellent Secretary of State for coming to the Dispatch Box yet again to update the House and particularly for making an announcement first in the House rather than to the media.
I wonder whether my right hon. Friend agrees with Lord Frost, who said:
“I would like to see the Government ruling out lockdowns for the future, repealing the legislation, ending them…We can’t afford it, it doesn’t work, stop doing Covid theatre—vaccine passports, masks, stuff that doesn’t work”.
Sajid Javid
I have huge respect for Lord Frost and for my hon. Friend, who has just shared some important points. No one wants to see this country go back into anything resembling a lockdown. As he will have heard earlier, while we have had to put some restrictions—the so-called plan B—in place over the past few weeks, I hope he will agree that, when we reflect on those restrictions and compare them with other countries in Europe, large or small, we are the freest country in Europe. The reason for that is the pharmaceutical defences that I talked about earlier: we are the most boosted large country in Europe, with the most antivirals per head and the most testing. That is what we should focus on for the future as we learn to live with covid.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I want to press the Secretary of State on the morale of our NHS and social care workforce. He will know that, between March 2020 and May 2021, 1,561 NHS and social care staff died from covid while working on the frontline. That is part of the reason I am campaigning for an NHS and social care covenant, just as we have for the armed forces and the police. What does he have to say to those key workers who saw colleagues die while the Prime Minister was at the law-breaking works party on 20 May?
Sajid Javid
The right hon. Lady is right to raise the importance of morale in the NHS. I know that, as I do and every Member of this House does, she will know full well the huge debt this country owes to everyone who has worked in the NHS and the care sector, especially over the past two years. She has talked about campaigning for an NHS covenant; I am not sure how much longer she needs to campaign, because I have already announced we are going to have one. I will be happy to work with her on how we could do that, but she can desist from her campaign and put her efforts into working with me to help to introduce one. She will know that as Home Secretary I decided the police should have a covenant, so it is right that we recognise the NHS in that way too. As for the points she made about the Prime Minister, I refer her to the answer I gave a moment ago.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
As my right hon. Friend knows, despite my enormous respect for him, I voted against the introduction of covid passports before Christmas. I maintain my view that they are not effective. Will he please commit to dropping domestic certification at the earliest possible opportunity? Will he also make clear today from the Dispatch Box to NHS trusts up and down this country that he will not stand for the pandemic of arbitrary discrimination we are seeing against pregnant women and their partners, and parents who want to be with their children on paediatric wards but are being prevented by trusts in an illogical and unscientific manner from being with them to look after and advocate for them?
Sajid Javid
First, I agree with every word my hon. Friend says about pregnant women. That is a message that has been reinforced to every NHS trust. I thank her for how she has campaigned on this issue and brought it to light, because that is making a difference. On the issue she raised about domestic certification, I share her instinctive discomfort, and I assure her and the House that as far as I am concerned we will not be keeping domestic certification in place a moment longer than absolutely necessary.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
May I, from the Liberal Democrat Benches, also pay tribute to the services of Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam? The Government are still ignoring people who are clinically extremely vulnerable, and their concerns at the lack of guidance and support. I raised this with the Secretary of State before Christmas and I still have many of my Bath constituents writing in about it. Two thirds of housebound people have not received the booster. What are the Government doing to ensure that the vaccines are accessible to everybody, including the housebound?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady talks about ensuring everyone gets access to the booster. The people at the top of the list should be those who are clinically extremely vulnerable, as long as the vaccine is something that can work for them. That is why, during the month of December, especially when we accelerated the booster programme, working mainly with GPs but also with others, those who are housebound or are in care homes were a priority and we saw the booster rate rise substantially.
I also point the hon. Lady to what I said in my statement about the 1.3 million clinically extremely vulnerable. The NHS has contacted them directly to ensure that they have access to the new antivirals that we have procured. I am sure that she would welcome that.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement, which brings such positive news that will give confidence to individuals and businesses as they return to a more normal life as we learn to live with covid. My constituency has many, perhaps a higher proportion of, small self-employed businesses and they were absolutely terrified in the run-up to Christmas that we were looking at lockdowns and severe restrictions. I therefore thank him and the Prime Minister for the balanced, proportionate approach that the Government have taken in looking at how we move forward and for the steps they took during the Christmas period. May I seek assurances that that will continue to be the way?
Sajid Javid
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and support for the changes that I have announced today. He is right to point to a key difference in our approach during the omicron wave compared with any other country in Europe—and, I think, any other large country. It is not by accident that we have been the most open and freest country in Europe; it is by design. It is because we have rightly focused on the booster programme, with 79% of eligible adults boosted—the most boosted country in Europe. We have more antivirals per head than any other country in Europe. We are testing more than any other country in Europe. It is those pharmaceutical defences that will allow us to live with covid, to keep businesses open, to protect the life chances of our young people and to keep our country open and free, just as he wants to see.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I am sure that the Secretary of State will want to join me in paying tribute to the staff at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board for their work on the booster programme. He will know that statistics show that Wales is joint first in Europe—we are actually ahead of the UK average—on delivery of boosters, which can only be a good thing for our population. Will he say a little about what the JCVI is discussing and what his view is on further boosters for people who are older and more vulnerable and the immunosuppressed, and the use of polyvalent vaccines going forward? As we open up further, people will be deeply worried about that, particularly with waning boosters. Will he talk a little about the plans for further jabs for the most vulnerable?
Sajid Javid
I join the hon. Gentleman in commending Wales for the roll-out of its booster programme. In fact, in Scotland, Northern Ireland and every part of the UK we have seen a very good, positive approach that is protecting more and more people. In terms of the JCVI, I point him to two recent announcements that he may be aware of. First, just before the Christmas break, the JCVI recommended to the Government that at-risk five to 11-year-olds be offered the paediatric vaccine. I have accepted that and that will start this month; I believe that that will start across the UK, including Wales. Secondly, we received another recommendation, I think at the end of last week. After looking carefully at the very latest evidence—some of the evidence from the UKHSA that I referenced in my statement—the JCVI decided that we should not offer a fourth dose to over-85s, or others at risk at this point. It was comfortable that the protection that is provided—it looked at waning protection—was still incredibly strong for older people.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
I add to the chorus of approval for the decision to reduce self-isolation to five days. But can my right hon. Friend ensure that the NHS covid-19 app and the Government website are updated as soon as possible to avoid the confusion that seemed to exist around the reduction to seven-day isolation, so that people fully understand their obligations, when their isolation starts and when it can finish?
Sajid Javid
I thank my hon. Friend for his support. I will ensure that the website is updated in the way he suggests as soon as possible.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
Recent data suggest that just 4% of teachers say that readings on classroom carbon dioxide monitors are above the safe threshold set by the Department for Education. The Secretary of State will be aware that ventilation is becoming a massive challenge in schools, and in primary schools in particular. What conversations is he having with his colleagues at the Department for Education to ensure that children can continue to learn in classrooms, but can do so as safely as possible, protecting them and the wider community?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Lady raises an important issue: ensuring we do all we can as a Government to work with schools to protect schoolchildren so they can stay in school. No one wants to see what happened before with the lockdowns and children not being able to attend school in the usual way. That is why I hope she welcomes the recent announcement by my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary on a huge new investment in ventilation. My right hon. Friend takes this issue incredibly seriously, working with schools up and down the country, and seeing what more can be done.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Implicit in my right hon. Friend’s statement was the concept that we will all be held back by the decisions of the unvaccinated. If I may say so, he used some quite heavy language to bring pressure to bear on the unvaccinated, talking about standing on people’s shoulders and so on. Would it not be better, rather than creating what seem to me to be the conditions for coercion and division, to say to the unvaccinated, “You’ve made your choice to take a greater risk and we are not going to be held back as a society by your choices. You will have to bear the consequences”? Would that not be a more consistent and humane way to deal with them, and to deal with us all, without creating division?
Sajid Javid
First, may I take this opportunity to thank my hon. Friend for the scrutiny he provides? As always, he makes important points that are worth discussing. He is right about the language I used earlier, because it is factually correct to say that. The reason this country is as free as it is now is the decision that nine out of 10 people have made to get vaccinated. Those people who decided not to be vaccinated when they could have been, because they are not medically exempt, for example, made a choice and that has consequences. It does not just have consequences for them; it has consequences for all of us.
My hon. Friend might be interested to know that when I visited the ICU ward looking after covid patients in King’s College Hospital in London last week, I was told by the consultant in charge that they estimate that 70% of patients in the ICU ward are unvaccinated. If those people had got vaccinated, they would not only have been safer, but space in hospitals, and not just in ICU wards, could have been used for others. There are 17,000 covid-positive patients in our hospitals. That could have been prevented if those who were unvaccinated or who decided not to take their booster shot had actually bothered to have their vaccination. Yes, getting vaccinated needs to be a positive choice: we need to encourage people and, with the exception of the health and social care high-risk settings, it should not be done by compulsion. I do not believe in that. I do not think it would work and I think it is unethical, but the people who have chosen not to get vaccinated should understand the consequences of their decision for the rest of society.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Following on from that, I pay tribute to all NHS and care staff. We are 17 days away from the first deadline, when NHS and care staff will need to get their first vaccine if they are to be fully vaccinated by the deadline of 1 April. What we did not hear in the Secretary of State’s statement is anything about a long-term strategy for staffing in our NHS to deal with the current vacancies and, unfortunately, those that will come about as a result of the 1 April deadline. Where is the long-term plan that NHS managers are crying out for, and where are we going to get qualified staff from in future?
Sajid Javid
I hope that the hon. Gentleman heard my earlier comments about the importance of making sure that patients are as safe as possible in health and care settings; I hope that he agrees and therefore understands the new vaccination rules to whose importance he refers.
The hon. Gentleman is right to ask about the planning necessary to cope with the changes. I can reassure him that even before Parliament voted on them, the NHS had started planning in anticipation of its decision. It is working with each and every trust, but is rightly putting in most effort into convincing the 6% of people in NHS trusts who have not yet had a first dose of the covid-19 vaccine to do so. It is working to convince them in a positive way to make that positive choice, with all the information that they need about the vaccines being safe and effective. It is offering them meetings with clinicians, including one-on-one meetings. I hope that the hon. Gentleman supports that approach.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I very much welcome the reduction of the self-isolation time to five days, which will be appreciated by the hospitality industry, particularly in Bournemouth. I am proud to say that I am a vaccinator in Bournemouth and that tomorrow I will be doing my duty along with thousands of others across the country. It is a critical job if we are to tackle covid-19 and a rewarding one.
The Secretary of State will be aware from his visits that the atmosphere in the temporary hubs is extremely professional but can also be quite quiet and sombre. Will he look at whether the licensing conditions for radio can be lifted? Maybe he could speak to the BBC, Classic FM or Virgin Radio—Chris Evans might even be listening to our debate today. I hope the Secretary of State agrees that radio would help to lift spirits as we go about this important national effort.
Sajid Javid
I thank my right hon. Friend for his support for today’s measures and for being a volunteer vaccinator. People like him up and down the country have come forward in their thousands, especially in the past few weeks as we have made the call for the booster programme. Those volunteers are working alongside the NHS, helped by the soldiers and the military, with whom my right hon. Friend also has direct experience.
I listened carefully to my right hon. Friend’s suggestion, which I think is a very good one. It is not something that I had given any thought to, but I think it is absolutely right that we contact those organisations and see whether they would like to be helpful to our army of vaccinators across the country. It is a very good suggestion; I thank him for it, and we shall try our best to act on it.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call the incredibly patient Matt Western.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I add my voice to the congratulations to Jonathan Van-Tam and all those across our universities and science sectors who have contributed so much. I hope that others will be similarly rewarded.
The Secretary of State is aware of the shortage of testing kits. He mentioned in his statement that the 120 million have now increased to 300 million. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester South (Jonathan Ashworth) said, the Opposition are desperately keen for businesses to stay open and for young people to remain in education. I am aware that there are separate supply lines to universities for testing, but there is concern about supply in future weeks. Can the Secretary of State confirm—guarantee, perhaps—that in the coming weeks there will be no issue with the supply of testing kits to our higher education sector?
Sajid Javid
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to thank not just JVT for his service, but those across our academic sector who have supported the Government, people and the NHS throughout the pandemic. I am privileged to work not just with JVT, but with so many of them, and I see every day the value they add and how they are helping us all to get through the pandemic.
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of testing. It is not 300 million; the 300 million lateral flow tests were in December, but for the month of January we have planned at least 400 million, which is four times as many as in the original pre-omicron plan. That makes us confident that we have the lateral flow tests we need. The university sector and the education sector more broadly, including schools and colleges, rightly have a separate supply line. It is still run through my Department, but we work very closely with the Department for Education to make sure that the sector has the supply that it needs.
Mr Deputy Speaker
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and for responding to questions for an hour.
Points of Order
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. An email from Mr Speaker has just arrived in our offices. I understand the key issue is that he has been contacted by MI5, and is now warning Members of Parliament that an agent of the Chinese Government has been active here in Parliament—working with a Member of Parliament—obviously to subvert the processes here. As a Member of Parliament who was sanctioned by the Chinese Government, as others were, this is a matter of grave concern to me. I therefore rise to make three important points.
First, will this now lead to a serious overhaul of the accreditation procedures here in the House of Commons? They are clearly too slack if these people get in, either through all-party parliamentary groups or with individuals.
Is it possible that we will have a statement from Mr Speaker, from the Chair, about the risks? I am one of those who has done a lot to try to help Hong Kong Chinese who are fleeing the Communist regime. We have the names and numbers of people here in the UK, which leaves me worrying that some of them have been accessed by such an individual. That would put their lives and families at risk, and I am deeply concerned, because my activities may well have been traced, as well as those of my colleagues and friends.
I understand the latest news is that this individual is not to be deported and no further action is to be taken. How can a foreign, despotic and despicable power, which is hellbent on reducing many people to penury, put somebody into this mother of Parliaments and that individual have nothing done to them other than not being allowed into Parliament? That is surely not good enough. Could there be a statement from the Government on what they plan to do and, with respect, a statement from Mr Speaker from the Chair?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for giving me forward notice of it. As he knows, it is not the policy of the Chair to comment in detail on any security matters, and I will certainly not be doing so today. As for any statement either from the Chair or, indeed, from a Minister, I have been given no notification whatsoever. Should that change, I am certain that Members will be notified in the usual way.
On the third point, we do not discuss the detail of security issues on the Floor of the House. However, I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the House authorities are in regular contact with the appropriate Government agencies on this matter, and we will update our advice and activities as necessary.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for his point of order.
There is such danger and concern for us in the House. Mr Deputy Speaker, have you had the opportunity to find out whether knowledge of the integration of a Chinese spy in this House has been conveyed to other Administrations in the United Kingdom, including the Northern Ireland Assembly? The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that we are accepting people from Hong Kong, and Northern Ireland will be doing so, too. I want to make sure that people are safe. With that in mind, have you or the House been made aware that the Northern Ireland Assembly, for instance, has been made aware of this matter?
Mr Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I have not been made aware of how this information has been disseminated, other than the email that Sir Iain Duncan Smith has just spoken about. I am absolutely certain that all parts of the United Kingdom will be made aware in the dialogue that takes place between the devolved Administrations and the Government.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. This is the sort of grey-zone interference we now anticipate and expect from China but, given the fact that it has happened to this Parliament, there must be a sense of urgency from the Government. Having heard your comments today, I am grateful that you are taking this matter very seriously indeed, but could I encourage and endorse the request for a statement on this before the close of play today, so that we can understand its ramifications and impact and what the Government and, indeed, Parliament intend to do about it?
Mr Deputy Speaker
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. The Treasury Bench will have heard what he has had to say. As I said earlier, should a statement be made, the House will be informed in the usual manner. I know that all right hon. and hon. Members will be very concerned about the content of the email, and I am sure the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) will pass on to the relevant Ministers the comments she has heard today from the Treasury Bench.
Smart Motorways
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Transport Committee
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I will remind Members of the procedure for Select Committee statements, because it is still fairly new. The Chair of the Transport Committee, Huw Merriman, will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of the statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement and call Mr Merriman to respond to those in turn. Members can expect to be called only once. Interventions should be questions and should be brief. Front Benchers may take part in the questioning.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I am very pleased to be able to make this statement, and not just to commend a set of recommendations from the Transport Committee to the House, but to welcome the acceptance of every one of them by the Government. In so doing, I would like to thank my predecessors as Chair of the Committee. Back in 2016, when I was a member of the Committee, the then Chair, Dame Louise Ellman, made a series of recommendations that were not accepted by the Government. Those calls were correct back in 2016, and if they had been accepted, I contend, we would have been in a better place. In 2019 my predecessor as Chair, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), continued to shine a light on some of the failings of smart motorways. These recommendations are therefore the result of the endeavours of three successive Transport Committees. I would like to thank not only the Chairs, but the members and staff of the Committee, for their tireless work and commitment over the past six years—I see that my Committee Clerk is at the Table, keeping a watchful eye.
By way of explanation, all smart motorways have design and technology that helps to control the flow and behaviour of traffic, but there are three types that differ in how they treat the hard shoulder. First, all lane running motorways do not have a hard shoulder at all but rely on a series of emergency refuge areas for stranded motorists. In 2019 there were 141 miles of all lane running motorway, with a fatality rate, measured from 2015 to 2019 per 100 million vehicle miles, of 0.12%. Secondly, controlled motorways have a permanent hard shoulder. In 2019 they accounted for 141 miles, with a fatality rate of 0.07%. Thirdly, there are dynamic hard shoulder motorways, where the hard shoulder is switched to a lane at busy times of day. In 2019 there were 63 miles of this design, with a fatality rate of 0.09%. The remaining 1,500 miles or so of conventional motorway has a hard shoulder but no smart design. It has a fatality rate of 0.16%.
The data between 2015 and 2019 therefore suggests that smart motorways have lower fatality rates than conventional motorways. However, taking 2019 on its own, when more smart motorways had been rolled out, shows that the reverse is true. Of the three smart motorway designs, all lane running had the highest fatality rate.
The Committee launched its inquiry in February last year and reported in November. The Government shared their response with the Committee this week. In the response, the Government agreed to the following key recommendations. First, to pause the roll-out of all-lane running motorways yet to commence construction until five years of data is available for those built before 2020. Secondly, to pause the conversion of dynamic hard shoulder motorways to all-lane running motorways and revisit the case for controlled motorways.
Thirdly, to retrofit emergency refuge areas to existing all-lane running motorways to make them no further than 1 mile apart—the Government have announced £390 million of funding for this. Fourthly, to grant powers to the Office of Rail and Road, the roads regulator, to evaluate the Government smart motorways project plan. Starting this year, the regulator will report on progress annually and carry out an evaluation of stopped vehicle detection technology and other safety measures.
Fifthly, to introduce an emergency corridor manoeuvre into the highway code to help emergency services and traffic patrol officers to assess incidents, subject to consultation. Sixthly, to investigate the granting of new road safety powers to the roads regulator before changes to design or operational standards are implemented on our motorways and key roads. Finally, to revisit the entire business case and rationale for smart motorway conversion.
The headline is, of course, the pausing of new smart motorways, but during this time, the Government and National Highways will not just be evaluating whether smart motorways are safe enough to meet our high standards, but, for the 141 miles that are all lane running, be retrofitting emergency refuge areas, stopped vehicle detection technology, and CCTV technology to make these smart motorways safer than they are at present.
It is on this retrofitting exercise that I wish to reflect, and I suggest that the lesson must be learned. In the six years that I have been following this project, I have been struck by the focus on creating capacity in the motorway network. That is understandable. Traffic on the strategic road network is projected to increase by up to two thirds over the next 30 years. Ministers and National Highways have argued that a failure to deliver extra capacity, such as can be done via removing the hard shoulder, would cause congestion that could ultimately cause drivers to switch from motorways on to less safe local roads.
However, there is another set of targets and statistics that needs more focus. National Highways has a target of zero harm, by which it aims to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on the strategic road network to a level approaching zero by 2040. As part of that commitment, there is a target to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on the road network by 50% in 2025, compared with the baseline figure of 2005 to 2009. I see conflicts in this target, just as I saw flaws in the roll-out of smart motorways. Let me give a couple of examples.
First, back in 2016, the Committee was assured that stopped vehicle detection technology would be fitted going forward. By 2019, only 18% of all lanes running motorways had this incorporated. Secondly, we recommended that smart motorways should adopt the specification used in the M42 pilot, with emergency refuge areas every 500 metres. However, these are now typically spaced every 2.5 km on all lane running motorways. It therefore comes as no surprise that 40% of all breakdowns on those motorways occur on a live lane, because at 2.5 km intervals, it takes 75 seconds to reach an emergency refuge area driving at 60 miles an hour, versus the 30 seconds it would have taken had our spacing recommendation been followed. It also follows that, on average, it takes 17 minutes to reach a motorist stranded on a live lane. It comes as little surprise, therefore, that 79% of drivers interviewed by the RAC are concerned that they would not reach such a refuge area.
The upshot is that, instead of drivers using less congested smart motorways and coming off more dangerous local roads, we are faced with the opposite—drivers not feeling safe using smart motorways and moving on to those less safe local roads. This could have been avoided had equal emphasis been placed on safety technology. Instead, the roads were reopened before such measures had been completed. When the Committee put this to the chief executive of the agency in 2019, he maintained that drivers wanted to try the road once the tarmac had been delivered. This culture of capacity first and safety mitigation later needs to be eradicated. I believe that it will be, and I welcome the response of the current chief executive of the agency to our report. He could have been very defensive. Instead, he assured the Committee in his response that he would take on board the recommendations.
I recognise that, for some, this report and its recommendations do not go far enough. Some would like to see the hard shoulder brought back immediately. To those I have this to say. First, hard shoulders also kill. This is why it can be argued that all lane running motorways have a lower fatality rate than conventional motorways with a hard shoulder. Secondly, the new lane of a smart motorway cannot be just turned back to the hard shoulder without substantial engineering works. This would take years. Thirdly, closing the motorway could cause chaos on local roads where the fatality rate is that much greater. However, with the commitment to revisit the business case and the safety performance over the coming years, this may be an action that is required in the years to come.
I can assure the House that the Transport Committee will continue to monitor the delivery of these recommendations. One of the less reported measures is the granting of powers to the Office of Rail and Road to give more independence. Currently, the regulator does not have the powers over road safety in the same way that it does over rail. Indeed, of the regulator’s 350 employees, only 19 focus on roads; the rest focus on rail. This balance will need to change, but I agree with the Government that we need to get the inclusion of regulation right. With every new road, there will be a danger. We cannot use this as a reason to halt road building.
I am delighted that the Government have accepted the Transport Committee’s recommendations. It demonstrates that Select Committees can not only scrutinise, but see reason and reasonable recommendations turned into policy. I thank the Secretary of State for Transport, the Roads Minister Baroness Vere, and the Minister who is here today—the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison)—for doing so. Thank you for allowing me to make this statement, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am happy to take questions from Members.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The Labour party has long warned about the serious flaws with smart motorways, but it is thanks to the dedication of bereaved families and the hon. Gentleman, the Chair of the Transport Committee, and his Committee that the roll-out has been paused at all. Does he share my assessment that alongside the botched roll-out, the failure to install critical technology, which can, for instance, identify stopped vehicles on smart motorways, is absolutely scandalous? Does he believe that lives have been lost as a result?
Huw Merriman
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his points and for being very kind about the work of the Committee. It has been a frustration for the Committee that, on matters such as stopped vehicle detection technology, assurances were given to the Committee in 2016 that those would be delivered but that did not occur. In my view, that is one of the greater failures. It also points to a defensive attitude and a culture of building first and implementing safety second. As he will know, it is very hard to implement that technology once a road is open.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I congratulate the Committee on its work and thank the Government for having listened to the recommendations so positively. Will my hon. Friend put a little more flesh on the statistics? Can he give us some actual figures—if not now, then subsequently—on what point-nought-nought-something per cent. means in actual lives lost? Do those statistics show any significant differences between hours during daylight and after dark?
Huw Merriman
I thank my right hon. Friend for his words. Like him, I think that the Government deserve a huge amount of credit for accepting all the recommendations. He will know from chairing a Select Committee that it can sometimes be disappointing to receive the responses, but this one was fantastic. He makes the correct point that this is all about the statistics. There is a perception that smart motorways are not safe, and we have to get that right, otherwise people will not use them. If we use the data from 2015 to 2019, we see that there is indeed a better fatality rate, at least. The serious collision rate is perhaps a little more patchy. If we then take 2019, we see that the reverse is true. For that reason, we called for a pause until we can get to the bottom of that.
My right hon. Friend asked about the statistical measure—for example, I referred to the 0.12% figure on all lane running motorways. It is measured per 100 million vehicle miles. It is important to recognise that this is on a proportionate basis. It does not compare a small amount of the network with a much larger one in terms of fatalities. I do not have the data on day and night, but I will write to him with that.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I commend the Chair, members and staff of the Transport Committee and, unusually from my lips, I also welcome the Government’s response in accepting its recommendations.
My question is about the promises that were made to install stopped vehicle detection technology on the existing stretches of smart motorways. I ask because, in 2019, only 18% of all lane running motorways had had stopped vehicle detection technology advanced cameras installed. The Transport Committee has now been told that this roll-out will not be complete until September 2022—that is six years behind schedule. What confidence can the Committee, the House and the general public have in the ability of National Highways—which many of us know as Highways England, as it was previously—to realistically deliver on this and other road safety improvements in future?
Huw Merriman
The hon. Gentleman—my friend—is right to praise the role of members of the Committee. He is a great one of us, and I thank him for everything he has done in this regard. He is also right to point out the target delivery date. That was one frustration that the Committee experienced. There had been a commitment to roll out the stopped vehicle detection technology for the whole of the existing network by 2023, but the date was then brought forward by a year, to 2022. That was regarded as a positive—which it is—but, as the hon. Gentleman will know, we had received a commitment that from 2016 onwards all new smart motorways would have that technology, so we regarded the date as not one year early, but six years late.
The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on that issue, because we understand—we will look into this further, as will the Office of Rail and Road—that once the road has been built, installing the technology when the lanes are running will be much more difficult, time-consuming and expensive than it would have been had it been done in the first place. I am also intrigued by the question of whether there is enough technology in place to be delivered, from a supply perspective. I think that the hon. Gentleman and I will work in the Committee to investigate that further.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend and his Committee on a superb report, and on persuading the Government to change their mind. The Committee is an exemplar of how a really effective Select Committee can persuade a Government to change their policy.
It seems to me that retrofitting emergency refuge areas is the most important way of addressing the safety of all lane running motorways. I welcome the Government’s commitment to spending £390 million on an extra 150 emergency areas—at just over £2.5 million a go—by 2025, but they have made no commitment to retrofitting the remainder, and are saying that that must be considered as part of road investment strategy 3. Is my hon. Friend as worried as I am that the Government might try to wriggle out of retrofitting the remainder after 2025?
Huw Merriman
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words. I agree with his first point, but I have learnt lessons from this as well. I have learnt, for instance, that the way to engage with Government is not only to scrutinise—which the Government would expect of those of us on the Back Benches—but to make the case with reason, and to work alongside them. I commend the Government in that regard, because previous Governments have perhaps been less willing to engage, and I believe there are Ministers in the Department for Transport who might have shared the concerns that my hon. Friend and I have had.
As for the point about emergency refuge areas, I share that concern, too. I believe that the spacing should be identical on every single stretch. If the £390 million does not cover that, more funding will be needed. What is key with smart motorways is a uniform set of rules that people understand so that they know they will able to reach an emergency bay. We will be keeping a careful eye on this to ensure that it is delivered, as it would have been already if the pilot had been followed. That is the frustrating aspect of the project: it has just slipped. Corners have been cut, and things have not been delivered. We will focus on that, and ensure that we hold the Government and, indeed, National Highways to account.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Gentleman and his Committee for the report. I, too, want to focus on refuges. It is great that the Government have adopted certain changes, but the proposal to reduce the spacing to 500 metres—which I believe was the original concept behind smart motorways—has apparently not been accepted. I assume that the Committee heard evidence from the RAC and the AA; I should like to know whether they recommended 500 metres, a mile or some other measure, and what the cost would be if the spacing were set at 500 metres throughout the network.
Huw Merriman
I thank the hon. Member. He has completely roasted me. My memory is that we did indeed take evidence to find out what the different bodies felt the best spacing would be, which is how we arrived at the “three quarters of a mile to a mile” recommendation. The Government have said that the three quarters of a mile should be introduced where it is possible, but one mile is probably their standard approach. As for the cost of returning to the original M62 pilot spacing, we will look into that and write to the hon. Member. This is something that we will have to do pursuant to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) about the costing of the Government’s £390 million commitment, but I will do the same calculation for the hon. Gentleman’s 500 metres.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I had a very sad constituency case in which a hard shoulder had been opened up because of congestion and a car broke down on it. Some of the people were able to leave the vehicle and go over the barrier, but there was a disabled person in the car. By the time someone in the control room had put the red x on, a heavy vehicle had ploughed into the car, killing that person. Does my hon. Friend know whether that situation has changed? Are there still motorways that rely on someone in a control room switching a button to put the x on, or do we have automatic detection on all motorways now?
Huw Merriman
My heart goes out not just to the family to whom my hon. Friend referred, but to all who lose their lives on the roads. In any event, where there is a hard shoulder, it is where one in 12 motorway deaths occur. To those who point out that we need a hard shoulder, I say that they are also dangerous.
My hon. Friend asked whether the technology is in place for automatic detection. No. That is what we need to see delivered by the end of this year, if that is to be. We also have to make sure that the CCTV operates. The Daily Mail highlighted that. It had somebody go under cover and work in the CCTV control rooms, and it was clear from the evidence that it was not being monitored.
By putting all that together in one package—the emergency refuge areas to ensure that people can get in faster; the stopped-vehicle detection technology, which means that the lane is closed within a minute; and the CCTV operation and proper staffing—we will make motorways even safer.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Further to the comment from the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), I have also had the opportunity to listen to a very distressing emergency call from a father panicking about where to pull over the car safely after breaking down on the motorway. I could hear the impact of another car hitting the car he was in with his children. I thank the Chair and the Select Committee for all that they have done, but I have grave concerns about the safety implications. Does the Committee believe that the emergency refuge area will address such dangers? As the roll-out has been paused for five years, has the Committee looked at what can be done in the interim period—in that five-year pause—to improve safety?
Huw Merriman
Again, I add my condolences to those whom the hon. Gentleman mentioned. The emergency refuge area, as I said, it is absolutely crucial. Statistically, if a car is travelling at 60 mph when it breaks down and the driver needs to get off, it will take 75 seconds under the 2.5 km spacing. If we were to bring that down to the 1 km mentioned, we would see it reduced to about 30 seconds. That could save lives, so I really believe that the emergency refuge area is absolutely crucial and integral.
The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on the pause and what it could mean for delivering the technology. Rather than just resting on our hands and looking at data, which is absolutely required, and then making a decision on whether to start building again, I hope that all the effort that was going to be put into building new smart motorways will now be put into retrofitting these safety measures. I assure him that, as a Committee, we will continue to monitor that.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I congratulate the Chairman of the Select Committee on how he has answered questions. He has made the point that even motorways with hard shoulders are dangerous. In my time, a third of the deaths on motorways were secondary deaths. If a running motorway stops running, the traffic jam goes backwards at 30 mph. People need to be aware of that, and they also need to be aware that if traffic is kept off motorways and put on other roads, the dangers are significantly greater than the difference between the different styles of motorways, with or without recessed emergency refuge areas. Will my hon. Friend emphasise to the Government that, as well as the pause, making sure that motorways attract as much traffic as possible should be a key Government priority?
Huw Merriman
I thank the Father of the House. He is right to focus on that. It is sometimes a very difficult discussion to have because we are talking about the economic case, but as he rightly says, motorways are the safest part of our road network, and getting more traffic on to the motorways saves lives. There is an economic case. It has been estimated that for every pound spent, £3 is delivered by having additional space on motorways. It is also true to say that might be just for the first year, as when people know there is a better route to travel, more people travel on it, but my hon. Friend is right that the more people who can get on to motorways, the better. That, ultimately and fundamentally, is why the Government’s response is spot on. They recognise that there are concerns with smart motorways and that people may not use them and go on to more dangerous roads. We need to send the message out that smart motorways are safe. They can be safer, but people should continue to use our motorway network, because it is the safest network of all of our roads system.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his assiduous and thorough answers, which the House has appreciated.
Backbench Business
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Bahraini Political Prisoners
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the ongoing detention of Bahraini political prisoners.
First, I put on record my appreciation to the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to this important debate on the ongoing detention of Bahraini political prisoners. In particular I thank all Members who will contribute this afternoon, given the speed at which today’s debate was arranged. Although arranged in haste, the debate is very timely, coinciding as it does with the 190th day that one of Bahrain’s most prominent political prisoners, Dr Abduljalil al-Singace, has refused food in protest at his treatment in the notorious Jau prison, where he has spent more than a decade for his part in supporting the pro-democracy Arab spring uprising in 2011. Dr al-Singace is one of an estimated 1,400 political prisoners being held in Jau prison, 500 of whom have been sentenced to 20 years or more. I will speak more about Dr al-Singace and other political prisoners later.
Let me declare an interest at the outset: I am the Scottish National party spokesperson on international human rights, as well as being the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on democracy and human rights in the Gulf.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I have very close contacts with Bahrain, and it would dispute those figures for the number of people utterly and completely. Bahrain does not have political prisoners; they are all prisoners who are there because they have committed a crime.
Brendan O'Hara
I absolutely understand the right hon. Gentleman’s very close connection to Bahrain. Indeed, he has just returned from a trip to Bahrain, as was declared in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I look forward to his contribution, and he is at liberty to explain to the House exactly why the rest of the world is wrong and there are no political prisoners following the uprising in 2011.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I have listened with interest to the exchange. What has not been explained to me is why, when there is a general release of prisoners, certain categories are never released. That might be a definition of political prisoner.
Brendan O'Hara
I think the Father of the House hits the nail squarely on the head, and I look forward to his contribution.
I applied for the debate not just so that Members across the House could mark the events of February 2011, but to ensure that those pro-democracy campaigners who demand freedom and political reform are not forgotten. It is of equal importance that the debate gives us the opportunity to question the Government and ask once again why they continue to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses in Bahrain while sending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ cash to the Gulf state via the highly secretive Gulf strategy fund.
On 14 February 2011, having been inspired by events in Tunisia and Egypt, tens of thousands of Bahraini citizens took to the streets to demand political reform. Rather than engaging with their citizens, the Bahraini Government responded with a brutal crackdown, even going so far as to call in a Saudi-led intervention force from neighbouring states to help crush what had been hitherto an overwhelmingly peaceful uprising. In that crackdown, at least 19 protesters were killed, some tortured to death while in state custody, while thousands more were rounded up and detained by the authorities, with the leaders sentenced to life in jail. By any standard, the response of the state was brutal, uncompromising and wholly disproportionate. More than a decade on, Bahrain had one of the most repressed civil societies in the world, with no political opposition and without a free press. Recently, Reporters Without Borders ranked Bahrain 168th of the 180 countries in the world press freedom index. It was no surprise to find that The Economist placed Bahrain 150th of 167 countries in its 2020 global democracy index.
Despite the brutal repression of the pro-democracy movement and the continued suppression of basic human rights in Bahrain, the UK remains one of its staunchest allies, making a mockery of any claim we may have had to be pursuing an ethical foreign policy, because states that pursue such a policy do not bankroll regimes that stand accused of widespread human rights abuses, including the use of torture and the execution of political dissidents. I suspect that the Minister knows that already. I am afraid that the old excuse of, “We are leading by example”, or, “Things would be so much worse if we weren’t there”, will simply no longer wash, because after a decade of Britain love-bombing Bahrain, there has been no improvement in its behaviour.
I will give the UK Government this, though: they are nothing if not loyal to their friends. Even when they were slashing humanitarian aid to help eradicate hunger and disease in some of the poorest countries on the planet, they actually increased the amount of money they gave to their allies in the Gulf, including Bahrain. A freedom of information request by the Scottish National party revealed that the Gulf strategy fund was increased by 145% last year. That came in the same year that Amnesty International said:
“The Bahraini state has crushed the hopes and expectations raised by the mass protests of 10 years ago, reacting with a brutal crackdown over the subsequent decade that has been facilitated by the shameful silence of Bahrain’s Western allies, especially the UK and the US.”
While the UK sends more and more taxpayers’ cash to Bahrain, the old repression and detention of political prisoners in Bahrain continues. Arguably, the most urgent of these cases is that of Dr al-Singace, the 59-year-old academic and human rights activist who was initially detained in 2010, having returned from speaking at a conference in the House of Lords. He was subsequently released but was re-arrested in 2011, in the aftermath of the popular uprising. Following his detention, Dr al-Singace, a professor of engineering who is disabled and requires either crutches or a wheelchair, was subjected to physical and mental torture, as well as sexual abuse, at the hands of the Bahraini authorities. He was charged with plotting to overthrow the Government and given a life sentence.
The verdict was immediately condemned by human rights activists and non-governmental organisations, with the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemning the Bahraini Government for
“a stunning disregard for due process and basic human rights.”
The French NGO Reporters Without Borders declared that his only crime was
“freely expressing opinions contrary to those of the government”.
He has languished in jail for more than a decade, and in July, exactly 190 days ago, he went on hunger strike in protest at the Bahraini authorities’ confiscation of an academic book he had been working on for the past four years of incarceration. In October last year, 46 parliamentarians signed an open letter to the Foreign Secretary asking her to intervene on behalf of Dr al-Singace and his family, but I am sorry to say that nothing has been done and the Government have remained largely silent.
Of course, there are many, many more political prisoners being held in Bahrain’s jails simply for voicing or organising their opposition to the regime. Another case worthy of highlighting is that of 74-year-old Hassan Mushaima, the former leader of Bahrain’s opposition, who is also serving a life sentence, having been jailed in the aftermath of the pro-democracy uprising in 2011. He, too, has been subject to torture and now suffers from medical complications resulting from it. Just before Christmas I met his son Ali, who is working tirelessly to secure his father’s unconditional release. In December, Ali held his own hunger strike outside the Bahraini embassy here in London for 23 days, demanding the release of all political prisoners, including his father.
I know how grateful Ali was for the support shown by Members of this House, particularly those who visited him in the freezing cold days in December. It was meeting Ali on the steps of the Bahraini embassy that was in many ways the catalyst for today’s debate, because I promised him that I would seek to raise his father’s case on the Floor of the House if he agreed to give up his hunger strike before he caused irreparable damage to himself. I am hugely grateful to those who have helped me to keep that promise to Ali and his family, and I wish him well as he recovers from his ordeal.
While I highlight the situation facing Hassan Mushaima and Dr al-Singace, there are others whose predicament is even worse—the prisoners on death row who have exhausted all legal remedies available to them and are now at imminent risk of execution. The executions are only pending ratification by the king, and painful experience tells us that they could be carried out any day without little or no warning given to the families. Of the 26 people awaiting execution in Bahrain, no fewer than 12 have been convicted of political charges. A recent report by the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy and Reprieve found that executions in Bahrain have increased by a factor of 10 since the UK began its financial assistance through the integrated activity fund in 2017.
Just this morning, Human Rights Watch published its annual report. One look at the section on Bahrain shows that things are not getting any better and that the UK’s attempts at gentle persuasion have failed miserably. However, can we expect the Government to change tack? Of course we all understand that much of this is wrapped up in the UK still wanting to appear an important player on the world stage, coupled with a desperate attempt to secure a trade deal with the countries that make up the Gulf Co-operation Council—something, anything, that will offset the damage done to the UK economy by Brexit. But surely we cannot allow a desire for a trade deal to trample over the moral obligation we have to call out human rights abusers, no matter how deep their pockets or how lucrative the terms on offer. If we choose to go down this road of being a champion for democracy and human rights, but only when it does not upset our rich and powerful allies, then in reality we are not champions of human rights at all.
Will the Minister raise directly with the Bahraini authorities the cases of Dr al-Singace and Hassan Mushaima, and the other political prisoners, and demand justice for those jailed for their part in exercising the basic human right of freedom of speech? Will the Government finally abandon their obviously failed policy of trying to love-bomb Bahrain into improving its awful human rights record by putting some real pressure on the regime to change its ways? That could start by suspending the Gulf strategy fund and establishing a public inquiry into whether that fund has supported regimes with poor human rights records.
The UK could stop funding Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior and the ombudsman—bodies that are involved in torture and the whitewashing of abuses against political prisoners. The UK could end all joint training programmes with the Bahraini military until such time as Bahrain allows access to independent human rights monitors, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and UN human rights organisations such as the working group on arbitrary detention. The UK could call for a UN-led commission to investigate torture within Bahrain—one that permits the UN special rapporteur on torture access to its prisons.
In short, there is so much the United Kingdom could do, but is not doing, to call out human rights abuses by its friends. I believe that that refusal to act is doing the United Kingdom enormous reputational damage.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I ought to say that the reason I stood late in the exchanges on the Transport Committee statement was that I did not want to come in early. In the role of Father of the House, one often catches the Speaker’s or Deputy Speaker’s eye, but there are occasions when I think it is more appropriate not to come in early, and that was one of them.
When I was first elected to the House of Commons, I became a foot soldier for the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry, and I was allocated a young man who could not leave the USSR. Several years later, he could. I am not saying that my efforts were dominant in that decision, but it is only when people start making individual initiatives, or protests sometimes, that people pay attention. To those who are listening in Bahrain, there are a number of things one can say about Bahrain that are in their favour. It is probably the only Arab country where a senior Minister was sacked because of a human rights abuse—although that was some time ago. It is also true that in 2006 the human rights organisations said that Bahrain was making significant progress. No human rights organisation has said the same since then, and in the past five years things have got significantly worse.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) will be able to talk about his views on whether there are political prisoners or not. On Bahrain National Day, there is usually an amnesty, and the human rights organisations asked that some of the political prisoners be included. None were. If one wants to make a distinction between what is and is not political, that is a useful way of looking at it.
One of the things we said against Bahrain is on the use of torture. If a number of people are convicted only on their own confessions, and then make substantiated allegations of ill-treatment while in custody, one has to say that Bahrain has much further progress to make. Its legal and justice systems will work better when torture is ended. I will not go into a lot of detail, in part because the suddenness of this debate—I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for making it possible—means that I have two other meetings between 2 pm and 3.30 pm on fire safety in residential leaseholds, so I have a responsibility to try to fulfil those commitments. I will leave it to others to make the detailed points on individuals.
I was asked some time back, when Guantanamo Bay was opened up as a prison, whether a human rights organisation, Reprieve, should start taking up some of the cases—not whether people were innocent or not, but whether people should have proper legal representation. I said that it should: to begin with, people would not understand, because obviously everyone who has been taken to Guantanamo must be guilty of some terrible crime, but in time people would realise that a lot of people had been swept up who should not have been there, and even those who should be there ought still to have the chance of legal representation. I am glad that Reprieve reports that one person in Guantanamo Bay has now been allocated for release. I hope that some country will take that person; if the Americans do not want to go on holding them, they ought to have a chance at living at peace elsewhere.
I am not a middle east specialist, but I do understand the consequences of history, and in Bahrain there is a majority community with little access to power or responsibility. That may be one of the underlying reasons why the rulers of Bahrain are resisting doing things that would make life in Bahrain safer, more secure and better for all. I commend to people the Wikipedia article on human rights in Bahrain; it would be useful to those who want to take an interest in the subject. As I conclude, I say to the Bahrainis: “You are not the worst country in the world, but it wouldn’t take many steps for you to become one of the best countries in the world. Please do.”
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
I put on record my thanks to the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) for securing today’s debate, for visiting the hunger strike outside the Bahraini embassy and for his support for Hassan Mushaima and his plight in prison in Bahrain.
I also went along to support that strike, and as a result I received a letter—a quite substantial letter—from the Bahraini embassy on 24 December. I quote one line from it:
“No person is, or can be, prosecuted for such activities,”—
that is, freedom of expression and other issues—
“and no person is arrested or in custody in Bahrain in connection with peaceful political activity.”
Since the Bahraini Government have clearly made that statement, they must live up to it, and that means they must be prepared to answer the questions that various United Nations and other human rights bodies wish to put to them. They cannot simply make such a bold statement and then not be able to substantiate it.
Indeed, the speeches already made indicate that human rights in Bahrain are in an appalling situation, and this is not new. The first time I ever met human rights activists from Bahrain was in 1986 at a United Nations conference I was attending in Copenhagen at the time, and they talked to me about the situation they were facing. I hope that today our British Government will be able to say that we do put human rights, democracy and the right of freedom of speech—all the things enshrined in the universal declaration—first before we start military exercises or military training and providing financial support to this particular regime.
The United Nations Human Rights Council registered its very deep concern that, between 17 April and 5 May only last year, there were reports of 64 cases of torture in prison in Bahrain. There has been a denial of access for human rights monitors and human rights organisations to Bahrain, which has been the very consistent pattern for a very long time. There are also significant concerns, which have not been mentioned so far, about the rights and living standards of the very large number of migrant workers who live and work in Bahrain and keep the economy going.
International visitors have often drawn attention to the living standards and conditions of migrant workers, as they have in other Gulf states, and I think we should be on the side of those migrant workers, who after all do keep the economy going. It is to the credit of Lewis Hamilton and others that they used their substantial media presence to highlight human rights abuses in Bahrain when they were there for the Formula 1 race. The best response of Formula 1 would be to say that it will refuse to go countries where there are significant human rights abuses, rather than expecting drivers individually to make such statements.
There is also the concept of mass trials that go on in Bahrain: 167 people were sentenced in one day in 2019, and 26 are on death row. As the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), pointed out in his speech, many of the people put on trial have confessed under torture, duress or pressure to crimes they did not commit, or in some cases could not have committed. That would be illegal in this country and illegal anywhere in Europe through the European convention on human rights. There has to be universal acceptance that, whatever crime somebody is accused of, they have a right to legal representation and a legal presence during the investigation. It is not a very big ask to put.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon), who has had to leave to go to another debate in Westminster Hall, particularly asked me to raise the case of Ali al-Hajee, who is serving a 10-year sentence in Jau prison for organising pro-democracy protests. He was subject to severe torture following his arrest in 2013, leaving him with life-changing injuries, and there was a 75-day hunger strike in prison to support him and others. If the Bahrain Government and embassy are listening to and watching this debate, as I am sure they are, I hope they will bear in mind what I said in quoting from their letter at the start of my remarks. I want an answer on his case, as we do on all the other cases.
I know that time is quite limited and many others wish to speak in this debate, so I will conclude with these thoughts. Bahrain is a member of the United Nations and it is a prosperous place. Bahrain has significant human rights difficulties and problems not unassociated with the relationship of the royal family and the Government of Bahrain with Saudi Arabia and the oppression of democracy protests that has gone on for a long time in Bahrain. Surely to goodness, on this basis alone we should pause all military aid and assistance to Bahrain and pause any support that is given to quasi-Government organisations in Bahrain until it puts its human rights record to rights, because if we support the Bahrain military and police force in their behaviour towards protesters, who are we to complain about abuses that take place?
I am pleased that we are having this debate, and I am pleased by the remarks of the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute and of the Father of the House. When we speak out and take up individual cases, as no doubt other colleagues will, it has an effect and it begins to help. The Bahraini embassy has said that it wants to meet those of us who are concerned about human rights in Bahrain. That is absolutely fine. I am very happy to go along and meet its staff with a list of political prisoners and of people who I believe should not be in prison. They should be subject to the normal rules that the rest of us expect, with an accountable police force, a transparent legal system and prison conditions that do not allow torture or force 12 people into a very small cell, which itself is a torture.
We are here to speak up for justice and human rights around the world, and today our focus is on Bahrain. I hope it is listening.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. We now have to have a formal time limit of five minutes.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
For nearly 53 years, I have been a good friend and supporter of Bahrain as I have watched it develop quickly to become the vibrant country that it is today. When I was elected to Parliament, I immediately joined the Bahrain all-party parliamentary group, and I have been its chairman for three years. I have visited the island several times, especially for the Manama dialogues, and I have given two lectures on principles and decision making to its diplomatic corps—for the record, no money changed hands.
Bahrain has freedom of religion. On my last visit in November, I visited a synagogue—the only one in the Arabian Gulf, by the way, which I think is enlightened for the region in which Bahrain sits. According to the Bahraini constitution, freedom of opinion and expression are expressly protected, and no person can be prosecuted for such activities. I am certain that nobody is in prison simply for disagreeing with the regime. Many have been convicted with evidence—which others may suggest has been tampered with—of being involved in terrorism in one way or another. That is exactly the way we act in this country.
It is a standard terrorist tactic for people accused of terrorism to claim that they are being unfairly treated and that the charges against them are politically motivated, as I know from my own experience in Northern Ireland. However, I am very pleased to say that in November 2019, the public prosecutor’s office in Bahrain announced the release of 75 prisoners, most of whom claimed that they were in prison for political reasons, so it is not true that so-called political prisoners have not been released. I gather that several prisoners face the death penalty, but their executions are in abeyance, at least for the moment—and, by the way, they all killed security personnel and innocent civilians.
I must point out to the House that Bahrain faces considerable terrorist activity—I have seen the concrete evidence for that. Every state has the right to defend itself against such activities, and Bahrain is no different from us. During my last visit in November, I saw a whole range of weapons that had been confiscated in anti-terrorist operations. They included booby traps, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, mines, rifles and heavy machine guns. From my own experience, I can tell colleagues that some of the ordnance that I saw was very heavy stuff indeed. I also saw a large noticeboard in the police headquarters that seemed to have well over 100 photographs of young policemen and quite a few policewomen who had been murdered by terrorists.
I had been aware before my last visit that Bahrain faced considerable threats from terrorism, but not on the scale of which I saw the evidence last November. The main terrorism that Bahrain faces is inspired from Iran, which is doing all it can to encourage rebellion in the state; it is also where a lot of the weaponry I saw originated from.
Last May, ambassadors from China, France, Italy, Germany and Oman and our British ambassador, as well as the American chargé d’affaires, went to Jau, the main prison in Bahrain. Following that, our own highly experienced ambassador, Roddy Drummond, tweeted:
“I was pleased to visit Jau prison on 3 May with other Ambassadors. We were shown a well-run facility, with good medical provision and measures against Covid, with vaccinations offered to all prisoners. I welcome this initiative by the authorities to be more transparent.”
Bahrain is unfairly portrayed by many who often fail to mention the considerable terrorist threat and the many security personnel who have been murdered. True, there have been mistakes, and Bahrain is not totally there, but, if it has a human rights problem, may I point out that several in the neighbourhood have far worse such records and yet are not pilloried in the same way? The island lives in a volatile neighbourhood, and it is trying its very best with decency to look after its people—all of them.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) on securing time for the debate and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it. I remind the House of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: namely, that I am a director of the board of the Council for Arab-British Understanding and an officer of a number of the all-party parliamentary groups relative to the Gulf, including the one chaired by the hon. Member.
I thank the right hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) for his contribution to the debate, which illustrated rather well the challenge that we all have—I include the Government—in this area: maintaining the appropriate balance. My consideration of the situation in Bahrain leads me to be most concerned about human rights abuses. We see the comments of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other human rights organisations that have taken an interest in Bahrain, and those people have no axe to grind other than because they have a concern for human rights.
I say to the Minister that, in striking the balance—as we must do—the Government have some way to go in getting it right. I understand the strategic importance of Gulf countries to the United Kingdom and of engagement with them. I also understand that sometimes we have to engage with a long-handled spoon, as it were, but I suggest that engagement is worthwhile only if we can see progress and a benefit from it, especially in the maintenance in human rights, and that the money we spend on countries such as Bahrain must show a rather better return than we have seen so far.
It concerns me that, last year, the Home Secretary met Bahrain’s Minister of the Interior, Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa, in the wake of an appallingly violent attack against political prisoners in Jau prison in which inmates were subjected to mass torture and enforced disappearance at the hands of the authority. The meeting also took place following the arrest and abuse of 13 children who were subjected to threats of rape and electric shock. The United Kingdom ambassador to Bahrain, Roddy Drummond, also met Sheikh Rashid just a few weeks ago.
Members of the House have heard me speak on numerous occasions about the case for Magnitsky sanctions in relation to several officers of the Chinese Communist party. I give every credit to the Government for their progress on that, especially in relation to those who are active in the Xinjiang region. However, I must say to the Minister that we undermine our good work on China and other regimes if we do not approach Governments in places such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain with equal vigour. That is what I mean in talking about balance.
In replying to the debate, will the Minister address the reasons for the Government refusing to act against Minister Rashid al-Khalifa for his role in overseeing appalling human rights violations and a culture of impunity? That is a man who was responsible for the bloodiest days of the crackdown in 2011. Protestors have been detained and tortured at the hands of his officials.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The all-party parliamentary group on human rights, which I co-chair, has been concerned about serious and systematic human rights violations in Bahrain for decades. Then and now, the following have been at the heart of the problems in Bahrain. The Executive retain far too much control, their powers remain largely unchecked and the majority Shi’a Muslim population feel discriminated against by the Sunni, who govern. There is no genuine political Opposition, no press freedom and few independent NGOs are able to operate freely in the country.
The Bahraini Government undertook cosmetic reforms to convince the outside world that things have improved, including the establishment of oversight mechanisms, the extension of the alternative sentencing law to all prisoners, and the development of a national action plan for human rights. But the reality is, sadly, all too apparent to those who scratch the surface. The continued arbitrary detention and inhumane treatment of prisoners of conscience—that is, those in prison solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, assembly and/or association—serve to illustrate the true situation in Bahrain.
Margaret Ferrier
No.
Like many colleagues, I visited Ali Mushaima during his hunger strike in front of the Bahraini embassy to highlight the plight of prisoners of conscience such as his father Hassan and Abduljalil al-Singace. I, too, got the same letter from the embassy.
The all-party group on human rights has been trying for some years to promote a genuine and substantive political dialogue between the Bahraini authorities and peaceful human rights defenders and opposition activists. Indeed, in 2012, marking the first anniversary of the publication of the Bahrain independent commission of inquiry report—a positive move by the Bahraini King that still needs to be properly followed through—the right hon. Ann Clwyd, the then all-party group chair and former Member for Cynon Valley, brought together such a group on the parliamentary estate to talk and listen to one another. Sadly, however, that did not result in ongoing engagement.
We all want to see a stable and prosperous Bahrain where every citizen can exercise their fundamental rights without fear of persecution, prosecution or detention. That will not happen until the Bahraini authorities engage in good faith with peaceful human rights and opposition activists. The clearest way to indicate their good faith would be by recognising all remaining prisoners of conscience and releasing them unconditionally, followed by initiating national dialogue with a view to establishing a more representative Government structure—one underpinned by the rule of law and respect for human rights.
If the UK Government are a true friend of Bahrain and the Bahraini people, they could help by persuading the Bahraini Government to take stock and embark on such a course of action. The UK Government should immediately stop parroting the line that abuses should be raised with domestic Bahraini oversight bodies. It has become increasingly clear that those bodies are limited in reach and in the interests they are able to serve. Additionally, the UK should stop funding the Bahraini Government’s reform agenda given that there has been so little to show for it so far. UK Government officials, including Ministers, need to meet a much wider range of Bahraini interlocutors to hear different perspectives and help to get everyone around the table. The alternative—unsuccessfully attempting to paper over the cracks—will lead only to a situation that none of us wants: growing discontent and instability, potential violence and even greater repression.
Let us take action now while we still can. I hope to meet Bahraini authorities and FCDO officials in the coming months and encourage colleagues to sign early-day motion 835 on human rights in Bahrain to express our collective concern about the situation and support a true path to reform.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I very much acknowledge what the right hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said about terrorism. None of us supports terrorism, but we have to express our concern about the human rights abuses.
I also thank the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) for setting the scene so well on this crucial topic. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, I am seriously concerned that religious discrimination remains a serious problem for Bahraini civil society and Bahrain’s many political prisoners.
Bob Stewart
I understand there are more Shi’a mosques than Sunni mosques in Bahrain. People can worship what they like in Bahrain—they can worship a tree if they like—and, as I have said, there is a synagogue there. I think freedom of religion is extremely well established in Bahrain.
Jim Shannon
I am pleased the right hon. Gentleman is able to say that. Although I acknowledge there have been gigantic steps in the right direction, I will illustrate where the problems are.
We had a Zoom meeting with the hunger strikers, who illustrated the human rights abuses. I was pleased to listen to their concerns, and hopefully in this debate I will be able to express some of my concerns on their behalf. During Bahrain’s popular pro-democracy uprising 11 years ago, the regime demolished 38 Shi’a Muslim mosques. Despite promising they would rebuild the mosques, that has yet to occur after more than a decade.
In addition, during Muharram last year—a most important time in the Shi’a Muslim calendar—the Bahraini Government used covid-19 as an excuse to crack down on civil society’s freedom of religion and practise of religious rites. I am sorry to say there is an evidence base on the abuse of human rights. I always try to be respectful in what I say in seeking change and that is what I am trying to do today.
During Ashura, the Muslim holiday, slogans were hung on buildings in Shi’a-majority villages across Bahrain. The Government damaged and removed those slogans, and imposed targeted discriminatory policies on Shi’a places of worship, a sheer act of coercion. It is appalling that leading figures in Bahrain, including prominent Shi’a clerics such as Sheikh Ali Salman and Sheikh Muhammad Habib, continue to be held unjustly behind bars in Bahrain. Most religious leaders are serving life sentences in prison for their peaceful role in calling for democracy during the 2011 Arab spring, and they have now been wrongfully deprived of their liberty for over 10 years, which is utterly appalling. I have to put that on record in this House. I call for their release.
Some families have had their Bahraini passports removed, meaning they have no citizenship, due to family members’ involvement in peaceful protests. Again, these things are happening. We are saying it very gently, but we have to put it on record and we have to seek change.
A particularly disturbing incident is the Bahraini authorities’ violent attack against political prisoners who were staging a sit-in at Jau prison on 17 April 2021, mentioned by the right hon. Members for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute. Following that attack, 64 political prisoners were forcibly disappeared for 19 days and held incommunicado for between 30 and 36 days, during which time they were unable to contact their families or their lawyers, in a flagrant violation of both national and international law.
The evidence base for these facts cannot be ignored. Inmates sometimes remained handcuffed and shackled for over a week and were forced to pray in chains and torn, bloodied clothes. They were also forced to eat, sleep and use the toilet in these conditions. If that is not an abuse of human rights, I want to know what is. This act of control and coercion is utterly shocking, and it must be noted that the entire incident took place during Ramadan, while inmates were fasting. None was given their iftar meal.
I know the Minister is a good man, and I know he will respond to the issues of concern raised in this debate. Given these manifest violations of the fundamental human right to freedom of religion or belief in Bahrain, the Minister and the UK Government must do more to call for the release of imprisoned religious leaders and acknowledge the violations they continue to face. They are an abuse of human rights and an abuse of religious views, and we cannot let that go unnoticed; we must call it out. The UK stated in 2020 that
“Bahrain maintained a positive record on freedom of religion or belief.”
My belief is that that statement must be reconsidered, as the evidential base tells us something very different.
Will the Minister—I conclude with this, Madam Deputy Speaker—acknowledge that Bahrain has contravened the human right to freedom of religion of many political prisoners? I think the evidential base is there. Will he commit to urging his counterparts in that country—we ask them gently and we ask them forcibly—to ensure that those prisoners’ immediate and unconditional release from prison is what happens as a result of this debate? That is what we require.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I am delighted to participate in this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) on bringing this important matter to the Floor of the House.
Life for citizens living under the Bahraini regime must give all of us who believe in democratic values deep cause for concern. Those who criticise the regime in Bahrain are, as we have heard today, subjected to the most cruel and random treatment, which is an affront to all that is decent: unfair trials of protesters and critics of the regime; ill treatment of detainees which is tantamount to torture; the fabrication of evidence against those in custody; minority groups targeted; the use of the death penalty; the suppression of freedom of expression; and even reports of rape and electric shock treatments for detainees, some of whom are juveniles. That is the ugly story of life under the current regime in Bahrain.
We are all aware of the Isa Town prison, the only female detention facility in Bahrain, where female prisoners suffer politically motivated human rights violations, such as being denied medical care, physical and psychological abuse, threats of sexual violence and religious discrimination, as well as arbitrary detention and collective punishment. No one should be an apologist for that regime, certainly not from the comfort of the Westminster Benches.
We can also consider the case of Mr al-Singace. We have heard much about Mr al-Singace this afternoon, a 59-year-old academic languishing in prison following his peaceful opposition to Bahrain’s dictatorship during the 2011 Arab spring. Having already endured degrading treatment and torture, suffered medical negligence, and endured the indignity of being denied sanitation facilities, he is currently on hunger strike facing a slow death in prison.
What do we hear from the UK Government? We know that they have hosted meetings with Bahraini officials, but they appear to have exercised no influence over the regime and remain a staunch ally. Given that the Government are an ally of that regime, what does that say about the so-called old-fashioned British values we hear about? Whatever action the UK Government are prepared to take against the Bahraini regime and whatever influence they are prepared to bring to bear, that is a choice. To refuse to take any action against the regime, or to refuse to use their influence is also a choice. I fully support early-day motion 578 calling for the UK Government to impose Magnitsky sanctions on those responsible for the unlawful imprisonment of Dr al-Singace. I am sure that many Members have also supported the motion.
I remember the fanfare, on 6 July 2020, around the launch of the UK Government’s global human rights sanctions regime, which meant the Foreign Secretary would have the power to sanction persons implicated in human rights abuses anywhere across the globe. Yet Bahraini leaders such as General Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa have been hosted by senior members of this Government. People like him are deeply implicated in the torture of some of their own citizens in Bahrain. It is even more curious that, while the UK Government were cutting humanitarian aid by billions last year, including for clean water and nutrition, their support for the Gulf strategy fund, the former integrated activity fund, increased by 154%. The integrated activity fund has been completely discredited due to its lack of transparency and links to regimes with dubious human rights records, such as Bahrain.
I hope that the Minister, when he gets to his feet, can explain how the flagrant human rights abuses perpetrated by the Bahraini regime’s leaders are impacting on its relationship with the UK. Are they impacting at all? Bahrain’s leaders are still feted by UK Government officials and money is increasingly finding its way into Bahrain from the UK. Where does that leave the UK’s relationship with this barbaric regime? It looks for all the world as though the UK Government, for all their pretensions to be a global supporter of human rights, are content to turn a blind eye to these appalling human rights abuses when it suits. By maintaining unconditional political and economic support for the Bahraini regime, the UK Government are enabling and facilitating brutality and repression in that country.
We need the UK Government to be much more transparent about which projects the UK funds in Bahrain, with human rights assessments for each. Failure to do so can only heighten concerns. A public inquiry into whether the integrated activity fund—now the Gulf strategy fund—has propped up regimes with poor human rights records is critical. However, while the pressure for such an inquiry grows, the fund continues to operate, despite billions of pounds of cuts to international aid spending by this Government. It is disgraceful that the UK’s Ministry of Defence has carried out training programmes with Bahraini military forces, notwithstanding the fact that Bahrain is on the Foreign Office’s human rights watch list.
The UK Government need to send a clear and robust signal that the human rights abuses in Bahrain are unacceptable. They must look to their funding mechanisms and their inaction, and stop conferring legitimacy on this appallingly cruel and barbaric regime. We too often hear the UK Government trumpeting their role as a force for good in the world, but words are not enough. All funding for Bahraini programmes that are not focused on poverty alleviation must be suspended until we have much greater transparency around these programmes.
We need the UK Government to introduce a resolution addressing human rights violations in Bahrain at the UN Human Rights Council. We need a UN-led commission to investigate torture within Bahrain that allows access to prisons. As long as Bahrain denies access to independent human rights monitors, including Amnesty International, we can be sure that the regime continues to torture and otherwise mistreat its citizens. The argument that I have heard today, that there are worse regimes than Bahrain, will offer no comfort, and should offer no comfort, to those who have suffered barbaric treatment under that regime.
It is time for the UK to do the right thing and put its money where its mouth is. If it wants to be a force for good in the world, as it often says it does, it cannot choose to pass by on the other side while those in Bahrain standing up for freedom are brutalised. I hope that the UK Government will use every diplomatic tool at their disposal to effect greater respect for human rights in Bahrain. Our own respect for human rights demands nothing less.
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) on securing this important debate. We on the Opposition side of the House have serious concerns about the human rights situation in Bahrain, particularly with regard to the detention of political prisoners. We have even more concerns about the UK Government’s lack of action with regard to these prisoners. We believe that the role of a friend is to criticise when necessary. A true friend does not stay silent and turn a blind eye when the wrong course of action is being taken. It is simply wrong that on the eve of a free trade agreement between us and Bahrain, UK Ministers remain deafeningly silent on the issue of human rights and the ongoing detention of political prisoners.
Labour has regularly called on UK Ministers to use our country’s close relationship with Bahrain to press publicly for human rights reform. We have also called on the UK Government to do all they can to press for the immediate release of political prisoners in Bahrain who are still detained for standing up for democracy. Members have mentioned a number of such prisoners during the course of this debate, including Dr Abduljalil al-Singace and Hasan Mushaima.
We have heard in this debate many examples of how torture and due process violations are endemic in Bahrain. Prison conditions and treatment of political prisoners are notorious and regularly contravene international human rights law. Bahrain has the highest number of political prisoners per capita in the middle east. There are currently about 1,500 political prisoners in the small kingdom, according to the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy. It is also well known that there has been a crackdown in Bahrain, targeting members of the majority Shi’a community, since authorities crushed the popular uprising during the 2011 Arab spring.
Bahrain has even shunned visit requests—from the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights defenders in 2012 and 2015, and even more recently from special rapporteurs on torture, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly. Yet, despite cross-party calls for the UK to secure the release of Bahrainis political prisoners, little has been done by UK Ministers. In fact, the issue has been swept under the carpet.
It has now been 10 years since Britain began funding training and other enterprises in Bahrain and yet torture survivors continue to face execution and political leaders languish behind bars. Even worse than that, it has been argued that the UK Government can be seen as complicit in some of the abuse that has occurred, because of their wilful lack of scrutiny over how UK funds are spent in the region. It is worth looking more closely at the UK Government’s role in these matters.
The integrated activity fund was established by the UK Government in 2015 to support the delivery of flexible, cross-cutting and sustained investment to Bahrain and other countries in the Gulf region. Labour has regularly expressed concern that, in allocating UK taxpayer money to the integrated activity fund, the UK Government have not followed their own human rights due diligence policies. The integrated activity fund was replaced at the end of last year by the Gulf strategy fund.
A cross-party report by the all-party group on democracy and human rights in the Gulf, which was published in July 2021, found that programmes supported by the IAF had been run
“with absolute minimal levels of accountability, transparency and due diligence in spite of being repeatedly implicated in human rights violations.”
The report of the all-party group stated that institutions backed by the IAF had
“whitewashed human rights abuses, placing the UK government at risk of complicity in abuses themselves”.
According to the Government, the GSF in Bahrain had backed reforms to deliver long-term security and stability, but the all-party report found that both the IAF and the GSF fund programmes to bodies in Bahrain that continue to be implicated in serious human rights and international law violations. The report was unequivocal and it was damning. It recommended:
“Government funding to GCC states through the GSF should be immediately suspended pending an independent inquiry into its implication in human rights and international law violations.”
It is important to make it clear that this report received cross-party endorsement, including that of veteran Conservatives such as the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), and the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce).
This is clearly not a partisan party political matter. Indeed, it is clear that standing up for human rights and political prisoners in Bahrain and beyond transcends party politics. It is not a matter of left or right, but a matter of right or wrong. If we as Members of Parliament are not prepared to stand up for what is right on the eve of the free trade deal with Bahrain, when will we be?
It is clear that many Members from across the House believe in the sanctity of human rights and are concerned about political prisoners in Bahrain. They believe, like me, that dialogue with Bahrain and others must remain open, but must not ever shy away from difficult subjects. It is therefore deeply disappointing that the Government apparently do not share this conviction of a sense of right and wrong. That is why we are calling on Ministers to take action now on this issue. We believe that the UK Government should publicly condemn the detention and mistreatment of all Bahraini political prisoners—
Bob Stewart
I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to intervene. I have looked at this matter and visited the country several times, and there is not, to the best of my knowledge, a prisoner in a Bahrain prison who has not carried out an offence that is much more than speaking out against the regime—like being a member of a terrorist organisation or propagating terrorism.
Bambos Charalambous
I beg to disagree with the right hon. Gentleman. Many organisations dispute that position and the many people who have spoken out against it would also beg to differ.
Jeremy Corbyn
Is not one of the main concerns that people are convicted in Bahrain with no access to independent legal representation or legal accompaniment and claim to have been subjected to torture before confessing to crimes and were therefore imprisoned after that? As I pointed out in my speech, that would be totally illegal within the concepts of international law anywhere else in the world.
Bambos Charalambous
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. I too have heard those allegations of the lack of advice prior to conviction.
The UK Government must publicly condemn the death sentences given to torture victims in Bahrain and urgently use all available leverage to push for Bahrain to quash them. The UK Government should also enable an independent inquiry into the implications of their programmes, such as the GSF, and human rights violations, particularly in Bahrain. They should also call for a political reform process in Bahrain that promotes democracy and includes the release of imprisoned civil society leaders.
Bahrain remains important to the UK politically, diplomatically and militarily and we hope that we have a mutual relationship. As with all mutual relationships, we expect the UK Government to call out human rights abuses and stand up for what is right. We have heard much from the Government in the past about engagement on those issues, but where is the evidence of it? The Government need to walk the walk on this. The time for just talking the talk is over.
The Minister for the Middle East, North Africa and North America (James Cleverly)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) for securing the debate. It gives me the opportunity to put on record an alternative—and, I suspect, more balanced—viewpoint to the one that he put forward. Nevertheless, the debate gives us all an opportunity to discuss an important issue. I also put on record my gratitude to other Members who have spoken. I will try to address some of their points, but time prevents me from dealing with them all.
As has been said by Members on both sides of the House, the UK and Bahrain are indeed allies and partners. We work closely together on defence, security, trade and regional issues. Our naval support facilities are a symbol of that enduring co-operation and the UK’s commitment to peace, security and stability in the region. The country provided the first permanent UK naval presence east of Suez since 1971, and continues to support our counter-terrorism, counter-piracy and maritime security operations, providing security not just for British trade and British nationals, but for all those who are active in the maritime region around the waters of Bahrain.
The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute was passionate in his criticism of not just Bahrain, but Her Majesty’s Government. He claimed—Hansard will correct me if I am wrong—that the UK is bankrolling Bahrain. He went on to say that we were trying to get money from Bahrain. It is not credible to hold simultaneously the positions—
Brendan O’Hara
At no point did I say that the UK was getting money from Bahrain. The Government are trying to secure a trade deal with Bahrain and that is why they are turning a blind eye to the most flagrant human rights abuses. It is not about getting money from Bahrain, but about turning a blind eye to human rights to secure a trade deal.
James Cleverly
The hon. Gentleman seems to think that he has clarified his position, but he has made it more chaotic and incoherent. If he does not think that trade deals are about securing an inward flow of money to a country, I dread to think what the trade policy of a separatist Scotland under an SNP Government would look like. However, time is tight and we need to get on.
I also thought it was quite telling that the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) listed and dismissed the oversight bodies—I will come to some of the oversight bodies that the UK has helped to bring into existence later—rather than calling for them to be made more effective. She seemed to want to rip away the organisations that seek, with our support, to improve the legal and criminal justice system in Bahrain, and I think that is perhaps rather telling in respect of her motivations in the debate.
I have genuine respect for my shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), but he accused Her Majesty’s Government of being silent on the issues of concern in Bahrain. He is relatively new in post, so I will forgive him for this, but I suggest that if he thinks we have been silent, that is more of an indication that he has perhaps not been listening. I will highlight where the UK Government have brought these things to international attention.
Defending human rights and promoting democracy around the world is a priority for Her Majesty’s Government. We want to work to support countries such as Bahrain that have demonstrated, and continue to demonstrate, a desire to adopt a more progressive and inclusive domestic set of measures, not just in their attitudes and words, but in their actions.
I have heard from a number of Members that we should disengage from working with Bahrain, including on human rights issues, and I cannot possibly disagree more strongly. They should ask themselves about the options before them: do they want Her Majesty’s Government to drive improvements in countries such as Bahrain or would they prefer Her Majesty’s Government just to stand on the sidelines and shout abuse, as they have done? If it is the former, the question we should ask ourselves is how best we influence change. We are better able to influence change through engagement, dialogue and co-operation. It is patently in the UK’s national interest to help countries such as Bahrain to benefit from our experience and expertise as they move on their journey towards essential reform.
Mr Carmichael
The Government presumably have key performance indicators on the money that is spent in relation to Bahrain. What are they and what progress have we seen in recent years?
James Cleverly
A number of right hon. and hon. Members have raised the issue of progress and I will come to that, particularly with regard to the Gulf strategy fund. I want to clarify a point that was repeated by a number of Opposition Members about the increase in funding. I remind the House that the Gulf strategy fund does not come from our ODA allocation. The predecessor of the Gulf strategy fund, which sought to accomplish, largely, the same set of priorities, had a budget of—let me double-check. Sorry, the budget for 2021 had halved. The Gulf strategy fund’s predecessor’s previous budget was twice as much, so when people talk about an increase, actually, the budget has halved. It is important to put that on record.
Jeremy Corbyn
The point is about engagement. Will the Minister assure us that he will pressurise the Bahrain Government to engage with the United Nations human rights organisations and allow them to have independent visits and monitoring, as well as allowing unfettered access for human rights groups such as Amnesty International?
James Cleverly
My understanding is that the United Nations is already engaging with Bahrain on a number of the issues that the right hon. Gentleman has put forward. I have a number of other points that I wish to address, and I have been generous, so if the House will forgive me, I do not intend to take any more interventions so that the next debate can take place in good time.
A number of Members have highlighted performance indicators and demonstrations or approvals of our involvement. Our close relationship with the Bahraini Government and civil society, including non-governmental organisations, gives the UK a privileged position to positively influence developments on human rights. We draw on 100 years of probation experience, for example, and we are using it to encourage and support Bahraini-led judicial reform. We welcome the steps taken by the Government of Bahrain in reforming their judicial process, including the introduction of alternative sentencing legislation. I know that a number of people in incarceration have been offered alternatives to it. To date, more than 3,600 individuals have had potential prison time replaced by alternative sentences, and further cases remain under consideration by the judiciary.
Our work has supported the effective establishment of independent oversight bodies—the ones that the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) would seek to destroy—including the National Institute For Human Rights, the Ministry of Interior Ombudsman, the Special Investigations Unit, and the Prisoners and Detainees Rights Commission.
Members have highlighted examples of completely inappropriate behaviour by Bahraini officials. I remind the House that more than 90 security personal have been prosecuted or face disciplinary action because of investigations carried out by human rights oversight bodies that the UK Government support. We believe that Bahrain is undertaking important and effective steps to address allegations of torture and mistreatment in detention.
We strongly welcome the initiative that Bahrain has taken to develop an inaugural human rights plan. It is taking an inclusive approach, welcoming contributions from us and from the United Nations, which the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) was so passionate about earlier. We look forward to the publication and implementation of the plan, which we expect will deliver further reforms in Bahrain.
We of course recognise that there is more work to be done. To reinforce the point that I made to the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute, Lord Ahmed and I have made and will continue to make these points directly to our ministerial counterparts in Bahrain, and because we enjoy a strong working relationship with them, I know that they will listen to us.
I am not able to go into details case by case, but Ministers and senior officials closely monitor cases of interest of those in detention in Bahrain, and indeed in many other countries. That is a core part of the support Her Majesty’s Government gives to human rights and democracy. Where appropriate, we bring those cases to the attention of those at ministerial or senior official level in partner countries. It is important to highlight that those currently under detention have been tried and convicted of crimes and sentenced under Bahraini law, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said. The right to fair trial is enshrined in the constitution of Bahrain, and we will continue to encourage the Government of Bahrain to follow due process in all cases and meet their international and domestic human rights commitments.
Bahrain remains an important partner and friend of the United Kingdom. We commend the progress that it has made on human rights and the ambition for the further development of political, social, economic and governmental institutions. The Father of the House, my right hon. Friend—
James Cleverly
Outrageous. The Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), said something typically wise: it would not take much for Bahrain to become one of the best. I think he is right to say that. We will continue to hold frank and sometimes difficult but constructive discussions with our counterparts in Bahrain, and we will continue to support them through the Gulf strategy fund and other diplomatic means, to help them to become the very best that they can be.
Brendan O’Hara
I put on record my thanks to the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), the right hon. Members for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), the hon. Members for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson), the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) and the right hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) for their contributions.
It is deeply disappointing that in a debate about the detention of Bahraini political prisoners, the Minister did not once in his speech mention the names of Dr al-Singace, Hassan Mushaima or any of the other prisoners who have been mentioned. The message came loud and clear from the Minister that everything the Government have done for the past 10 years may have failed, but it is business as usual because human rights abuses are a price worth paying to secure a trade deal with just about anybody.
As the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate said, this is not a matter of party politics; it is a matter of right and wrong. The Minister and his Government have clearly picked which side they are on. Hon. Friends and Members on both sides of the Chamber will continue to ask the awkward questions, continue to expose the multiple failings of this Government and continue to shine a light where certain people in this House do not want it shone.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the ongoing detention of Bahraini political prisoners.
Draft Online Safety Bill Report
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Report of the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill, HC 609.
I would like to start by thanking the members and Clerks of our Joint Committee, who put in a tremendous effort to deliver its report. In 11 sitting weeks, we received more than 200 submissions of written evidence, took oral evidence from 50 witnesses and held four further roundtable meetings with outside experts, as well as Members of both Houses. I am delighted to see my Joint Committee colleagues Lord Gilbert and Baroness Kidron in the Gallery. I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), and the Secretary of State for the open and collaborative way in which they worked with the Committee throughout the process and our deliberations. I also thank Ofcom, which provided a lot of constructive guidance and advice to the Committee as we prepared the report.
This feels like a moment that has been a long time coming. There has been huge interest on both sides of the House in the Online Safety Bill ever since the publication of the first White Paper in April 2019, and then there were two Government responses, the publication of the draft Bill and a process of pre-legislative scrutiny by the Joint Committee. I feel that the process has been worth while: in producing a unanimous report, I think the Committee has reflected the wide range of opinions that we received and put forward some strong ideas that will improve the Bill, which I hope will get a Second Reading later in the Session. I believe that it has been a process worth undertaking, and many other Lords and Commons Committees have been looking at the same time at the important issues around online safety and the central role that online services play in our lives.
The big tech companies have had plenty of notice that this is coming. During that period, have we seen a marked improvement? Have we seen the introduction of effective self-regulation? Have the companies set a challenge to Parliament, saying “You don’t really need to pass this legislation, because we are doing all we can already”? No. If anything, the problems have got worse. Last year, we saw an armed insurrection in Washington DC in which a mob stormed the Capitol building, fuelled by messages of hate and confrontation that circulated substantially online. Last summer, members of the England football team were subject to vile racist abuse at the end of the final—the football authorities had warned the companies that that could happen, but they did not prepare for it or act adequately at the time.
As Rio Ferdinand said in evidence to the Joint Committee, people should not have to put up with this. People cannot just put their device down—it is a tool that they use for work and to stay in communication with their family and friends—so they cannot walk away from the abuse. If someone is abused in a room, they can leave the room, but they cannot walk away from a device that may be the first thing that they see in the morning and one of the last things that they see at night.
We have seen an increase in the incidence of child abuse online. The Internet Watch Foundation has produced a report today that shows that yet again there are record levels of abusive material related to children, posing a real child safety risk. It said the same in its report last year, and the issues are getting worse. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen the rise of anti-vaccine conspiracies.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for bringing this forward. We have a colleague in Northern Ireland, Diane Dodds MLA, who has had unbelievably vile abuse towards her and her family. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a huge loophole and gap in this Bill—namely, that the anonymity clause remains that allows comments such as those to my colleague and friend Diane Dodds, which were despicable in the extreme? There will be no redress and no one held accountable through this Bill. The veil of anonymity must be lifted and people made to face the consequences of what they are brave enough to type but not to say.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman is not trying to make a speech, is he? No, he is not.
Damian Collins
The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. The Committee agreed in the report that there must be an expedited process of transparency, so that when people are using anonymity to abuse other people—saying things for which in public they might be sued or have action taken against them—it must be much easier to swiftly identify who those people are. People must know that if they post hate online directed at other people and commit an offence in doing so, their anonymity will not be a shield that will protect them: they will be identified readily and action taken against them. Of course there are cases where anonymity may be required, when people are speaking out against an oppressive regime or victims of abuse are telling their story, but it should not be used as a shield to abuse others. We set that out in the report and the hon. Gentleman is right that the Bill needs to move on it.
We are not just asking the companies to moderate content; we are asking them to moderate their systems as well. Their systems play an active role in directing people towards hate and abuse. A study commissioned by Facebook showed that over 60% of people who joined groups that showed extremist content did so at the active recommendation of the platform itself. In her evidence to the Committee, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen made clear the active role of systems in promoting and driving content through to people, making them the target of abuse, and making vulnerable people more likely to be confronted with and directed towards content that will exacerbate their vulnerabilities.
Facebook and companies like it may not have invented hate but they are driving hate and making it worse. They must be responsible for these systems. It is right that the Bill will allow the regulator to hold those companies to account not just for what they do or do not take down, but for the way they use the systems that they have created and designed to make money for themselves by keeping people on them longer, such that they are responsible for them. The key thing at the heart of the Bill and at the heart of the report published by the Joint Committee is that the companies must be held liable for the systems they have created. The Committee recommended a structural change to the Bill to make it absolutely clear that what is illegal offline should be regulated online. Existing offences in law should be written into the Bill and it should be demonstrated how the regulator will set the thresholds for enforcement of those measures online.
This approach has been made possible because of the work of the Law Commission in producing its recommendations, particularly in introducing new offences around actively promoting self-harm and promoting content and information that is known to be false. A new measure will give us the mechanism to deal with malicious deepfake films being targeted at people. There are also necessary measures to make sure that there are guiding principles that the regulator has to work to, and the companies have to work to, to ensure regard to public health in dealing with dangerous disinformation relating to the pandemic or other public health issues.
We also have to ensure an obligation for the regulator to uphold principles of freedom of expression. It is important that effective action should be taken against hate speech, extremism, illegal content and all harmful content that is within the scope of the Bill, but if companies are removing content that has every right to be there—where the positive expression of people’s opinions has every right to be online—then the regulator should have the power to intervene in that direction as well.
At the heart of the regime has to be a system where Ofcom, as the independent regulator, can set mandatory codes and standards that we expect the companies to meet, and then use its powers to investigate and audit them to make sure that they are complying. We cannot have a system that is based on self-declared transparency reports by the companies where even they themselves struggle to explain what the results mean and there is no mechanism for understanding whether they are giving us the full picture or only a highly partial one. The regulator must have that power. Crucially, the codes of practice should set the mandatory minimum standards. We should not have Silicon Valley deciding what the online safety of citizens in this country should be. That should be determined through legislation passed through this Parliament empowering the regulator to set the minimum standards and take enforcement action when they have not been met.
We also believe that the Bill would be improved by removing a controversial area, the principles in clause 11. The priority areas of harm are determined by the Secretary of State and advisory to the companies. If we base the regulatory regime and the codes of practice on established offences that this Parliament has already created, which are known and understood and therefore enforced, we can say they are mandatory and clear and that there has been a parliamentary approval process in creating the offences in the first place.
Where new areas of harm are added to the schedules and the codes of practice, there should be an affirmative procedure in both Houses of Parliament to approve those changes to the code, so that Members have the chance to vote on changes to the codes of practice and the introduction of new offences as a consequence of those offences being created.
The Committee took a lot of evidence on the question of online fraud and scams. We received evidence from the Work and Pensions Committee and the Treasury Committee advising us that this should be done: if a known scam or attempt to rip off and defraud people is present on a website or social media platform, be it through advertising or any kind of posting, it should be within the scope and it should be for the regulator to require its removal. There should not be a general blanket exemption for advertising, which would create a perverse incentive to promote such content more actively.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for his work on this important issue. Does he agree, as referred to in the report, that platforms must be required to proactively seek out that content and ensure it is changed, and if not, remove it, rather than all removals being prompted by users?
Damian Collins
It is vital that companies are made to act proactively. That is one of the problems with the current regime, where action against illegal content is only required once it is reported to the companies and they are not proactively identifying it. My hon. Friend is right about that, particularly with frauds and scams where the perpetrators are known. The role of the regulator is to ensure that companies do not run those ads. The advertising authorities can still take action against individual advertisers, as can the police, but there should be a proactive responsibility on the platforms themselves.
If you will allow me to say one or two more things, Madam Deputy Speaker, we believe it is important that there should be user redress through the system. That is why the Committee recommended creating an ombudsman if complaints have been exhausted without successful resolution, but also permitting civil redress through the courts.
If an individual or their family has been greatly harmed as a consequence of what they have seen on social media, they may take some solace in the fact that the regulator has intervened against the company for its failures and levied fines or taken action against individual directors. However, as an individual can take a case to the courts for a company’s failure to meet its obligations under data protection law, that should also apply to online safety legislation. An individual should have the right, on their own or with others, to sue a company for failing to meet its obligations under an online safety Act.
I commend the report to the House and thank everyone involved in its production for their hard work. This is a Bill we desperately need, and I look forward to seeing it pass through the House in this Session.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
As the House can see, a great many people want to speak this afternoon, so we will have to have a time limit of five minutes with immediate effect.
Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and the members of his Committee on bringing forward an incredibly thorough and very good report. I know Ministers have been consulting well with all Back Benchers, and I hope they do not pay lip service to the report’s conclusions, but really take on its important recommendations. What is interesting about this whole debate is that there is a broad consensus on the Back Benches. None of us are bound by ideology on these issues; our approach is based on our experience, the data and the wide body of research.
I will also say at the beginning that the business model of the platforms means that they will never tackle this themselves. They make their money by encouraging traffic on their platforms, and they encourage traffic by allowing abusive content to exist there. Their algorithms are there almost to control and encourage more abusive content. The idea that there can be any self-regulation in the legislation to be proposed by the Government is false.
I will draw attention to three sets of issues in the short time available to me. The first, the recommendations on paid-for scams and frauds, has already been discussed. It is ridiculous that user-generated content can be subject to regulation but that paid-for scams and frauds cannot be. Everybody who gave evidence to the Committee, including the Financial Conduct Authority, pleaded for its inclusion. The figure I have is from Action Fraud: 85% of the £1.7 billion lost in fraudulent scams in the past year resulted from cyber-enabled frauds. During the pandemic, this figure of course exploded. Again, there is no incentive for the platforms to do anything about this. They get paid for by the advertisements so they wish to encourage them. Indeed, there is a double benefit in this particular space for them, because the FCA also pays for them to prioritise the legitimate websites over the scam adds, so again self-regulation will not work. I know that Ministers support the proposal, and I hope that they are not swayed by advice that it is not legally possible, as I just do not accept that. I hope that they do not miss this opportunity by way of promises of legislation down the line.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I very much agree with the point my right hon. Friend is making and with the recommendation in the report. I wonder whether she noticed that the Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee in July that
“one of the key objectives of the Online Safety Bill is to tackle online fraud.”
Does she agree that it cannot possibly do that if it misses out scam adverts?
Dame Margaret Hodge
I completely agree with my right hon. Friend on that, and I hope that the Minister will confirm that he will include this in the legislation.
The second issue I wish to raise relates to anonymity. No one wants to undermine anonymity—we all recognise that it is crucial for whistleblowers, for victims of domestic violence or child abuse, and for others—but we do want to tackle anonymous abuse. Sadly, most of the vile abuse that appears online is anonymous, as we have seen in the spreading of disinformation, particularly in relation to the pandemic. I have seen it in my experience, and it really undermines my right to participate in democratic debate. If people paint someone online as being a terrible person, as a hypocrite or as a hateful, wicked woman, which is what they do with me, that person is then not trusted on anything and therefore their voice is shut down in the democratic debate.
What we are all after is not tackling anonymity but ensuring third party verification of the identity of people so that they can be traced if and when they put abusive content online. The proposals that came from the Law Commission, and which one of the four ex-Culture Secretaries who has worked on this issue has diligently pursued, to introduce a new offence to tackle serious online harms more effectively is very important. It is about shifting from content to the effects of the online harm.
My third point relates to director liability. All my experience in working in the field of tackling illicit finance and economic crime demonstrates to me that if we do not introduce director liability for when wrongdoing occurs in the actions of individuals associated with a company, we do not change the behaviour of those companies. Even fines of £50 million are not significant against Facebook’s gross revenue of more than £29 billion. I do not understand why we have to wait for two years to implement director liability, as it could be done immediately. I would be grateful to the Minister if he said that he will implement that.
The last thing I should say, in my final seconds, is on anonymity. I would like the Minister simply to confirm this afternoon whether he will tackle anonymous abuse and put in place the Law Commission’s proposals. When is the timeframe for that? I very much welcome the report and commend all those who worked so hard to put it together, and I hope we can make progress swiftly on a problem that is growing in British society and that is undermining, not supporting, democracy.
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing this debate, which is clearly sparking enormous interest. I welcome the majority of the Joint Committee’s recommendations. Indeed, they very much build on the work already carried out by the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport over recent years. When the big tech giants were in their infancy, the Select Committee, which I am proud to chair today, was already leading on some of this work. The Select Committee has been scrutinising the online harms White Paper over the past year and is continuing to do so, and it will be coming up with its own recommendations shortly. The Joint Committee’s report even acknowledges the ongoing work of the Select Committee by stating
“the DCMS Committee has maintained its interest on the issue through the work of its Sub-committee”
—its standing Sub-Committee—
“on Online Harms and Disinformation”.
Let me add to my hon. Friend’s speech by identifying some points with which I agree, but which go above and beyond what he actually said. First, I support the Joint Committee’s work on journalistic content, and its recommendation that existing protections relating to journalistic content and content of democratic importance should be replaced by a single statutory requirement for proportionate systems and processes to protect
“content where there are reasonable grounds to believe it will be in the public interest”.
I also welcome some of the work that the Joint Committee has done in exploring age assurances, building on the work already done by the Select Committee. In particular, it rightly makes several recommendations for Ofcom to establish minimum standards for age assurance technology and governance linked to risk profiles to ensure that third-party and provider-designed assurance technologies are privacy-enhancing and rights-protecting, and that in commissioning such services, providers are restricted in respect of the data for which they can ask.
It is right that the Joint Committee acknowledges the serious threats that misinformation poses to society. In recent months we have witnessed the rise in fake news from the anti-vaccine campaigns as it has hit our social media feeds. I therefore support the recommendation that there should be
“content-neutral safety by design requirements, set out as minimum standards in mandatory codes of practice.”
However, the recommendation that a permanent Joint Committee be established as
“a solution to the lack of transparency and…oversight”
concerns me, and my Committee, for a range of reasons. First, it would go against a long-standing parliamentary convention. Never before has a Joint Committee been established merely to provide post-legislative scrutiny. I know some Members have suggested that a Joint Committee on online harms would have terms of reference mirroring those of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Intelligence and Security Committee, but the Joint Committee on Human Rights was certainly never enshrined in the Human Rights Act 1998, and the responsibility of the Intelligence and Security Committee is to provide oversight for policies, expenditure, and operations adopted by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ.
We fear that the creation of such a standing Joint Committee would not only go against parliamentary convention, but would set a bad precedent for many decades to come. If some particularly complex legislation comes to the House in the future, will we just keep on setting up Joint Committees to provide post-legislative scrutiny? Of course we will not—we would be very foolish to do so—but this recommendation sets a precedent for it to happen. When I asked about the cost of establishing the Joint Committee, I was told that it would be £500,000 a year. Moreover, the work is already being done by an elected Committee of the House and a Committee in the other place.
What is the point of establishing another Committee merely to replicate the work that the Select Committee is already doing? If our Committee does need to conduct post-legislative scrutiny of legislation that is particularly complex and groundbreaking, we have a Sub-Committee for the purpose. We recognise the importance of this legislation and this area, and we will continue to scrutinise it through our Sub-Committee and through Standing Order No.152.
I raised this matter with the Leader of the House in my capacity as the Select Committee Chair, and I am grateful to him for his response, in which he said:
“Business Managers and I are of the view that this scrutiny can be arranged through current Standing Orders and that it should not require legislation, nor extraordinary powers, to achieve.”
I know from my conversations with Opposition Front Benchers that they strongly support retaining such scrutiny within current parliamentary procedures, rather than innovating in a way that could be damaging in the long term.
I welcome many aspects of this report, which builds on the Select Committee’s own report, but fine tuning is needed before the Bill comes to the House. My Committee stands ready to issue those fine-tuning exercises, and will do so in the coming days.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I congratulate the Joint Committee on an excellent report, consisting of 191 pages of well-researched, balanced, temperate and intelligent analysis and recommendations. It is rare to find such qualities when it comes to subjects as important as online harms and, indeed, technology in the society of today. I will not go through the report’s recommendations in detail because I do not have the time, but also because I support and welcome just about all of them. I will mention, for example, the design for safety recommendation, which I think is excellent, but it is one among many excellent recommendations. Instead, I will focus my remarks on why this report needs to be implemented as quickly as possible and what else needs to happen.
I want to start by speaking in praise of technology. I count myself as a tech evangelist. We have to think how many lives have been saved by remote medicine, how many marriages have been saved by not having to argue about the best way to get directions to an event, how much joy has been shared through cat memes or whatever, and how many businesses have been started on such platforms. Technology can and should be a force for good. That is why I went into engineering—to make the world work better for everyone—and my final year project at Imperial College was on a remote alarm to support people who need care in their own homes.
Engineering should be a force for good, but as the report sets out, that is no longer how it is seen. Many of my constituents, for example, feel they are being tracked, monitored, surveilled and analysed, and they feel undermined because they do not want to have to go online to do what they want to do without feeling safe and secure. Self-regulation is broken, as the report says, and it did not need to be this way. Some of us may remember concerns, back when the web started out, that if it was used for commercial purposes, people would be flamed with emails and condemned for trying to advertise or do direct marketing on the web. Somehow, however, the web was captured by those on what I can only describe as the libertarian right, who sought to maintain the lie that technology and the internet were nothing to do with Government, while building monopolistic platforms with more money and more power than most Governments. Their attitude to regulation and Government, as I remember from my days at Ofcom, was often that if they ignored them, regulation and Government would go away.
Now, of course, the tech giants use their immense riches to wield immense power over Governments—whether in opposing workers’ rights in Silicon valley or in delaying and minimising regulation here. In that, they have been all too successful, and I have to say that it was with the support of a series of Conservative Governments who wanted to leave this to the market and believed that the state was too slow or too stupid to regulate to keep people safe, while actively cutting the part of the state designed to do so. That is why, in my view, this Online Safety Bill is a decade too late. These measures cannot be in place for another year—and that is if the Government act in double quick time, which they seem unable to do—which means that it will be 2023 before we have online safety regulation.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
I too want to say how important this work is, and I urge that this Bill is desperately needed. Refuge has found that one in three women have at some time in their life experienced abuse online. I would say that Muslim women in particular experience a triple whammy of race, faith and gender, and Tell MAMA has told us of the 40% increase in abuse against Muslim women during the lockdown. I hope my hon. Friend agrees that the social media companies must be held to account for their repeated failures.
Chi Onwurah
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention because he is absolutely right: women in particular have been subjected to harm online, and that is one of the reasons why more women and more people from ethnic minorities need to take part in designing and developing the web and platforms in the future.
I think it is really important to recognise that the last Labour Government put in place forward-looking regulation in the Communications Act 2003, which set out the landscape for regulating growing tech companies for the next decade. Given that a series of Conservative Governments have put in place no regulation, that the Bill cannot be in place for another year is a real indictment of them and shows a level of negligence that it is difficult to recover from.
In my last minute, let me just say what we need to be looking towards for the future. The Bill and the report do not reflect the development around web 3.0. We are looking to more decentralisation of the web, which is being reflected in the use of blockchain as part of the future architecture of the web. For some, blockchain is a way of avoiding government. If someone has blockchain, they do not need government. It is that kind of libertarian, right-wing approach to digital, and any Government need to be constantly looking forward to see what regulation will be required. We also need to have more emphasis on people’s rights, on access to algorithms and on their regulation. I look forward to this Bill being in place as soon as possible.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
I echo the words of thanks to the Joint Committee and its Clerks, under the excellent chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), for this thorough and weighty report. It includes some of the big beasts in the world of online safety, and that is important, because this is one of the single most important pieces of legislation of our time. It is absolutely groundbreaking. It is vast; it is almost five Bills in one, and no country has attempted to regulate the internet so comprehensively.
The pressure is on, not least because we have got into this bad habit of describing this Bill as the calvary coming over the hill for the online world and all the ills it contains. Someone compared it with the motor car, and it has taken decades of legislation to address the safety issues of that evolving technology, so we will never do this in a oner, but this Bill needs to be the very best possible starting point—the foundations to face the current threats, but also the challenges of the future.
I lived with this Bill for 20 months; I can talk about it forever, but I will not. Let us start at the beginning with the algorithms. We have all seen them. We start watching cute videos—in my case, it is usually of babies falling asleep in their own food, but that is probably just me—and immediately we are swept into this rabbit hole of suggested content, and it is designed to keep us engaged as long as possible, because that is where the money is: to capture our attention and sell it to the highest bidder. Do not forget, if we are not paying for the product, it is most likely we are the product.
It gets more sinister than that, though, because that same algorithm that is sending me those cute babies is recommending self-harm to a vulnerable teenager or spreading wildly dangerous disinformation about the dangers of covid. Algorithms are echo chambers. They take our fears and paranoia and surround us with unhealthy voices that reinforce them, however dangerous and hateful.
According to the 2020 Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma”, former employees of the largest social media companies who were integral to the early development of those algorithms say that addiction is built into the design. Many of them say that the platforms are so unhealthy, they would not let their own kids anywhere near them. As the report says, tackling these design risks at source is more effective than just trying to take down individual pieces of content. We saw that with the outbreak of covid, when 5G masts were burned to the ground because of some wild conspiracy theory that suggested they were the root cause of covid. 3G and 4G masts were also destroyed, because it turns out these people are not wildly bright and cannot tell the difference. We cannot censor this stuff, because that just fuels the sense of a conspiracy theory of state conspiring. We need to stop it before it is force-fed into people and ensure that there is balance. Platforms must tackle the design features that exacerbate the risk of harm, and the legislation should include a specific responsibility for them to do it and for the regulator to enforce it.
I want to talk quickly about a couple of the specifics. There cannot be a Member of the House who has not supported a constituent devastated by online fraud. It is growing exponentially, and there is almost universal agreement that the legislation should address it. That is why we changed things from the White Paper to the draft Bill, but I agree with the Committee that the measure should be strengthened, and it should also be extended to cover paid-for advertising.
Child protection has always been a cornerstone of the Bill. I have no doubt that social media platforms are where the volume is, in terms of both content and people, and in practice it is where very young children are most likely to stumble over really unpleasant content. However, it is not enough to include only user-generated content. The Bill’s credibility will be undermined overnight if the largest commercial pornography providers can keep hosting extreme content and putting children at risk. I would therefore like to see the Bill extended, in line with the age appropriate design code. That would be a really good way of dealing with that, as the report suggests.
On categorisation, no doubt big platforms and search engines are where the volume is, but the digital world changes at lightning pace and trends go viral overnight. Risk should not be judged on size—it must be judged on risk. Emerging platforms can be hotbeds of extremism and really unpleasant content, and they must be appropriately regulated.
A final quick note of caution about the report’s all-or-nothing tone. It makes great suggestions that would strengthen the Bill, but that has been years in the making. I did a tiny bit of it. It has involved many Ministers and a team of fantastic officials, many of whom have worked on it from the beginning. The Bill is like a huge, complicated tapestry: you pull one thread and others can unravel further down the line. The online world is so fast moving—it is evolving at a rate of knots. We have to think carefully about how we change the Bill. Otherwise, it will be obsolete before the ink is dry.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
I speak as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention and intend to deal with those issues. Suicide remains a major public health problem, with the highest suicide rates among men aged 45 to 49. It is the biggest killer of young people aged 16 to 24 and the suicide rate for young women is now at its highest on record.
While suicide and self-harm are complex and rarely caused by one thing, in many cases, the internet is involved. A 2017 inquiry into suicides of young people found suicide-related internet use in nearly 26% of deaths in under-20s and 13% of deaths in 20 to 24-year olds. I therefore welcome the Committee’s report, in particular its recommendation that encouraging or assisting suicide be included in the primary legislation as a priority illegal harm.
Self-harm, which is a major risk for suicide, is also becoming much more prevalent, having tripled among young people in the last 15 years. One in 15 adults in England report that they have self-harmed. I also welcome the Committee’s recommendation, in line with the Law Commission’s, that encouraging or assisting a person to seriously self-harm should be made illegal.
While some harmful suicide content is illegal—and some self-harm content could be in future—there will be suicide and self-harm content that can be distressing, triggering and instructive, that can act in part to maintain or exacerbate self-harm and suicidal behaviours, and that is legal but harmful. Will the Minister confirm that suicide and self-harm will also be included as a priority legal but harmful content in the final Bill?
Samaritans has a longstanding concern that the draft Bill lets smaller platforms such as online community groups, forums and message boards, where some of the most harmful suicide and self-harm content can be found, completely off the hook, particularly when it comes to protecting adults. The Committee received written evidence from people who contacted Samaritans to share their lived experience of suicide. One respondent wrote:
“The people using the bigger sites will just flood the smaller sites if their content starts getting removed. The standard needs to be the same across all sites.”
Another wrote:
“If suicidal people can’t find what they are looking for at large sites they will just go on to the smaller sites so it doesn’t solve the problem.”
Eighteen years old is not a cut-off point for experiencing suicidal ideation, which can fluctuate over the course of a single day. Those who experience that are more likely to be more vulnerable and at greater risk of harm from legal but harmful suicide and self-harm content.
Another respondent with lived experience told the Committee:
“Harmful and accessible suicide and self-harm online content can be harmful at any age. I am in my fifties and would be tempted to act on this information if I felt suicidal again”.
Furthermore, it has been unclear whether Wikipedia, where some of the most harmful content can be found, would be in scope of the legislation. I therefore welcome the Committee’s recommendation that the categorisation of services in the draft Bill be overhauled and that all platforms consider the risk that their service poses in relation to children and adults.
There is a clear imperative to tackle suicide and self-harm content online. Taking a partial approach to such content will undermine the UK Government’s efforts to prevent suicide and to achieve the aims of the cross-Government national suicide prevention strategy in England. A key aspect of suicide prevention is the reduction of access to means, and reducing the availability of harmful and instructional information is one way of achieving that.
No caveats around tackling harmful suicide and self-harm content—size of platform, age of user—should be established that will diminish the legislation’s ability to tackle harmful content in this space. Can the Minister confirm in relation to suicide and self-harm content that all platforms and people of all ages will be in scope in the final Bill presented to this House?
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
Back in 2013, when I was Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport—I am one of at least two former Culture Secretaries in this debate—I visited a number of social media companies in Silicon Valley. I spent time looking at their ethos, priorities and vision, and I rapidly came to the conclusion that statutory regulation would be absolutely essential for the sector in the UK; I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) for taking that forward.
I welcome the Joint Committee’s work on this issue. The report is absolutely right to start by saying that self-regulation of online services has failed. It has failed to ensure the design of products that are safe to use, that products are age-appropriate and that content is properly monitored and moderated—hygiene factors in almost any other sector in this country.
When she gave evidence to the Joint Committee, the Secretary of State was completely right in saying that the first priority has to be to end online abuse. Regulation will only ever be part of that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) said: there are many other elements to the issue. I would like to touch on a couple of those and underline some of the points in the report.
Better law that properly recognises new types of crime in the online world has to be a priority of the Government now—they have gone a great deal of the way towards recognising that following the Law Commission’s reports, but there is much more to do, particularly given the violence against women and girls strategy and its acknowledgement that online abuse disproportionately affects women. The Joint Committee’s report touches on this issue, but I would go further.
The Government have already recognised the need to criminalise cyber-flashing and deep fake, but the development of such things as nudification software shows how sickeningly ingenious the sector is in inventing new and different ways to perpetrate harm. When it comes to online harm, we need to make sure that the law is better and future-proofed. As well as putting current laws into the Bill, will the Minister produce a schedule of other areas against which the Government intend to legislate—particularly in the area of intimate image abuse—to make sure that all the law is up to date? The regulator needs a strong criminal law in place if it is to be effective.
I underline the issue of individual redress. I whole-heartedly support the Joint Committee recommendation on reporting mechanisms and the idea of an online safety ombudsman; that will be really important to make sure that the Bill does not appear to our constituents, the people who suffer online abuse, as something remote and not practically helpful in their day-to-day life online. I would go one step further and make sure that victim support groups are also well funded because many more victims will be coming forward.
A number of right hon. and hon. Members have touched on the issue of anonymity. We know that the Bill is silent on that issue at the moment, and the Joint Committee is right to recommend changes. I do not fully agree with its recommendations; in my view, the evidence shows that anonymity creates an atmosphere of impunity for those who are abusive. Polling by Compassion in Politics shows that more than 80% of social media users would provide evidence to get verified accounts, and making verified accounts the default option—not the only option—would help to stop some of the abuse. It would not stop all of the abuse, of course, but it would help to change the ethos.
The Joint Committee’s report underlines the importance of having evidence, as the lack of transparency and reporting makes scrutiny of the impact of social media very difficult. I wholeheartedly support the idea of ensuring better, clearer and more transparent reporting.
A self-regulated online world has failed. Statutory regulation is the only way forward, but we need to encourage others around the world to follow suit. I applaud the Government for their approach, and I would add to the report’s recommendations by saying that the Government should use their work in developing strong relations around the world and in establishing new trade agreements to discuss the stake we all have in a safe and healthy online world.
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I support the Joint Committee’s work, and I am grateful to the Chair, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), and the members of the Committee for their efforts in this important area.
I would like to raise the case of a young boy from Reading, Olly Stephens, who was killed in a most brutal attack, a knifing, in a park where he was lured through social media. I hope to set out some of the concerns of his family and our local community about this dreadful crime.
I pay tribute to Olly. He was just 13 when he died, and he had his whole life ahead of him. He was a livewire at school and a likable boy. It is simply impossible to imagine what his parents and his family are going through. It is now a year since he passed away, and they had a memorial service at the beginning of January that was incredibly moving and very difficult. My heart and the hearts of people in the local community go out to the Stephens family at this incredibly difficult time.
I thank Stuart and Amanda Stephens and, indeed, the community as a whole for their campaigning work to try to raise awareness of knife crime—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Thank you. And to raise awareness of the connection between knife crime and social media.
The background to the attack and the way in which it involved social media is very clear and quite shocking. First, Olly met the two boys who killed him online—that was the connection between them. Secondly, and most crucially of all, he was lured to the park where he was stabbed. A girl sent him a message online asking him to come to the park. She had separately messaged other young people asking someone to stab Olly. This was on a social media platform, and you can imagine how awful it is.
The third point that is important for us to consider today is that the boys who killed Olly—they were very young teenagers—were using 11 different social media platforms, and they were sharing images of knives. Imagine teenagers flicking and playing with knives in their bedroom, videoing it and putting that shocking content up on social media. None of those 11 platforms took down that content. That is the level we are talking about, which is why I urge the Minister particularly to address the connection between knife crime and social media. I am sure he will respond on that point.
Once again, and I hope the Minister will be able to reply in detail, I call for action from the Government on behalf of Olly’s parents and on behalf of the local community in Reading and Woodley. I know some of these points are in the report, but I would particularly like the Minister to address the importance of age restrictions, the importance of ending anonymity online and the importance of forcing companies to take down harmful content. How can it be right that powerful and very wealthy companies are allowed to put clearly dangerous content online, such as content featuring knives, and not take it down immediately?
Finally and crucially, because this was apparently also a factor in the case, we must ensure that companies co-operate with the police. I want to look into this further, but I understand it is possible that the social media company where the message was shared inciting this criminal act did not fully co-operate with the police. I want to hear more about it, but I understand that is a possibility. I therefore ask the Minister also to ensure that companies operating in the UK are regulated in the UK, so that we can protect our young people from this dreadful form of crime.
In conclusion, I am grateful to the Chair of the Joint Committee and his team for their work on this important matter, and I also thank the Minister and my colleague the shadow Minister for their work. I hope that we can now move forward together to tackle this awful abuse and other forms of crime.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda), who I think illustrated clearly why this Bill matters. I want to joint the chorus of warm congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and his entire Committee on their remarkable work in producing such an impressive report on what is a very complex Bill. They have done the House a huge favour by suggesting ways in which the Bill could be made more straightforward and more focused on its overall objectives.
The Bill covers unlawful content as well as legal but harmful content, and it is in the latter category that the definitional challenges apply. Of course, we see in that challenge a conflict between specificity and flexibility. The legislation and the regulation that we create need to be specific enough that those subject to it know what they have to do, but flexible enough to keep up with what is a changing online world. The overarching duty of care set out in the initial White Paper was designed to give that adaptability and to encourage proactivity on the part of platforms in identifying and responding to emerging harms, and there is no doubt that that needs refinement.
I think that the Committee’s recommendation that there should be a requirement to have in place proportionate systems and processes for identifying and mitigating reasonably foreseeable risks of harm arising from regulated activity defined under the Bill is largely an elegant way to square that circle and keep some sense of control in this place of what harms we are content for the regulator to act against. However, I do not think that the Committee would claim that this is the last word on the subject, and nor should it be, because there are inherent risks of inflexibility—legislating to change harms is cumbersome and time-consuming.
There is also a risk of inconsistency, even with the Committee’s approach elsewhere. I am thinking of the Committee’s approach to defining content that is harmful to children, which it defines as content or activity that is either specified on the face of the Bill or in regulation, or—this is the crucial bit—where there is a “reasonably foreseeable risk” that it would be likely to cause harm. In other words, there needs to be some flexibility to oblige platforms to deal with harms that are not defined in regulations or in the Bill as they emerge in a fast-changing landscape, and I think that needs to be reflected more broadly too.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
My right hon. and learned Friend makes an important point about flexibility. I wonder whether he is familiar with the work of the Epilepsy Society, which has found that people with photo-sensitive epilepsy are being sent flashing images in the hope that that might induce a seizure. Does he feel that that type of harm ought to be incorporated in the definitions in the Bill as well?
Jeremy Wright
Sadly, I am familiar with the activity that my hon. Friend describes. Of course, it is quite possible that such activity is unlawful, in which case it may well be covered in that part of the Bill. If it is not, we must ensure that there is sufficient flexibility to cover it elsewhere.
The conflict between flexibility and specificity appears elsewhere too. The Committee is right to say, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), that the categorisation approach to differentiating platforms that present greater harm from those that present lesser harm is too blunt an instrument. We need a more sophisticated approach based on risk profile, as the Committee says—one that recognises that risks can emerge from unexpected places and with which we can see small platforms becoming influential very quickly.
I also think that the Committee is entirely right to seek to change the emphasis of the Bill away from solely content and towards activity and systems too, because ultimately it is the ordering, promoting and manipulation of content that is the root of the problem, and that is what the Bill should seek to address. Transparency will of course be crucial in enabling the regulator to do so.
It is also right to highlight, as the report does, what needs adding to or bolstering in the Bill, whether it be anonymity, the management of end-to-end encryption, misinformation and disinformation, or age assurance and verification, which others have spoken about. There are, as the Committee says, other changes needed to the Bill. The structure at the moment is heavily dependent on risk assessments that platforms themselves conduct. There is no provision at the moment for the regulator to do something about those risk assessments being profoundly inadequate, whether by accident or design, and there clearly needs to be.
We all agree that Ofcom needs adequate sanctions to be taken seriously. I welcome, as the Committee does, the Government’s indication that they will bring forward more quickly individual director liability for information offences—in other words, failures to give Ofcom information about what is going on. We need to recognise that out of that arises the potentially fairly ludicrous situation in which an individual director might be engaging in the most appalling conduct, but so long as they are honest with the regulator about it, they are okay. That cannot be right and that is why I think the Committee is right to identify the need for an additional offence to deal with egregious conduct by directors.
The balance between parliamentary oversight and the operation of ministerial discretion in the Bill is, frankly, in the wrong place. There is too little of the former and too much of the latter. Power for Ministers to amend codes of practice in order to reflect Government policy is a particularly chilling potential infringement on the independence of the regulator. That needs to be repaired.
The final point I want to make is this: when we approach a Bill not just of this complexity but with the groundbreaking nature that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport described, we need to do so with humility. We may not get everything right first time and there is no monopoly of wisdom. There is no example for us to look to internationally and the rest of the world is looking at us to do this first. I take the point made earlier about delay, but we are still doing it first. We need to get it right and I hope the Government will approach it with an open mind.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I, too, want to thank the Joint Committee for its very thorough report and for the recommendations it has made to the upcoming online safety legislation. As has already been mentioned, bringing our legislation on harmful online content into the 21st century is long overdue.
Today, I want to speak about a very particular but sadly prevalent harm: violence against women and girls. The year 2021 was a watershed moment for violence against women and girls, at least in terms of discussion around the extent of the problem. I thank each and every one of my constituents in Bath who wrote to me about these issues. We need those conversations about online violence against women and girls. The experiences of women and men online are often very different. Gendered harms are endemic. The Government have a responsibility to recognise and take meaningful steps in the Online Safety Bill to reduce those harms. I share the Joint Committee’s concern that any Bill aimed at improving online safety that does not require companies to act on misogynistic abuse would not be credible.
I welcome the Committee’s recommendation that cyber-flashing should be made illegal. The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) has already touched on that issue. Cyber-flashing is a particularly prevalent form of online violence against women and it disproportion- ately affects young women and girls. Some 76% of girls aged 12 to 18, and 41% of all women, have reported being sent unsolicited penis images. According to the dating app Bumble, 48% of millennial women said they had been sent an unsolicited sexual image in the last year alone. Like real life flashing, cyber-flashing can frighten. It can humiliate. It can violate boundaries. It is a form of sexual harassment from which even the physical boundaries of a home offer no respite. In the words of one woman who shared her experiences, cyber-flashing is “relentless”. It can cause many women to police their online activity to avoid receiving those types of images.
All too often the trauma that women experience is trivialised. Unlike in Scotland, there is no effective route to prosecution for cyber-flashing for those who experience it in England and Wales. I urge Ministers to use the Bill to close this loophole in the law. This issue, at its heart, is about consent, and consent is the principle on which new a cyber-flashing measure should be based. A consent-based approach focuses on the core wrong and makes it easier for recipients to report instances of cyber-flashing.
Nearly four years ago, I presented my upskirting Bill to the House. I argued then that upskirting should be an offence regardless of the motivation of the perpetrator. That is because upskirting causes significant harm to the victim regardless of the intentions behind it. The same is true of cyber-flashing. It was the approach taken in Texas where it is now illegal to send unsolicited genital images. I recommend Bumble for its work on this campaign, and I hope that Members across the House will add their support to it, so that we can replicate the approach in England and Wales that has been taken by Texas. Various Ministers have now signalled their support for criminalising cyber-flashing. That is very welcome, but the Government must act without delay.
As digital spaces become an ever greater part of our lives, we must ensure that an increasing number of people have a route to justice.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
Let me start by commending the work of the Joint Committee. I do so in large part because it reflects the fact that, thankfully, there is precious little partisan politics in this area. There is huge agreement across the House.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister. He is the latest custodian of what I fear will become the largest Christmas tree Bill in Parliament. We run the risk of presenting this piece of legislation as something that will fix the entire internet. When I was the Minister with responsibility for this matter, I felt two possibly conflicting things. The first is that our guiding and most important principle is that what is illegal offline should be illegal online. There are huge parts of this Bill where that need not even be a conversation. The cyber-flashing example is an interesting one, because flashing is illegal in the real world. The idea that it might not be illegal online is absurd. We should not even be having that conversation. There are many pieces of this Bill where, in fact, what is required is simply a tidying up exercise, reflecting the fact that our legislation has not kept pace with the changing nature of the digital world.
The second feeling that I had was that, in many cases, we had existing laws that did not even need as much modification as perhaps we might think. There is an important issue of the existing resources that the police allocate to online criminality. That is not to denigrate the fantastic work that the police do—of course it is not—but, too often, we will have had constituents who have gone to their local police forces and found that online crime is treated fundamentally differently. The Home Office is on board with addressing that, but it does need to change.
I am, however, fundamentally optimistic about what this Bill can achieve. We are now all agreed that it is only right that elected people regulate the public square, and the public square now firmly includes Facebook and Twitter, so it cannot be right that Mark Zuckerberg has more power than my hon. Friend the Minister, or, indeed, the Prime Minister of many countries. That cannot be right, and this Bill goes a long way to fixing that.
I want to touch on a couple of specific points. The first is that it is plainly also right that we should be regulating advertising at the same time as we are regulating other content. There has never been a doubt in the Government’s mind that that should happen, but, importantly, I know that there is some ambition to align the timetables of both of those pieces of work.
Likewise, the place of journalism online is incredibly important. We can overthink who is a journalist in the modern world, but we should be able to make some sensible progress on whether the self-regulated journalism that we have in this country adopts a different status online, and Ofcom, in its work in this Bill, should reflect that.
My final point on those specific issues is that I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and former Secretaries of State who spoke in the debate wanted the primacy of free speech of the individual to be protected in all the work that we have done in this Parliament. I know it is difficult to embed that in a Bill, but we must address the fact that, just as large numbers of people are—rightly or wrongly—genuinely hesitant about taking the vaccine, large numbers of people genuinely worry that the Bill will allow serious constriction of free speech online. For me, that potentially has a chilling effect, which we should all be concerned about.
I commend the Minister for how he has engaged with colleagues across the House. We need to communicate better about how the Bill will tidy up some aspects of the imperfections that I have mentioned and make a real change and difference to how people experience social media. Fundamentally, we need to be clear that the Government’s commitment to protecting free speech runs like a golden thread through the Bill and that the measure will not potentially undermine that. None the less, I think we all agree that the Bill will perform an essential function in an area that is essential to all aspects of modern life.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and his colleagues on the Committee on their work. In particular, as he knows, I warmly welcome the recommendation that paid-for advertising should no longer be excluded from the scope of the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) put me in touch with one of her constituents who had some experience of online scamming. He explained that he is an experienced fund manager who used to run his own investment management firm. Last February, he clicked on a link that offered suspiciously high returns because he wanted to see what the scam was. Over the following months, despite repeatedly telling every caller that he was not interested, he was subjected to a daily barrage of calls, which petered out only in October. He said:
“When I started challenging them after a couple of months, they started becoming abusive… threatening to sue me for slander when I pointed out what they were doing was illegal…It actually became very stressful…Having warned Google many times, it fails to take action.”
We now have a well-established organised crime industry staffed by a large number of accomplished thugs, sustained by cheap and easy access to victims on Google and on Facebook. My interest arises, as the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe mentioned, from the Work and Pensions Committee inquiry on pension scams.
In a letter to the Work and Pensions Committee last May, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority told us that
“fraud now accounts for one-in-three crimes in the UK, costing up to £190 billion a year. An estimated 86% of fraud is committed online…Action Fraud has told us that victims of pensions-related scams who had worked their whole lives to build a retirement fund had lost £82,000 on average…Online platforms, such as search engines and social media platforms, are playing an increasingly significant role in putting consumers at risk of harm by exposing them to adverts for financial products…Fraudsters have unprecedentedly cheap access to an online population of consumers who find it difficult to differentiate genuine offers from the fraudulent…There are ads online for firms that don’t exist, for firms that claim to be regulated but aren’t, for firms that claim to be based in the UK but aren’t and for clones of legitimate authorised firms.”
That is why I applaud so warmly the Joint Committee’s recommendation that the Bill should be broadened, as the Governor of the Bank of England said, to cover online fraud. I welcome the support for that move expressed in the debate.
I referred earlier to the Prime Minister’s statement to the Liaison Committee last July that
“one of the key objectives of the Online Safety Bill is to tackle online fraud.”
However, the current draft of the Bill excludes most of the online fraud problem, so I urge the Minister to tackle it head on in the Bill. The public certainly want that; Aviva has published research concluding that 87% of the public want the Government to legislate to stop search engines and social media platforms promoting financial scams through advertising.
Until now, Ministers have said that the problem will be addressed by separate work on online advertising. That really is not enough. That work is proceeding at a snail’s pace. In February 2019, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport announced that it was considering the regulation of online advertising, but three years on, there has been no progress at all. We now understand that there will be another consultation later this year. It will be years before that work delivers, and in the meantime thousands will have lost their life savings and UK financial services will have suffered further damage. The Government must not surrender to organised crime. I urge the Minister to accept the Joint Committee’s recommendation.
Suzanne Webb (Stourbridge) (Con)
It was a privilege to serve on the Joint Committee, which was chaired admirably by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins). It was a cross-party, cross-House experience to which we brought a wealth of our own experience, and the report seems to have been warmly received.
There is no doubt that the Committee’s experience of listening to hours of harrowing testimony and reading the written evidence was truly humbling, but I have always questioned why we actually need the Bill—that was my constant narrative all the way through. As we trawled through the written evidence and listened to hours of harrowing verbal evidence, it was unclear to me why the tech companies did not remove harmful content at the first opportunity and monitor their systems. They should be doing that in the first instance.
Those systems cause so much pain and upset. They have led to insurrection, to prosecutions, to people being robbed of their hard-earned money and to people dying. The problem that our Committee faced is that many tech companies are now bigger than a single news agency—arguably than any Government, for that matter—and have a monopoly on people’s thoughts and beliefs, driven by algorithms that are driven by immense profit.
In the time that I have, I will focus on the governance element of our recommendations. Robust regulatory oversight will be critical to ensuring this Government’s ambition for us to be one of the safest places online in the world. To put in context why that is so important, let me explain about killer algorithms.
An algorithm is a series of instructions telling a computer how to transform a set of facts about the world into useful information. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) touched on the point that an algorithm can constantly recommend pictures of dogs to dog lovers like me, but the dark side is that it can also constantly recommend to a vulnerable teenager pictures of self-harm, suicide content, violent sexual pornography or unsolicited contact with adults they do not know, right the way through to more insidious harms that might be built up over time.
We heard the sad story of the suicide of Molly Russell from her father during the evidence sessions. She was a 14-year-old who killed herself after viewing images of self-harm and suicide online. The coroner heard that in her last six months she used her Instagram account more than 120 times a day, liked more than 11,000 pieces of content and shared over 1,500 videos. An inquest is examining how algorithms contributed to her death.
During the evidence sessions, we also learned of Zach Eagling. Gorgeous 10-year-old Zach has epilepsy; I have had the privilege of meeting him. He was subject to the most deplorable and deliberate practices targeting epilepsy sufferers with flashing images.
Those were two of the stand-out moments that broke my heart during the evidence sessions. Why were the tech companies not stopping these killer algorithms? Why did they allow this to happen? In principle, tech companies self-regulate already, but they have failed. Lack of accountability, combined with commercialisation, has created a perfect storm in which social media can literally kill, so the natural conclusion is that tech companies must be held liable for systems that they have created to make money for themselves and that have had harmful outcomes for others.
Our report recommends compelling service providers to safeguard vulnerable users properly and regulate illegal content. For me, the key recommendation is
“that a senior manager at board level or reporting to the board should be…made liable for a new offence: the failure to comply with their obligations as regulated service providers when there is clear evidence of repeated and systemic failings that result in a significant risk of serious harm to users.”
Let me use the case of 10-year-old Zach. This is what it would mean to him if our recommendations were accepted: sending flashing images to epilepsy sufferers would become a criminal offence.
The human cost of the internet is unquantifiable, and I applaud the Government for what will be a ground-breaking and truly world-leading Bill. Our recommendations will ensure that the Bill holds platforms to account and achieve the Government’s aim of making the United Kingdom the safest place in the world to be online. We owe that to Molly Russell and to Zach Eagling. The tech companies should be removing harmful content and enforcing safety by design at the first opportunity. Surely they do not have to wait for the Bill; they can do the right thing now.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
Like other hon. Members, I place on the record my sincere thanks to members and staff of the Joint Committee for their invaluable work. The Bill has huge potential for good and is so desperately needed. The Committee can take satisfaction that the recommendations in the report would most certainly assist in achieving the Government’s aim or stated objective of making the UK the safest place in the world to be online.
I will address some issues around the anonymous abuse that some describe as “legal but harmful”—the report offers some very constructive proposals to address that—as someone who has been on the receiving end of torrents of such abuse over many years, and in solidarity with a colleague and friend, Diane Dodds, who is a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, a former Member of the European Parliament, and the wife of the Lord Dodds of Duncairn. In his time in this place as the Member for Belfast North, Lord Dodds was a tireless campaigner for the fortification of flour with folic acid. Many will know that he did so as a father who had lost his beloved son Andrew, who was born with spina bifida and passed away aged eight.
Over the new year period, Diane shared a post on Twitter. In it, she was pictured with her two dogs, and extended best wishes to followers for the year ahead. An anonymous troll responded:
“Nice looking dogs, have they taken the place of your dead son?”
I know that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and Members across this House, will share my revulsion that such a vile and callous remark was made to a mother who still grieves the loss of her child. Yet when the comment was reported, Twitter’s initial response was that it did not violate the rules. Only after three days of significant media attention did Twitter change its stance and suspend the account.
Will the Bill address that form of online abuse? Will it lift the cloak of anonymity and extend the veil of protection to people being attacked and abused online in such a callous, vindictive and cruel way? In that regard, I believe that the report of the Joint Committee and its recommendations make for better legislation and better protection for users online by rightly addressing issues with the lack of traceability by law enforcement, the frictionless creation and disposal of accounts at scale, the lack of user control over accounts they engage with, and the failure of platforms to deal with abuse. I endorse all the report’s recommendations in that regard.
I bring particular attention to the proposal that the higher-risk platforms such as Facebook and Twitter allow that choice of verified and non-verified accounts to be offered to users, and then subsequent options for the interaction of the two. Such an option would not only protect people like Diane; it would protect the schoolchild who is being abused because of their image. Verification is key and must be legislated for. Otherwise, the Bill is toothless.
The report also deals with the rather disturbing trend of multiple account creation and the use of such accounts to spread a message in a short time. In Northern Ireland, we see the method in action daily; it is used by foot soldiers or keyboard warriors of one political party to spread their message and falsehoods, and with the more sinister motive of silencing opponents. In our democracy, we need protection from such tactics, and I commend the Joint Committee for its proposals on that.
I wish briefly to mention the joint report and its approach to pornography. I believe that the Joint Committee should have offered a more robust approach to improving the legislation and safeguarding children in particular from the serious harm caused by pornography. First, if the report’s suggestion of replacing clause 11 of the Bill with a list of online harms is accepted by the Government, pornography should be listed as an online harm. For many of us in this House it was troubling that the Government in 2019 abandoned part 3 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, leaving children with no protection online.
Secondly, it is welcome that the Joint Committee has proposed age verification through the age-appropriate design code. Two concerns remain: whether the provision is as robust as the Digital Economy Act, and the timeframe for enacting it and the children who will consequently stumble on this type of material. In the interim, the Government must implement part 3 of the 2017 Act, and then the design code and this Bill can be used to offer greater protection.
Nickie Aiken (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
This is a comprehensive, thoughtful and constructive report, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and his Committee for their tireless work.
Generally speaking, I welcome the work to tackle online abuse. In particular, I note the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and the vital work on preventing cyber-flashing by my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Fay Jones). In my previous contributions on this subject, I have noted some horrific examples of antisemitic abuse, which for me underscore the importance of what this Bill will do. We cannot continue in a world where there are nearly two antisemitic tweets for every Jewish person in the UK. Measures to tackle that are central to the Bill and rightly take pride of place within it.
However, in the time I have available I will speak on an issue that has not always been front and centre of the debate: online fraud. City of London Police, based in my constituency, is the national lead for economic and cyber-crime and for fraud. Its contributions to the Committee, alongside those of the Office of the City Remembrancer, cannot be overstated. It was made clear in the Joint Committee report that fraud and cyber-crime are on an upward trajectory, affecting more people more often than any other crime today.
We know that fraudsters are increasingly sophisticated. They are always looking for the next chink in our digital armour, so I am glad that paragraph 186 of the report makes it clear that we need to act on the human consequences of online fraud—not just the financial effects, but the psychological effects. Unfortunately, I suspect that the covid pandemic may have been one of the triggers for the increase in sophisticated cases of, for instance, online romance fraud.
It is therefore right that we have moved beyond the scope of the White Paper to include fraud in the Bill. Now we must ask ourselves how we as legislators can effectively tackle online fraud in this Bill, recognising that acknowledging online fraud is a first step, but behind that acknowledgment there must be robust recommendations and proposals to ensure safety. This is not about paying lip service to stopping online fraud. The forthcoming Bill cannot stop at being simply reactive, and the Committee is right that any measures to counteract fraud must prioritise prevention.
It is not enough for providers simply to undertake a risk assessment for fraudulent content and take down that content when reported. To combat online fraud effectively, we need legislation that requires platform operators to be proactive in stopping fraudulent material in the first instance—not simply removing it when people tell them about it. I welcome the recommendations that clause 41(4) be amended to add an offence of fraud and similarly that related clauses be introduced or amended so that companies are required to address it proactively.
Alongside that, the draft Bill’s proposals explicitly exclude paid-for advertising from the scope of the legislation, which would undermine any meaningful effort to properly combat all online fraud in the Bill and potentially create a loophole for criminals to circumvent legislation. As such, I support the Committee’s recommendations in paragraphs 268 to 271 of the report, which would bring such advertising into scope. This would make sure that Ofcom is responsible for acting against service providers who consistently allow paid-for advertising that creates a risk of harm to their platforms.
I know that the Government will respond with strength on this issue, and I welcome the Minister’s meetings with me to discuss it in full. I am glad to see such widespread support in this place for the report. I am in no doubt that we need to protect our citizens against aggressive and malicious abuses of technology. It is now or never.
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
I congratulate the whole Committee on this incredibly thorough and useful report. I am sure that it will play a key role in improving this legislation.
I want to focus my remarks on suicide and self-harm. The reason for that is the tragic case of a young man from my constituency, Joe Nihill, who took his own life at the age of 23 after accessing suicide-related information on the internet. I have raised this with the Secretary of State before in DCMS questions, and I know that she feels very keenly the need to tackle such content online. I again pay tribute to Joe’s mother Catherine and his sister-in-law Melanie, who have been running an inspiring campaign. Their campaign was inspired by the fact that Joe, in the note that he left to his family before tragically taking his own life, asked for action on this kind of online content.
I welcome the Committee’s report, particularly its recommendation that encouraging or assisting suicide is included in the primary legislation as a priority illegal harm. That is really important. I also welcome the Committee’s recommendation, in line with the Law Commission’s recommendation, that encouraging or assisting a person to seriously self-harm should be made illegal.
The two issues where I would like the Government to improve the Bill in relation to suicide and self-harm relate to the size of the platforms covered and the age of the people protected. We do not want the smaller platforms to be let off the hook unintentionally through loopholes. I ask the Minister to be mindful of this and to ensure that even smaller platforms such as online community groups, forums or message boards, where some of the most harmful content in relation to suicide and self-harm can be found, are covered as well. It is also really important that the Government agree with the idea of ensuring that we cannot have the age of 18 as a cut-off point, because that would be to miss an opportunity with this Bill. As I said, my constituent Joe, a popular young person, was 23, so the fact that he was over 18 did not mean that he was safe from this kind of harmful online content.
It is important to reflect on the written evidence that was sent to the Committee from people who had contacted the Samaritans. We have heard this already, but it is important to reiterate it. In relation to ensuring that the smaller platforms are covered by the legislation, one piece of evidence said:
“If suicidal people can’t find what they are looking for at large sites they will just go onto the smaller sites so it doesn’t solve the problem.”
Another said:
“The people using the bigger sites will just flood the smaller sites if their content starts getting removed. The standard needs to be the same across all sites.”
Unfortunately, some of the people behind this harmful content are very ingenious when it comes to evading responsibility. Things get taken down and then put up somewhere else. We cannot allow them to carry on doing this, because people are paying the price with their mental health and with their lives. Another respondent with lived experience told the Committee:
“Harmful and accessible suicide and self harm online content can be harmful at any age. I am in my fifties and would be tempted to act on this information if I felt suicidal again.”
That was quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), but I think it is worth reiterating.
In conclusion, I welcome this report. I know from speaking to the Secretary of State outside the Chamber after DCMS questions that she takes preventing suicide and self-harm very seriously. Will the Minister confirm that, in relation to suicide and self-harm content, all platforms and people of all ages will be in scope in the final Bill that is presented to the House? That would be a real legacy for the campaign inspired by Joe Nihill, who sadly lost his life in my constituency.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
I come to this report through the prism of my work on body image. The Minister will be pleased to hear that I will not give again the speech that I delivered yesterday, when he was kind enough to join proceedings on my private Member’s Bill about digitally altered body images that should carry a logo. Although I would welcome the Government taking on that Bill, I have to play on the Government’s playing field, which has led me to assess this Bill through that prism.
I should congratulate the Government on what they are trying to achieve: a world-leading, world-beating risk assessment across the internet. To achieve that would be no mean feat. I have not heard mentioned enough the role that Ofcom will play. Having met Ofcom, I know that it would need the tools and ability to investigate and to levy very heavy fines and punishments on companies for breaching the rules. They are going to be the key to holding this all together.
Body image falls on the side of content that is legal but harmful. Clause 46(3) of the draft Bill states:
“Content is within this subsection if the provider of the service has reasonable grounds to believe that the nature of the content is such that there is a material risk of the content having, or indirectly having, a significant adverse physical or psychological impact on an adult of ordinary sensibilities”.
It repeats that in several versions. I am pleased to see that that matches up with the report, but I appreciate that there is a difference of opinion on whether clause 11 should remain. Both pick up on the fact that
“Knowingly false communications likely to cause significant physical or psychological harm to a reasonable person”
should be called out. The report goes on to state:
“As with the other safety duties, we recommend that Ofcom be required to issue a mandatory code of practice to service providers on how they should comply with this duty. In doing so they must identify features and processes that facilitate sharing and spread of material in these named areas and set out clear expectations of mitigation and management strategies”.
After reading those points, both in the Bill and the report, I think a gap has been missed. There is no problem with seeing one doctored image; it is the volume of doctored images—the repeated images of shoulders distorted, waists thinner, breasts bigger—that has an impact. That is the same with people who are looking for information on dietary requirements. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), who is no longer in her place, hit the nail on the head perfectly. It is about algorithms. That is where I want the Bill to be stronger. In every meeting that I have had with TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat—you name it—when I have asked about algorithms, they say, “We can’t tell you more about it because it’s commercially sensitive,” but they are fundamentally what is driving us down the rabbit holes that the report rightly picks up on. How will we in this House determine what things look like if we do not understand what is driving them there in the first place? The horse has literally left the stables by the time we are picking up the pieces.
I am pleased that in previous debates the Minister has said that Ofcom will be able to request this information, but I would ask that we go one step further and say that that information could be exposed to the public. Why? Because that will undermine the whole model driving these companies in their commercial activity, because it will lay it bare for us all to see. That is key to the transparency that we need. Otherwise, how do we police the volume of images that are being delivered to our young people, whether they are body images or about self-harm, race hate or race-baiting, or whatever people want to call or it or whatever their niche happens to be? As we heard in this debate, social media plays on not only people’s interests, but their insecurities. That is what we have to tighten up on. The Bill and this report, working in conjunction, can really do that. However, I urge that the volume and, most importantly, the algorithms are considered.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
It is a pleasure to be called in this important debate, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to talk about online fraud; in my capacity as chair of the all-party group on fair business banking and as a member of the Treasury Committee, I think that is a matter of extreme importance. I congratulate the Joint Committee on its work, and my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), its Chairman, has done excellent work on this, particularly in pages 58 to 60 and 75 to 79 of the report.
It is good to see that the Government are looking at online fraud within the context of this Bill, but they must look at paid-for content as well. It is crucial that we do that, and the Minister has been very good in engaging on this issue. He knows how important it is, given his background. When the FCA, the Treasury, UK Finance, the Advertising Standards Authority and the Treasury Committee are all in favour of including fraud and paid-for content within the scope of this Bill, it is incumbent on the Government to do so. Otherwise, as the Treasury Committee says, there will be large financial losses to the public. Up to 40% of all crime is now fraud and, as the report says, 85% of fraud involves the internet in some way or other, so it is crucial that we cover this in the Bill.
I am massively in favour of competition and absolutely congratulate the platforms on their market dominance, but they have taken that market share in paid-for content away from our local newspapers and other such media. It is therefore crucial that we put those platforms on a fair and level playing field with those other media. I do not think we do that, and we need to be far tougher with these platforms. Clearly, they make a huge amount of money, but in many ways they get away with murder in terms of the regulation of their content, in a way that newspapers never would have done.
In my days in business, when we were advertising in newspapers we had to prove that we were who we said we were in terms of being a business, and the newspapers would look at the content of our adverts and they made sure we verified our claims. Neither of those things happens with respect to these platforms; they simply take the money and the approach is, “Let the people who are viewing it beware.” It is simply not a fair and level playing field. Newspapers were the gatekeepers but these platforms are absolutely not.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) said, what works offline should be covered online, but that is not the situation at the moment. So I agree with the report that we need the platforms to be proactive in making sure that fraudulent content is removed. It needs to be covered under clause 41(4) and “priority illegal content”, so that platforms have to be proactive in taking this stuff down. We also need to be looking at clause 39 and removing paid-for ads to make sure that platforms are also proactive in removing paid-for online fraudulent content.
There is another thing we need to make sure is covered in the Bill in its final form. Fraud is not just an offence against individuals, as companies often get defrauded by mechanisms through these platforms, and we want to make sure they are covered as well. One way of doing that and focusing the platforms’ attention on this—I am not quite clear on this and I probably need to spend a bit of time with the Minister and the Chair of the Joint Committee on it—is by looking at what redress is available to people who do lose out. I know that the Committee is recommending an external redress process to cover this, but would that cover redress for financial loss? It think it should. So if the individual or the company cannot get redress through the company that they were defrauded by—it is pretty unlikely that they would—or the bank that facilitated the transaction, the platform should cover the redress to compensate those people for the loss. That would really focus the attention of platforms on making sure that this content was removed.
I am not sure that people know that the ASA, which looks at this kind of stuff and makes sure that advertising is appropriate, has no means of sanctioning a company for making claims that are not valid and do not meet with the expectations of the consumers. There are pretty much no sanctions for defrauding a company or individual in this way, or even for misleading them into buying the wrong product or making the wrong investment, as we saw with London Capital and Finance.
This Bill is a huge opportunity, and we have to make sure it is all-encompassing and ticks many of the boxes that others have spoken about in this debate.
John Nicolson (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)
I also thank my friend, the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), for securing this important debate and for his skilled chairing of the Joint Committee. His expertise and diligence ensured a thorough pre-legislative process. I also extend my thanks to the hard-working Committee staff and to the other members of the Committee, with whom it has been a pleasure to work.
You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that SNP Members are not always fans of this place, but the Joint Committee was an example of cross-party co-operation aimed at delivering effective legislation. We all know that we need to find a way of keeping ourselves safe online and, in particular, of fighting disinformation, which is one of the scourges of our age.
I also thank our witnesses. I suspect some enjoyed the experience more than others. Some of those joining us from Silicon Valley looked more than a little uncomfortable at a few points, as indeed they should have given their inadequate testimony.
We all hope the online harms Bill will do what no legislation has done before by providing a proper regulatory framework for the internet. Its ambition and scope require a collaborative approach, and I welcome the UK Government’s recognition of this. For too long the social media companies have been given carte blanche to make eye-watering amounts of money while spreading hatred, disinformation and harmful content.
With 11 evidence sessions and over 200 written submissions, I am able to highlight only certain key findings from the Committee, and I do not want to repeat what others have said, unusual though that is in this House. Some findings stand out. During those sessions we heard from Rio Ferdinand about the racist abuse he receives and the devastating effect it has on his family. We heard about the misogynistic abuse and harassment that more than a third of all women receive online as a matter of routine. And we heard from Nancy Kelley of Stonewall about the abuse that LGBTQ+ people receive on social media. Stonewall highlighted the real-world consequences of this abuse, with people outed on social media losing their job or their home. Trans people have been subjected to an avalanche of online abuse, with a steep rise in offline abuse, including violent attacks, as a result.
The evidence sessions also illuminated why this abuse is so prevalent on social media. The more extreme and controversial the content, the more likely it is that people will interact with it. Algorithms push this harmful content on to people’s newsfeeds, leading to yet more people viewing it. The reason for all this is cynically simple: the more that people view this content and stay on the platform, the more advertisements that the big tech companies are able to sell, and 99% of Facebook’s income is from advertising. The problem is at the heart of the business model.
Just over a year ago, the US Capitol building was stormed by protesters who attempted to “stop the steal.” Many of those taking part had been radicalised by disinformation that had spread like wildfire online. In these islands, despite the best efforts of all our health bodies, we have seen vaccine hesitancy. Social media is a gift to anti-vaxxers. It allows them to spread their conspiracy theories and lies to a vast audience. Regulating societal harms is by no means easy, but the UK Government must listen to the experts and the Committee report and reintroduce the measures on societal harms into the Bill. Only then will we be able to start tackling disinformation adequately.
Finally, the extensive powers granted by the Bill to the Secretary of State must be addressed. London School of Economics professor Dr Damian Tambini described the powers as
“closer to authoritarian than to liberal democratic standards even with the safeguards”.
The proposed powers undermine the authority and independence of the regulator. The Government propose that the Secretary of State should be able to set strategic priorities for Ofcom and direct Ofcom to make amendments to reflect Government policy. What a disturbing mix. While the Minister is doubtless relieved that the Department is in the hands of the current calm and level-headed Secretary of State, imagine if one day a left-wing snowflake held that power—I see him shuddering from afar. Those powers should be significantly diluted or preferably removed, as the report recommends.
The Bill is ambitious and the report makes non-partisan, well considered recommendations for it. I join cross-party Members in asking the Government to make the internet safer for everyone by adopting those recommendations.
Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)
I join the House in congratulating the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on convening the debate and on all his hard and excellent work in leading the Joint Committee. This has been one of the most interesting debates in this place that I have ever participated in and, given the urgent need to improve online safety, it could not have come at a more crucial time. I am grateful to all members of the Joint Committee, who had a tough job in cleaning up this confusing and long-delayed Bill. It has been a very long time coming.
Current legislation on the online space is from the analogue age and lags far behind the digital age in which most of us now live. The Bill has the potential to be the world-leading legislation that we need it to be, sending a message to social media giants who, for too long, have got away with allowing—and in some cases even promoting—harmful content online. That cannot be allowed to continue. Most of us recognise the huge impact of the Government’s failure to regulate the online space, notably on young people, yet still, as the Joint Committee report suggests, the draft legislation is not ambitious or broad enough in scope to tackle the issues at their root.
Let me be clear that some of the trends emerging online can be extremely detrimental to both physical and mental wellbeing. We have all heard desperately tragic stories involving young people. We heard such stories today from the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb) and from my hon. Friends the Members for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) and for Reading East (Matt Rodda) about young people harming themselves, taking their own lives and, in some cases, even being murdered at the hands of social media. I pay tribute to Molly Russell, Joe Nihill and Olly Stephens and to their families and friends for campaigning to make social media a much safer place so that no other young people have to go through what they did.
We all know about the other harms faced online, from the spread of fake news—including dangerous anti-vax content—to financial scams offering supposedly lucrative incentives that can be hard to decipher even for the most internet-literate of people. However, despite years of warnings from the Opposition alongside campaigning groups and charities, the Government have so far failed to take robust action. In my constituency, whenever I meet young people through a school visit or a community group, the conversations almost always centre around a common interest: social media. I know that those sentiments are not unique to my area. That is why it is so utterly wrong that tech giants have been left unaccountable for so long. Labour therefore welcomes the Joint Committee’s recommendations calling for the Government to hold online tech giants to account for the design and operation of their systems. We firmly believe that regulation should be governed through legislation and by an independent regulator instead of by a distant body in Silicon Valley.
In recent weeks, we have been reminded once again of the real power and influence of material shared online in generating and spreading fake news. In the pandemic, tackling dangerous anti-vax content is critical to vaccinating the unvaccinated. With the majority of people requiring serious care in hospital for coronavirus being unvaccinated, Government inaction and complacency in tackling dangerous anti-vax sentiment is costing lives and putting pressure on the NHS,
Labour have repeatedly called on the Government to work cross-party to introduce emergency legislation that includes financial and criminal penalties for companies who fail to act to stamp out dangerous anti-vax content, yet once again they have failed to act. They must stand up to big tech companies. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) said, we must ignore those companies’ excuses and introduce financial and criminal penalties for failures that lead to serious harm. That is echoed in the Joint Committee’s report, which recommends that responsibilities of individuals at the very top of online tech organisations go further, with full accountability for the messages that those companies are hosting and, at times, even promoting.
In our dialogue about the responsibilities of tech firms, we must remember that we need to consider the role of so-called niche organisations, too. In line with that, Labour commends the Committee’s recognition of concerns raised by Hope not Hate and the Antisemitism Policy Trust, among others, about the harms caused by these alternative platforms. Our party leader raised concerns about one such example—Telegram—during Prime Minister’s questions, and there are numerous other platforms on which misogyny, racism and homophobia run rampant, including BitChute, Gab, BrandNewTube and 4chan, to name just a few. It is absolutely right that the Government look again at categorisation so that harm caused on and by such platforms is assessed by risk and not the current determinants of size and functionality.
The Committee has also rightly noted that, while search does not operate in the same way as user-to-user platforms do, harm can still be caused through algorithmic programming and auto-prompts. We therefore urge the Government to include search engines and search services within the regulatory scope of the Bill, recognising that they, too, have a role to play in addressing not just illegal but legal and harmful content, too.
This brings me to another excellent recommendation raised by the Joint Committee. Notably excluded from the draft legislation is the ability to regulate and hold social media giants accountable for paid-for advertising hosted on their websites. We have heard from a host of Members from across the House about how important it is that that should be included in the legislation. The Committee concluded that
“The exclusion of paid-for advertising from the scope of the Online Safety Bill would obstruct the Government’s stated aim of tackling online fraud and activity that creates a risk of harm more generally.”
The Government have repeatedly claimed that regulating paid-for advertisements is beyond the scope of this legislation and that instead it will be the role of the online advertising programme to manage how adverts are monitored. But we are now almost three years down the line since the OAP was first mentioned, and we still have little more than a press release and an outdated call for evidence to confirm exactly how the programme will function.
As right hon. and hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), have said, the Government must adopt the Joint Committee’s recommendation and expand the Bill to include paid-for adverts, which are central to so many instances of fraud and harm online more generally. Of course, crucial to this debate is therefore the need to define exactly what constitutes harm. As the Joint Committee recommends, the Government must publish their definition as soon as possible. The concept of harm underpins the entire evolution of how this legislation will be drafted and eventually enacted. It is vital that the Government’s definition is published before the Bill is introduced to ensure that Ofcom, as the regulator, is fully prepared and resourced for its role. I hope that the Minister will be able to give the House an update on that point in his comments.
I move on to address some of the detail in the Committee’s recommendations. I am pleased that the Committee has addressed many of the concerns raised about the complexity of the Bill in its current form, and Labour supports the move to bring our focus firmly back to the regulation of social media giants’ systems and progress. The Joint Committee’s report rightly reflects the strong concerns about the scale of the Secretary of State’s powers in the Bill, and we have heard from other Members about concerns regarding the scope of the regulator’s independence in many areas. We also know very little about the disinformation and misinformation unit, and that is required—Madam Deputy Speaker, I could go on. We know that this legislation is vital.
To conclude, I believe that, without the big changes recommended by the Joint Committee alongside a faster-paced and increased understanding of the wider issues, more people will find themselves at risk of harms online. The danger is that, even with the excellent recommendations of the Joint Committee, the Online Safety Bill will be inadequate and simply out of date when it eventually becomes law. The Government have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change that, and I urge the Minister to take seriously the concerns raised by Members in the House.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) on securing today’s debate and chairing the Joint Committee with such aplomb and expertise. I thank Members from all parties on the Committee—from not just this House, but the other place—for their incredibly hard work. I put on the record my thanks to them; as my hon. Friend said, Baroness Kidron and Lord Gilbert are with us today. I thank them all for their extremely thorough and detailed work. We have been studying their report—all 191 pages—very carefully, and it will definitely have an impact on the legislation as it is updated.
I also thank the Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), for its work. I look forward very much to its report, which my hon. Friend said would be published imminently. I encourage the Committee to ensure that it is indeed published as soon as possible, so that we can take account of its recommendations as well. I can confirm that we will be making changes to the Bill in the light of the recommendations of the Joint Committee report and those of the anticipated report from the Select Committee. We understand that there are a number of respects in which the Bill can be improved substantially. The Government certainly have no monopoly on wisdom, and we intend to profit from the huge experience of the members of the Committees, and Members of the House, in making improvements—significant improvements —to the Bill. We intend to produce a revised and updated Bill before the end of the current Session.
We intend this Bill to be a world-leading piece of legislation. We believe that the United Kingdom has an opportunity to set a global example which other countries will follow. As the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) said, the Bill has been some time in gestation, but because this is such a complicated topic, it is important that we get the legislation right.
This is, I think, a good moment to thank previous Secretaries of State and Ministers for the work that they did in laying the foundations on which we are now building—in fact, in building the walls as well; we are just putting the roof on. In particular, I know of the work done in this area by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and also the work done by my hon. Friends the Members for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman). I am sure that the whole House will want to thank them for the fantastic work that they did in taking us to the point where we now stand.
I entirely agree with the sentiments expressed by the Chairman of the Joint Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who said in his opening speech that social media firms had brought this legislation on themselves by the irresponsibility that they have often shown by placing profit ahead of humanity. That was powerfully illustrated by the evidence presented to the Joint Committee, and separately to the United States Senate and The Wall Street Journal, by the Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, who explained how Facebook’s use of algorithms—mentioned by Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Gosport and for Bosworth (Dr Evans)—prioritised profit by promoting content that was harmful or incendiary simply because it made money, with scant, if any, regard to the harm being caused. Our view is that such an attitude is not only inappropriate but wrong.
Two or three Members have referred to the tragic suicide of 14-year-old Molly Russell, which followed a huge amount of very troubling suicide-related content being served up to her by Instagram. That sort of thing simply should not be happening. There are all too many other examples of social media firms not promptly handing over identification information to the police—I encountered a constituency case of that kind a couple of years ago—and not taking down content that is illegal, or content that clearly contravenes their terms and conditions.
This state of affairs cannot persist, and it is right for the House to act. I am heartened to note that, broadly speaking, we will be acting on a cross-party basis, because I think that that will make the message we send the world and the action we are taking all the more powerful. However, as Members have said today, even before the Act is passed, social media firms can act. They can edit their algorithms tomorrow, and I urge them to do exactly that. They should not be waiting for us to legislate; they should do the right thing today. We will be watching very closely: the House will be watching, and the public will be watching.
Kevin Hollinrake
I will be very brief. My hon. Friend has talked about cross-party working, and there is clearly cross-party consensus that paid-for advertising should be included in the scope of the Bill. Is that something that he intends to do?
Chris Philp
My hon. Friend anticipates my next point. I was about to come on to some of the specifics—very quickly, because time is short.
I am not going to be pre-announcing any firm commitments today because work is still ongoing, including the collective agreement process in Government, but on fraud and paid-for advertising, we have heard the message of the Joint Committee, the Financial Conduct Authority, the financial services sector, campaigners and Members of this House such as my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). The right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) raised this, as did the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) and my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken). I was at Revolut’s head office in Canary Wharf earlier today and it raised the issue as well. It is a message that the Government have absolutely heard, and it is something that we very much hope we will be able to address when we bring the Bill forward.
I cannot make any specific commitments because the work is still ongoing, but that message is loudly heard, as is the message communicated by the right hon. Member for Barking, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on the work by the Law Commission on the communications offences, which will really tighten up some of the issues to do with what are essentially malicious or harmful communications, issues such as cyber-flashing and issues to do with epilepsy that we have heard about this afternoon. We are studying those Law Commission proposals very positively and carefully, as the Joint Committee recommended that we do.
We have also heard clearly the messages concerning commercial pornography. We understand the issues presented by the fact that the Bill, as drafted, does not cover that. Again, that is something we are currently working on very hard indeed.
Anonymity is another important issue raised today by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke and the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), among others. They and the Joint Committee have suggested that users should be given the option to protect themselves from anonymous content. They also addressed the critical question of traceability when law enforcement needs to investigate something. Again, those messages have been heard very clearly and we are working very hard on those.
That brings me to the tragic case raised by the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) of his constituent Olly, who was so appallingly murdered; the murder appears to have been organised online. Under the Bill as drafted, organising an act like that—an illegal act—will be dealt with. I have just mentioned the point about traceability, which we are studying very carefully. The hon. Member said he had some concerns that the social media companies concerned did not provide the police with the identification information required when requested. I had a similar case a couple of years ago with Snapchat. If he could look into the details of that and come back to me with the specifics, I would be very interested to hear those because that would give us additional evidence if further steps need to be taken via the amended Bill. If he could come back to me on that, I would be very grateful.
A number of Members have rightly raised the point about transparency and understanding exactly what these social media firms are doing. The right hon. Member for Barking made that point powerfully, as did the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah). Of course, the Bill does give Ofcom extremely wide-ranging powers to require information to be delivered up. It also imposes transparency obligations upon these companies. There are criminal sanctions on individuals if those provisions are broken, and we have heard clearly the suggestion that those be brought forward and commenced much earlier. The Bill will also contain strong protections for free speech. I have not got time to talk about that more, but protecting free speech clearly is very important.
The country demands action, this House demands action and we will take it.
Damian Collins
I thank all Members who contributed to what has been an excellent debate. We have heard from Members from each nation of the United Kingdom and almost every political party represented in the House as well, all of whom were supporting the principle of the Bill and supporting a majority of the recommendations in the report. I think we all share an urgency that we want to get this done.
Members spoke not just out of an appreciation of the policy issues, but from personal experience. The right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) talked about the abuse that she has received, as so many other Members of the House have. The hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) raised a case on behalf of his constituents and my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) did so with regards to his campaign on body image. We know ourselves, from our personal experience and the experience of our constituents, why it is necessary for legislation on this. There is also a question about how the House scrutinises the powers we will give Ofcom and how the regime will work in the future.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Report of the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill, HC 609.
Public Prosecution Service and Legacy in Northern Ireland
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I call the hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), I wish to make a short statement.
I am exercising the discretion given to the Chair in respect of the resolution on matters of sub judice to extend the waiver granted for proceedings in July to allow limited reference to active legal proceedings and open inquests in relation to the historic troubles-related deaths. As before, reference to those cases should be limited to the context and to the events that led to the cases, but Members should not refer to the detail of cases or to the names of those involved in them. All Members should, however, be mindful of the matters that may be the subject of future legal proceedings and should exercise caution in making reference to individual cases.
Johnny Mercer (Plymouth, Moor View) (Con)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I take your words of caution seriously. I have worked hard with the Clerks to make sure that what I say falls within those boundaries. I thank you for granting this debate this afternoon.
This is an incredibly important subject. I have long been an opponent of the treatment of elderly veterans who served in Northern Ireland during the period known as the troubles. I have always thought that if people were actually aware of what we did to these veterans, they would be outraged, and so it has proved. I do not intend to spend time on their experiences in this debate. I have tried to be their voice at every opportunity, and I will continue to do so. I am so proud of them—we are so proud of them—and this weird shame, fuelled by those trying to rewrite this country’s history during that period at that generation of security force personnel who sacrificed so much to keep us safe, must end.
Today, though, I want instead to speak about why we are here and how we got here, and I must do it here. Every comment on any inference of unfairness in the justice system in Northern Ireland is often met by aggressive and threatening behaviour from those who have built themselves a very comfortable life off the public purse by prolonging awful experiences for the families of those who suffered during the troubles and veterans who were caught up in the diabolical blood-letting that occurred during that time in Northern Ireland.
I want to be clear about the context of my remarks. I know that different groups will take whatever they want from what I say today, and that is fine, but I want to be crystal clear at the outset: I have never campaigned for anything other than fairness in how we deal with legacy in Northern Ireland. I accept I come from the position of defending the majority of veterans who served their country with great distinction and upon whom the majority of the unfairness in recent years has fallen. I have been repeatedly clear to all on all sides on the need to prosecute and hold to account those who, with our flag on their arm, chose to step outside the professional boundaries all operators know and understand and could not adhere to the standards and values on which the British armed forces are built.
I have been equally clear, whether it has been in my dissemination of the Iraq or Afghanistan legacy systems, or that of Northern Ireland, too, that I have huge sympathy for the victims of those conflicts who lost loved ones and seek redress—particularly those who lost loved ones as a result of state actions. It is inhuman to think otherwise. I always approach these things as if it were my son or daughter, my mother or father who had lost their life. The state’s intervention in these things must always adhere to the highest standards, whether in the use of force or in investigations.
While I will always be in awe of the stunning bravery and humanity of the vast and totally overwhelming majority of those who served the state in Northern Ireland, it is clear that not every action met those standards. If we are to progress, we must accept that, for it is an undeniable truth, and to deny it prolongs the pain of those who were affected.
However, we must be equally honest about how difficult it is satisfactorily to redress these issues through the courts today in the 2020s—so difficult, it is impossible in the overwhelmingly vast majority of cases. The standard of investigations into many of the cases were unacceptably poor. We must deal with the world not as we want it to be, but as we find it. Those deficiencies have been exploited by a small but very vociferous and very aggressive group in Northern Ireland who operate predominantly but not exclusively in the legal and political systems. They place the interests of both groups of protagonists, both victims and veterans, far below their own interests, be they financial or electoral, and have built a grievance industry on these issues, which serves no one but themselves.
It is inevitable, given the studious record keeping of the state in Northern Ireland when contrasted with the murderous chaos conducted by the terrorists, that this pursuit of political and financial gain was inevitably going to be conducted only one way: against those who strived night and day to prevent civil war in Northern Ireland, and not against those who woke up in the morning and made deliberate and conscious choices to go and kill women and children in pursuit of their aims. There will never be any moral equivalence between the two. The people of these islands will never accept any moral equivalence and those who push that narrative are doing the terrorists’ work for them.
It is also a fact that when the Good Friday agreement was entered into, it was decided that the price worth paying for peace in Northern Ireland was to permit those who had previously led and directed that terrorist activity to enter Government. This applied equally across the board. Thus the leaders of the IRA and loyalist groups entered politics, exercising control over the Executive and, crucially, permitting these extremists and their associates to use the powers of the state to prolong their grievances—and while doing that, of course, concealing their own murderous behaviour. They seek to prosecute the very security forces that fought them and thereby won the peace. All this is very predictable and very inevitable.
Where is the evidence? Well let me give the House a couple of examples. I will stick to what you said earlier, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will stick to facts that are in the public domain and only comment on public officials. I am determined not to rely on the parliamentary privilege you have granted today and I will be very careful.
It is a fact that when the five cases—none of which have resulted in a conviction—that came before the courts this year were decided on, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland was an individual named Barra McGrory. I make no assertions on his motives at all, but it is a fact that Barra McGrory was, previous to his appointment, a long-term solicitor in Northern Ireland for the republican cause. His family members were present at the peace talks in Northern Ireland at the behest of the IRA. He represented Martin McGuinness at the Bloody Sunday inquiry and he represented Gerry Adams over many years.
It was Barra McGrory who decided to prosecute soldiers A and C in April this year, the trial that precipitated my leaving Government. It was the same Barra McGrory who asserted soldiers A and C had murdered a friend of Gerry Adams, the murderer and terrorist Joe McCann. I say murderer and terrorist, because it was accepted in court that Joe McCann had shot 15 soldiers. It is clear to any straightforward individual that Barra McGrory should have never been involved in this case in any way. Indeed, soldiers A and C were duly acquitted earlier this year because there was no admissible evidence against them. The judge said he was “surprised” this had not been realised before trial, clearly referring to the prosecution.
The problem with evidence was again raised in the recent trial of my friend Dennis Hutchings, when Barra McGrory, in almost total isolation and against advice, decided to prosecute Dennis. I say in isolation, because since Dennis has died the senior police officer charged with reviewing the evidence in that case has come forward and confirmed that he was very clear that this case should not be pursued, only to be overruled personally by Barra McGrory in his role as Director of Public Prosecutions. This happens everywhere in Northern Ireland. The Police Service of Northern Ireland, one of the most stretched and tested police forces in this nation, is overseen by the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Sitting on that board, holding the PSNI to account, is Gerry Kelly, who in a previous life shot a prison officer in the head and was convicted of causing a series of explosions in London.
I could go on about the total infiltration of the justice and political systems in Northern Ireland by those who, given their convictions, in any other country would be prevented from going anywhere near elected office or public service and handed the levers of state to re-write history in their image. It is madness. It destroys lives and it is preventing Northern Ireland from really coming to terms with its past and moving on to the bright future that almost everyone I have met there over the last year is eager to embark on.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Member for informing the House about the reality in Northern Ireland, and for the love and support that he offered to Dennis Hutchings—a good friend is hard to find, and he was a good friend to Dennis. Does he agree that of fundamental importance to the effective working of a justice system is public confidence in the structures of that justice system, and does he recognise that the reality in Northern Ireland is that cross-community confidence in the Public Prosecution Service is simply not there? Owing to its disgraceful pursuit of the Hutchings case and its inaction after the funeral of IRA terrorist Bobby Storey, Unionist confidence in the PPS is non-existent.
Johnny Mercer
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I have a lot of sympathy with that view, which I will come to in a moment.
Everyone understands that political settlements such as the Good Friday agreement require serious compromise —we saw the release of some horrendous criminals in 1998—but there must be a line. It is so terribly sad to see the effect on the veterans community; the poor victims’ families being dragged down this pathway, which promised not justice—for these so-called legacy practitioners are not stupid—but a version of “justice” that plays on victims’ worst fears; and a country ultimately thwarted by its past as it attempts to find peace.
After this year—this relates to what my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) said—there must be some sort of public inquiry into the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland. It takes public money, and plenty of it, so it must be accountable for its decisions. This year its professional decisions have been proved wrong time and again. It is not good enough and the people of Northern Ireland deserve better.
Let me move on to the second part of my speech, which relates to the Government’s proposals for how to deal with legacy in Northern Ireland. In a question to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland before Christmas, I asked if he had any intention of keeping his word on these legacy proposals. He replied that he did not recognise what I was saying, so I want to help him understand the depth of feeling on this issue.
When I first brought forward the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill two years ago, in my then role as UK Veterans Minister, I was crystal clear from the outset that we could not do that without making similar provisions for those who had served in Northern Ireland. That was a manifesto commitment, and one that every single Conservative MP stood on. Indeed, it was repeated ad infinitum by the Prime Minister himself, at the election and from the Dispatch Box many times subsequently.
I made it very clear to the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary and the Northern Ireland Secretary that it would be fundamentally wrong to create two tiers of veterans in this country: those who, like me, had served in Afghanistan or Iraq; and those who had served in Northern Ireland—one tier that would receive a degree of protection from lawfare, and one that would not. I secured a promise from the Northern Ireland Secretary that he would walk concurrent legislation through the House so that we would not create that discrimination against those who had served in Northern Ireland.
I will not rehash what happened. Suffice it to say, over the following 18 months, before I resigned, the Northern Ireland Secretary, the Defence Secretary and No. 10 all consecutively and repeatedly blamed each other, to me personally and in the newspapers, and not a single word of progress was made. When the Bill reached maturity, I was forced to break promises that I had repeatedly made to Northern Ireland veterans on the Government’s behalf from the Dispatch Box, and my position was untenable. Those are the facts of the matter.
During that time, the Northern Ireland Secretary promised draft legislation over and over again—I have written this all down but will not go through it now, because it bores even me. It is safe to say that this is the eighth self-imposed deadline that he has missed for coming forward with that draft legislation. He has produced the Command Paper detailing his thoughts, which came out in the summer. It should be noted that a Command Paper is not legislation. I welcome anything that shows that thought is being put into this matter, but I and countless others far more qualified and knowledgeable in this space than me were dismayed by its contents. I wanted to understand where these proposals had come from. I spoke to countless groups, including victims, veterans and political parties, and not only could I not find anyone who advocated the approach set out in the Command Paper, but I could not find anyone from any of these stakeholder groups who had been actively engaged.
Any proposals must have some degree of consent from those in Northern Ireland. Of course there will be no rapturous applause whatever is done in this space, but equally, people in Northern Ireland—victims, veterans and other groups—are not stupid; they understand the nuances of what can and cannot be achieved in legacy. To cut off pathways to justice for British citizens who have had their children murdered by terrorists is too much to ask. Releasing convicted murderers was one thing, and on-the-run letters were another, but denying any hope of answers for those who lost loved ones, from whatever background, is a step too far.
There is an almost childlike naivety in these proposals. Does the Secretary of State seriously think that those who have answers for the families—I remind the House that 90% of those killed in the troubles were killed at the hands of terrorists—and who are now off living a comfortable life in places like the Republic of Ireland or the United States will suddenly discover their soul and take part in the process?
The Secretary of State says that he has heard no alternatives. Even a cursory glance would show that there are many alternatives to that approach and many actors trying to influence his thinking. He may not choose to listen—that is his prerogative—but that is a different thing from saying that there are no alternatives.
Look at Op Kenova, for example, and the work of Chief Constable Jon Boutcher. Investigating one of the hardest parts of the conflict—agent handling—he has worked hard to bring both families and security forces with him. It is his life’s work, with no allegiance to either side but a relentless focus on the truth and on what is within the art of the possible in the justice space. To say that he has not prosecuted anyone completely misses the point; 22 files are currently with the prosecution service, but he does not have the resources to process them in a timely manner.
Finally, legacy is not an amateur sport. We cannot just charge at it with a set of election slogans and tough it out; victims, veterans and the nation deserve far better. There are plenty of options other than those in the Command Paper. We can give far more flexibility to prosecutors in the factors that they must take into consideration before proceeding to prosecution, including the recovery of key information for families. We can ensure more rigour in the process to arrive at better decisions than those that are currently being made, and of course, as I outlined in the first part of my speech, we can be far more fair-minded about who actually makes these decisions.
The issue must lie with the legacy professionals. We must take the politicians out of it and do right by the victims and veterans. It is difficult but absolutely possible to deal with legacy in Northern Ireland in a professional, courteous and fair manner, but it requires a political commitment and skill that we have simply never seen from the UK Government. I am calling on them for it today. The victims deserve it, the veterans who served at the command of this House deserve it, but chiefly the young people of Northern Ireland deserve it. They want to grasp their future with both hands, unmolested by the quarrels of an older, more violent generation. We should be on their side and get this done.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Conor Burns)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer) for his speech on a hugely complex and sensitive area.
Northern Ireland has moved on dramatically since the Belfast/Good Friday agreement was signed. We have moved society in Northern Ireland into a much better place than the one I remember—going to primary school with armoured cars on the streets, troops patrolling residential roads and, sadly, atrocities by terrorists a daily event—but in candour, what we have not done in the 23 years since the Belfast/Good Friday agreement is move Northern Ireland to a point of genuine acceptance of her past and reconciliation between the different communities.
At the outset, as someone who has never served in the armed forces, I want to make clear the admiration I have for those who have served Queen and country and who in Northern Ireland were at the frontline—a frontline that we in the United Kingdom did not want to create, but a frontline created by the actions of terrorists who were murdering innocent civilians and many members of our security forces, both in the Army and in the police.
I know the sincerity of my hon. Friend. Since he came into politics, his driving focus has been to secure adequate protections for those veterans who gave service so valiantly in Northern Ireland. I say to him that that is still an aim that this Government thoroughly share, as I hope was demonstrated through the delivery of the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act 2021, but our objectives in Northern Ireland are, rightly, far wider. We are unequivocal in our commitment to introduce legislation to address legacy issues in a way that focuses on information recovery and reconciliation.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I recognise that my right hon. Friend has arrived to his position fairly recently, so this is more of a trail of what has gone before. None the less, there is a genuine and deep concern among many of us. I served in Northern Ireland, and lost people in Northern Ireland. I remember Captain Robert Nairac being tortured and murdered. His family never found his body—no one ever told them. We have had to put up with that for all these years, watching others who committed those murders go free. I simply say to him that, for me, this legislation—this requirement to protect our veterans—is not just an add-on. For me, it is part of my life. Can the Minister please tell us whether that is how the Government see it, or is it something to be shoehorned into the future?
Conor Burns
My right hon. Friend speaks powerfully. I think I am correct in saying that I am one of a very small number of Ministers to serve in the Northern Ireland Office who was born in Northern Ireland. I still have a large number of my family across the island of Ireland and in Northern Ireland. For me, this is absolutely essential.
Shortly before Christmas, I returned to my old primary school, Park Lodge, in north Belfast. One of the children in a primary 7 class in a Q&A asked me what was the difference between Northern Ireland today and the Northern Ireland in which I spent the early years of my life. In answering that question, I realised that the Northern Ireland that I remember is but a distant history for those young people, but we believe passionately that addressing these legacy issues is vital to underpin a better future for Northern Ireland. My right hon. Friend, whom I have heard speak on this many times over the years, is right that those who went to Northern Ireland to serve Queen and country, to uphold the rule of law, and to resist a brutal, barbaric campaign of Irish republican terror did so courageously, and it is wrong that they should now be hauled through processes for events some of which are 40, 45 years old or even older. That is what we are trying to address.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I differ rather from my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), as he knows, in that I actually agree much more with the Government’s suggestion that it has to be a combination of a statute of limitations and a truth recovery process. The problem that we have is that the Government seem to have thought their idea through very clearly, and yet, whenever we expect it to come forward so that we can then drill down deeper to see in which way it needs to be adjusted—perhaps a bit further away from my view and the Government’s and a bit further towards my hon. and gallant Friend’s—nothing ever happens. Having often spoken to him about the matter, I believe that the Secretary of State is well seized of the issues. We cannot understand the reasons for the delay. He needs to bring it to the House and let us get to work on it, because we all want the solution.
Conor Burns
My right hon. Friend speaks powerfully about how frustrated colleagues are that we have not yet brought that legislation to the Floor of the House. I say to my hon. and right hon. Friends and to all hon. Members that we are absolutely committed to making sure that, when we do bring these proposals to this Chamber, they will be robust and watertight. It would be negligent of the Government to proceed at pace until we are satisfied that the proposals we are bringing forward—
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
The Minister knows the history very well. The Secretary of State promised the Bill by last July. He did not deliver it. Then he faithfully promised the House we would have it by the end of the autumn. He did not deliver it. Yesterday he allegedly briefed the press that it was now delayed until after the Assembly elections in May. He did not inform the House—there was no written statement, no oral statement. We have five minutes left, so, rather than the Minister’s reading out a lot of Northern Ireland Office boilerplate, will he please just answer one question? Is it true that the legacy Bill is now effectively delayed until after the Assembly elections—and if it is not true, when will the Bill be introduced to Parliament? That is an extremely straightforward question. What is the answer?
Conor Burns
My right hon. Friend and I have discussed this on a number of occasions and he has robustly questioned the Secretary of State. Let me give him a very honest answer to the question about the legislation’s being delayed and coverage of an alleged private briefing by the Secretary of State. That is categorically not correct. As far as I am aware, there has been no briefing from the Northern Ireland Office to the press about a delay to the Bill, and I have not been in any conversation in the Department with the Secretary of State or officials, or in any meeting in the NIO, where we have discussed delaying the Bill until after the Assembly elections or, indeed, any association between this proposed legislation and the timeline to the Assembly elections in May. That is not true.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
If there is going to be a delay, which there clearly is, can we know the reason why? Let us know, as people who are interested. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and I both served in Northern Ireland—I did over three years there, so I would really like to see this sorted out before I die.
Conor Burns
To give my right hon. Friend an assurance that this will be resolved before he dies would require advance information from on high that unfortunately is not available to me. I hope he will have a long life and that he will see the Bill introduced and become law in good time.
The Government published the Command Paper mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View in July. I joined the Government in September. There was a large amount of feedback on that Command Paper and there has been a massive amount of engagement. The delay is to ensure that we get this right and that it not only achieves the Government’s objective to provide the necessary protections to those who served so courageously in Northern Ireland, but is also a measure that will advance the agenda of reconciliation and cross-community understanding in Northern Ireland.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
That is the point of the whole debate, so let us get to it. I must tell my right hon. Friend the Minister that the Secretary of State told me specifically in terms that this Bill was now sitting solely for sign-off. It was all done, it was drafted and it was ready to go before Christmas. My question therefore is, how did it suddenly discover a whole set of consultation that needs to happen when it had gone to sign-off? I really find this very difficult. If the Minister cannot answer now, can he please go back to the Department and say, “For God’s sake, get this clear”?
Conor Burns
I will be very happy to meet my right hon. Friend and talk about that in a degree of detail, but I keep coming back to the central point that it is important, before the Bill is brought forward, that we are confident it achieves the Government’s ambitions for it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Moor View knows from his previous incarnation as a Defence Minister, that requires sign-off across Government and we need to be absolutely certain that we will not end up creating inadvertently another mechanism by which innocent people are dragged through processes they should not have to face.
Dr Julian Lewis
Who is blocking the Bill? The Bill is ready; who is blocking it?
Conor Burns
No one is blocking the Bill. There is ongoing engagement across Government to ensure that the Bill, when it is brought forward—
Conor Burns
My right hon. Friend is scoffing, and that is fine, but it is absolutely, unambiguously, unequivocally the Government’s commitment that the Bill will be brought forward and put before this House.
Mr Francois
You have already broken multiple deadlines —we don’t believe you!
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. That is unacceptable. Minister, there are five seconds left.
Ministerial Correction
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Education
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Alex Burghart
It has been this Government, during the pandemic, who have paid employers and providers £1,000 when they take on apprenticeships for young people aged 16 to 18.
[Official Report, Skills and Post-16 Education, Public Bill Committee, 2 December 2021, Vol. 704, c. 92.]
Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart).
An error has been identified in my speech.
The correct information should have been:
Alex Burghart
It has been this Government, during the pandemic, who have paid employers up to £3,000 when they take on an apprentice.
Westminster Hall
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Water Quality in Rivers
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Environmental Audit Committee
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate, in line with the 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 before coming on to the estate. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.
We begin with the Select Committee statement. Philip Dunne will speak on the publication of the fourth report of the Environmental Audit Committee, “Water Quality in Rivers”, for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of his statement, I will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement, and I will then call Philip Dunne to respond to these in turn. Questions should be brief.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for giving me the opportunity to introduce the Environmental Audit Committee’s latest report, which, as you say, is on the topic of water quality in rivers. This is an issue of particular interest to me, as I had a private Member’s Bill in the last Session of Parliament that was not able to progress, and our Committee has worked very hard for over a year in taking evidence, including from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), who I am delighted to see is in her place. As an Environment Minister, she has taken a particular interest in championing this issue in Government and in introducing measures to the Environment Act 2021, which became law two months ago and whose measures will in some respects pre-empt some of our recommendations. We are grateful to her for her interest in this subject.
I would like to take the opportunity—it is the first time we have been able to do so—to welcome our latest recruit to the Committee, the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). We look forward to her contributions to our Committee in due course.
By way of introduction, we have been concerned about water quality because of the extraordinary evidence that we have received from campaign groups up and down the country. We recognise that we are presiding over a cocktail of contamination in our rivers, stemming from more than 60 years of under-investment in drainage networks, sewers and treatment plants, mostly because they are underground, out of sight and not at the top of public consciousness, other than when there is a disgusting sewage spill—an incident that captures public attention. For 60 years, however, we have been developing more and more housing, industry and agricultural buildings above ground, without putting corresponding investment underground to deal with the effluent that a growing population of both humans and animals creates. That is something that we absolutely have to put right.
At present, only 14 of England’s rivers are in good ecological health, and not a single one gets a clean bill of health for chemical contamination. Getting a full overview of the health of our rivers, and the pollution affecting them, has been hampered by outdated, underfunded and inadequate monitoring regimes, which is why it has taken our report to pull all the data together. Water companies appear to be dumping untreated or partially treated sewage in rivers on a routine basis, often breaching the terms of the permits that, on paper only, allow them to do so in exceptional circumstances. That was one of the most significant findings. We think part of the reason is that they have been allowed to self-monitor for the last 12 years or so.
One of the Minister’s innovations in the Environment Act is to increase the amount of monitoring, using the latest technology, so that we can understand, in real time, the impact of discharging sewage into our river systems. We have not been able to do that until now, other than through individual lab testing. Monitors will be placed upstream and downstream of the outfalls, and that will have a transformative effect, not least in allowing the public to know whether there has been a sewage discharge before they intend to visit a river.
However, it is not all about sewage. Water companies have to deal with an increasing volume of plastic and other non-biodegradable material being flushed down our toilets, and that includes wet wipes. I support my hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Alberto Costa) in his move to promote a private Member’s Bill to ban the use of plastic in wet wipes, which act as a dam in the sewerage system.
A combination of excessive amounts of non-biodegradable material gets caught up in meshes and added to by fats, oils and greases coming out of food service establishments to create fatbergs—we had evidence that some are as big as blue whales. Those need to be removed from the sewers, and water companies are spending £100 million a year of their scarce resource on removing that material. Some 7 million wet wipes a day go into our sewers, so we as individuals can do something about that to try to reduce that problem.
The problem is not all about the water companies; it is also, we found, due to diffuse pollution from agriculture. That, in fact, accounts for slightly more of the causes of pollution than sewage from water treatment plants. Intensive livestock and poultry farming is putting significant pressure on particular catchments. I think there are 14 across England where development is on hold because of the nutrient load already existing in our river systems. One of the worst is in the River Wye catchment, where it appears that there has been particular pressure, building up over a number of years, from poultry farming. We have therefore called for a nutrient budget to be calculated for each catchment, and for the Environment Agency’s good resources to be used to review it so as to establish a framework that would allow development to take place without adding to the nutrient load in the receiving waters.
Going back to the water companies for a moment, we were alarmed by the degree of permit breaches, which were brought to our attention not so much by the Environment Agency or the water companies themselves but by citizen scientists doing their own investigations under freedom of information requests. We think it is important that the Environment Agency and other regulators get a proper picture of the true number of sewer overflow discharges, because we fear they may be higher than is currently permitted.
We have made a number of suggestions about how, in considering how to allocate resource from the spending review, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs should consider giving additional resources to the Environment Agency so that it can adequately undertake its enforcement, which has, all too often, been slow—to put it mildly. We have seen an increase in fines imposed as a result of prosecutions in the last few years—two have been very significant—but, by and large, fines for enforcement of clear breaches, with discharge above permit levels, have been a routine cost of doing business. We do not think that that is appropriate, so we think that greater enforcement must be undertaken by the environment network.
We have also called on Ofwat to prioritise the long-term investment in waste water assets as a key outcome of its next pricing review period. As the Minister is here and will be finalising the strategic pricing statement guidance to Ofwat in the coming weeks, we strongly encourage her to consider giving greater priority in the next pricing review to capital investment by water companies, to allow them to invest more in improving the treatment capacity available across the network.
We have a large number of recommendations. I do not have enough time to go into them all, but I will conclude by saying that one of our recommendations—which I think will have some resonance in this covid environment, in which many people have been using rivers for recreation—is that each water company should seek to get bathing water quality status in at least one river stretch or water body within its area before 2025, and then routinely seek to do so in subsequent pricing periods. I look forward to responding to any comments that Members might have on the report.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
I thank the Environmental Audit Committee and its Chair for their comprehensive, detailed and extensive report. Of course, I have not been able to take all of it in yet, given that its publication date was today. My question is about the topic on which the Chair ended—namely, the capacity of the Environment Agency to deal with discharges into rivers, whether they are permitted or not. At the start of this week, we saw that the Environment Agency has been briefing staff not to pursue smaller-category incidents. I wonder whether the Chair of the Committee agrees that funding the Environment Agency to protect our rivers is crucial, and that it needs to be able to fully follow up on any incidents and not ignore even minor ones, which can later be found to be more significant.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman’s Committee, and him in particular, on the campaign he has waged over the years on the issue of the purity of our water systems. I look forward to the Committee’s work on monitoring the implementation of these recommendations.
As the right hon. Gentleman will know, however, my anxiety about the report is its timidity with regard to the operation of the water companies themselves. My view is very clear: as long as those companies operate as profit-making organisations, I do not see how they will act on long-term investment or, to be frank, the standards of behaviour we would expect of either a body in public ownership or a not-for-profit organisation. I wonder whether this report will result in opportunities for the Committee to look at the whole issue of ownership and management of the water companies themselves.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
Other Members have indicated that they would like to ask questions, but before I call them, perhaps you would like to respond to those two questions, Mr Dunne.
Philip Dunne
Thank you very much, Chair; I certainly would. I thank the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) for her contribution to this issue. I attended a debate, I think in this Chamber, in which she raised issues about the Tyne. She has been a strong champion in her area, trying to make sure that that river is cleaned up. In response to her specific query, the Environment Agency took the view that water companies could be relied on to self-monitor. It is palpable that that has failed, so we are calling for the Environment Agency to be adequately resourced so that it can perform its functions appropriately.
I do think there is help on the way through technology. Technology now exists, to an extent that it has not in the past, that allows for continuous monitoring of water quality within water bodies, and for that information to be passed through telemetry back to a database. That information can then become available to the public and the water companies themselves so that if there has been a sudden incident, they can pick up on it. There might have been a breakdown in a system, and if that information is available in real time, those companies will catch it much quicker than they have been able to do hitherto. That will not involve as many employees of the Environment Agency being on hand to do the testing themselves physically and then go back to their laboratory, so it will speed up the whole process of identifying problems in the system. I think that will ultimately be to the benefit of all of us, our rivers and all the species that rely on them as arteries of nature. I am hopeful that there are solutions and that the Environment Agency will receive a good settlement from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I hope that the Minister will take that on board.
In response to the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), I reciprocate by offering him my thanks for supporting my private Member’s Bill 18 months ago. He will not be surprised to hear that I take a slightly different view from him on the issue of ownership of the water companies. In the 10 years before the water companies were owned by the state—as they were up until 1991, I think—the collective capital investment of the water companies into water treatment capital expenditure was of the order of half a billion pounds a year. In the next 10 years, it was of the order of £1 billion a year, so under private ownership there was around double the investment in water treatment specifically.
Having said that, there are issues about the nature of current ownership and the fact that several of the companies have been leveraged through private equity ownership, which has caused some challenges regarding available capital expenditure. At least one of those companies has suspended dividends for the last three years, I think. There is recognition on those company boards that they need to change some of their behaviour.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will seek to promote the report’s recommendation that, in the event of persistent material breaches of permit conditions, it would be inappropriate for water company boards to pay themselves significant bonuses without taking proper action to remedy those breaches. I am sure he will agree with that and not regard it as timid.
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
As the Member of Parliament for Stafford, which has a number of significant waterways, including canals and rivers, I welcome this Environmental Audit Committee report. Does it address whether the recent Environment Act 2021 has done enough to tackle storm overflows and specifically water pollution?
Philip Dunne
That is an excellent question, which gives me the opportunity to highlight some of the things that have happened through that Act and beyond it, which the Government are doing to get on top of some of these issues.
First, amendments about monitoring and other amendments were made to the Act during the course of its passage, in particular the requirement on water companies to reduce sewage discharges progressively over time. That was added in the House of Lords and I very much welcome it, because it reflected the core of my private Member’s Bill.
Secondly, as we have just discussed, the Government will issue—as they usually do—a new strategic policy statement to Ofwat. We do not yet know what that statement will say, but we have seen a draft of it and all the indications are that the Government will consider adjusting the prioritisation of capital expenditure, so that at least some more, I hope, will go towards water treatment. We are currently at about £1 billion a year being spent on these issues through the water industry national environment programme. Personally, I would like to see that amount doubled, but we will have to see where the Government come out on that.
The Government have also set up a storm overflows taskforce, which is doing important work in advising the Government on other things that can be done. One of the elements in the Environment Act is a requirement for a report to be published by September of this year that will give the Government an opportunity, and a focus within DEFRA, to require an update and to get all the actors in this area—all the different water companies and the regulators, as well as the campaign groups that are helping the Government—to pull together to come up with other measures that can be taken outside of legislation.
There are other matters—as the Minister might prompt, there are a lot of other issues—but those are the ones that leap to mind. As I said at the outset, she has put a great deal of personal commitment behind this process and I hope that, for her own sake and that of the rivers, during her tenure we start to put in place the building blocks to transform the quality of rivers across the country.
Sitting suspended.
Backbench Business
Global Vaccine Access
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when not speaking in the debate. 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 take a lateral flow test before coming on to the estate. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated and when entering and leaving the room.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered global vaccine access.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving us the time for the debate. I thank those Members who are here and those who have given apologies—a number who intended to speak are speaking in the other Backbench Business debate in the Chamber—for their support. I also thank those members of the International Development Committee who are here.
In preparing for the debate, I looked back at the Backbench Business debate focused specifically on covid-19 vaccine access that I secured all the way back in November 2020. It is an odd achievement, but I was the first Member to use the phrase “vaccine nationalism” in the House. On reflection, I am saddened that, more than a year later, we are having a similar debate relating to covid and other vaccine programmes, with a number of issues unresolved.
I will focus the majority of my remarks on covid-19; it is difficult not to. In some respects things have changed considerably in the past 14 months. We now have a number of licensed vaccines in the UK, 90% of over-12s have had at least one jag or jab—whatever you prefer to call it—and more than half are fully boosted. I commend and thank all those who have worked tirelessly to create these vaccines and to ensure that they reached the public and those who need them. However, it has sadly not all been good news.
In November 2020, we were only just hearing about the delta variant spreading in India—a strain that would not enter the UK until February last year. We almost never talk about it now, as in a few short weeks from the end of year, omicron spread throughout the world and entered the UK. It was a stark reminder of something that has been said many times before: we are simply not safe until everyone is safe. While 90% of over-12s in the UK have had at least one vaccine—my own children are part of that number—that falls to 60% of the world overall.
Many countries—it will not surprise Members that it is mainly low-income countries—have hardly any access to covid vaccines. Some 2.3% of those in Nigeria have had a vaccine, 1.4% in Ethiopia, 9.8% in Afghanistan, 5% in Syria, 1.2% in Yemen and only 0.1% in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to name just a few; I could obviously go on. It is unsurprising that the consequence of this is that new variants emerge elsewhere and spread quickly through those unvaccinated populations, eventually reaching the UK. No borders, physical or otherwise, can prevent that in what is an interconnected world.
That is why we are having this debate. In that previous debate, the Minister responding, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), told us:
“The UK is proud to be at the forefront of international efforts to develop vaccines, treatments and tests and ensure equitable access for the world’s poorest countries”.—[Official Report, 5 November 2020; Vol. 683, c. 575WH.]
Clearly, the situation has not moved at the pace required. I am sure the Minister will point out that the UK has pledged to donate 100 million vaccines, and that the Government reached their target of donating 30 million of those before Christmas. However, we know that getting vaccines out of the UK is only the first part of the story. We have to think about what happens to those vaccines when they arrive. Organisations on the ground report that vaccines arrive in an ad hoc manner, sometimes with little notice. Too often, they arrive with a limited shelf life, leaving in-country health teams—already overstretched, as health teams all over the world are—scrambling to get doses out to people in time. There is also no requirement currently for donations to be sent with necessary supplies, such as syringes and dilutant in order to administer those doses. Without those, a vaccine in a tube is arguably completely useless.
The United Kingdom donates vaccines that it has purchased and deemed surplus to requirements here in the country. That might suit the Government as a way to marry up vaccinations at home with meeting our commitments abroad, but sadly it leads directly to the position that I have just described, so I ask the Minister to address the following questions. Who decides what donations will be made, and when? What processes are in place to ensure that doses are sent in a timely, regular and predictable fashion? Will the Government commit to end the policy of over-purchasing vaccines and donating the surplus, and will they instead commit to putting a policy in place whereby vaccines are donated in large volumes and in a predictable manner, to allow countries to plan their roll-outs?
Will the Government publish the timelines for expected donations from the UK in the coming months as the UK sends the additional 70 million donations that it has pledged? Will they commit to ensure that donated doses have a minimum 10-week shelf life when they arrive in a country, with the exception of when individual countries have stated that they are prepared to take doses with a shorter shelf life? It is clear that in several of the countries that I have described, there are simply not the internal mechanisms in order to be able to deliver vaccines before they expire. Finally, will the Government commit to donate syringes with the vaccines, to ensure that they can actually be used on arrival and that that is something else for countries not to worry about?
I would be grateful if the Minister could address accounting for the cost of the donations. If doses of vaccine are purchased by a country for use on its own population and are then donated, which is exactly what is happening in the UK, the donations are being accounted for in our official development assistance—ODA—budget. To put it more clearly, the Department for Health and Social Care and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office have budgets. The Department for Health and Social Care is using some of its budget to buy vaccines, and when it cannot use them, the FCDO donates them.
However, the FCDO then gets to say that it has purchased those vaccines from its ODA budget, thus artificially reducing the amount of money left to spend elsewhere. Even more concerning is the fact that the UK Government could account for those doses in the ODA spend at a higher price than they paid for them, thus effectively saving money that was committed elsewhere. I ask the Minister to clarify whether this is indeed her Department’s approach. Will she commit to account for the donations outside the ODA budget? If her Department is not in a position to do so, will she commit to ensure that the donations continue to be accounted for as part of ODA at their actual purchase price?
These are partially problems of oversight as we respond to a global pandemic at speed, but they are related to the problem of the Department for International Development being subsumed into the Foreign Office. They are problems that I warned about when the merger was first proposed, and I secured an urgent question on the merger in June 2020, but here we are, potentially dealing with some of those problems at a time when efficacy is key to successful delivery.
I welcome the fact that there remains a Select Committee dedicated to scrutinising international development work. I have already referred to its Members who are present, and I wholeheartedly commend their work, but it says everything about how the Government are treating international development that when I was preparing for the debate, it was not initially clear which Minister would be answering. That is because there is no longer a Minister responsible for international development. I am delighted to see the Minister for Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean here today, and I look forward to her remarks, but it is not the same as having a Secretary of State or even a named Minister responsible for international development as a portfolio.
This is part of a broader narrative—a narrative of the Government stepping back from our commitments to the wider world. I am sure the Minister will say that we are better than other countries in this space, but that is just not good enough when we are stepping back and damaging our historical reputation as world leaders. As we all know, we have cut ODA spending from 0.7% of GDP to 0.5%. It is an action, but not the right kind. Yes, there is a promise to restore spending at some point in the future, but there is no clarity about when that will be. The Chancellor was not as clear as he could have been, and an increase in the future does not help those in need now.
Cutting ODA spending hurts us all. The Minister will know the importance of having soft power on the ground, making friends and being trusted. Cutting spending, programmes and assistance simply does not do that. I have previously spoken in this place about the impact on the British Council. It is the same thing, because such actions break that trust. They destroy our friendships and reduce our power. We cannot be global Britain when the Government choose to step back.
I want to refer briefly to the fact that ODA cuts also hurt us at home. The University of St Andrews in my constituency of North East Fife receives funding for research projects through ODA spending. I have spoken previously about how cuts in that spending have put research projects at that university at risk. I am sure the Minister will say that our scientists have led the way in getting a vaccine in the first place, which is right, but what message does it send about how we value this research when its funding is at risk? Without that funding, will we be prepared for whatever comes next?
While we can improve how we are donating vaccines, this will not be the whole solution. COVAX does not aim to vaccinate whole countries. We will be safe only when countries are able to vaccinate their populations themselves. I have just spoken about the importance of incentivising and paying for research, but it is not contradictory to say that we must also engage with discussions about how low-income countries can manufacture their own vaccines.
The trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights waiver has been on the table for discussion for months. Why are the Government not at least engaging with these discussions? What do the Government plan to do to meet the covid vaccination need without such a waiver? If there is a plan about this, I would be keen to hear it, as donations will simply not be enough.
In a debate about global vaccine access, it would be remiss of me to talk only about covid. While covid has dominated the health agenda for the past two years, other diseases continue to spread. When it comes to routine immunisation services, the UK has a commendable record and is the largest sovereign donor to GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, but the pandemic has severely put back GAVI’s work.
In 2020 alone, 3 million more children missed out on a measles vaccination than in 2019. Yes, it is vital that low-income countries get urgent access to covid vaccines, but once that is done, we must tackle the backlog of missed immunisations. It is money well spent, as $1 spent on immunisation is estimated to save $21 in healthcare costs, low wages and lost productivity. Put simply, we keep people alive. Will the Minister today commit to maintaining the £1.65 billion donation to GAVI that the Government have committed to between 2021 and 2025?
Having praised our work with GAVI, the UK’s record with other vaccination programmes is sadly less laudable, with a 95% cut in our commitment to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. The Minister might say that they committed £100 million as planned, but with only £5 million actually delivered, there is no other way to describe this as anything other than a brutal cut that will have a catastrophic impact on the delivery of services. Do we really want to see polio return in the 21st century? Is the legacy of battling covid-19 going to be tens of thousands of people infected with a disease that we were close to eradicating? Will the Minister commit to reinstating this funding as a matter of urgency?
It is very simple. What we have learned in the past two years is that health is a global issue. It is not just right to support worldwide health initiatives, but it benefits us too. When it comes to covid, we have seen that a global pandemic is exactly that: global.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
Order. If Members stick to around three minutes each, we should have time to fit everybody in. There seem to be a substantial number of Members who want to contribute. I call Theo Clarke.
Theo Clarke (Stafford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this important debate on global vaccine access.
I start by thanking the healthcare workers, NHS staff and volunteers who have helped Britain to have one of the most successful coronavirus vaccination programmes in the world. I also pay tribute to our scientists who have worked to develop coronavirus vaccines, and thank the Government for funding this vaccine development. I was grateful to receive my vaccines at the Kingston Centre and St George’s Hospital in Stafford, and I was delighted to hear that over 2.5 million vaccines were given in the west midlands in December alone. Seeing the vaccine roll-out in my own Stafford constituency has made me passionate about the need for global vaccine access.
Britain has always been at the forefront of global healthcare. The efforts of consecutive British Governments and the generosity of the British public has helped to eliminate many diseases globally. Britain was a founding member of GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, and this Government are continuing to champion access to vaccines.
As Chair of the International Development Sub-Committee, I welcomed the Independent Commission for Aid Impact’s recent information note on GAVI that highlighted the need to establish worldwide vaccination programmes for dangerous diseases, such as polio, as well as rolling out coronavirus vaccinations. In September, I met with GAVI at its headquarters in Geneva, to discuss the coronavirus vaccine roll-out, and to ensure that the poorest and most marginalised communities in the world are not left behind.
I welcome that Britain is one of the most generous donors to GAVI, pledging £1.65 billion from 2020 to 2025. During the height of the pandemic in June 2020, Britain led the hosting of the GAVI replenishment conference, and I was pleased that fundraising target the was exceeded, with world leaders pledging $8.8 billion. That was a crucial step in tackling the coronavirus pandemic, which, as we know from experience, shows that vaccines do work in protecting us from infectious illnesses.
Polio provides another example of how vaccines can be used to tackle terrible diseases. In 1988, over 70 million people worldwide were infected with polio, and more than 350,000 people developed paralytic polio. The Government’s generous financial support for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative meant that 2018 saw only 33 cases of polio worldwide. That represents millions of people being saved from the perils of polio by one simple vaccine. That is a real example of how vaccination programmes do work, and why we must follow this model and continue to provide global access to vaccines in order to end the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Will the hon. Member give way?
Theo Clarke
I will not take interventions at the moment. As vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Africa, and having visited numerous health programmes across eastern, southern and western Africa, I have seen at first hand the devasting impact that diseases can have on people already living in challenging circumstances. I welcome the recent breakthrough with the malaria vaccine which, like the coronavirus vaccine, has the potential to make a real difference throughout the developing world.
I repeatedly raised the importance of COVAX with the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Dominic Raab), and have done so again with other Foreign Office Ministers, including raising the issue in the Chamber and in International Development Committee evidence sessions. I welcome that Britain took the lead regarding COVAX when hosting the G7 last summer, committing the UK to providing 80 million vaccine doses and helping to secure commitments to COVAX of nearly $10 billion from other developed countries. The Government should be commended for meeting their ambitious target to donate 30 million vaccines to COVAX by the end of 2021.
On my visits to Kenya, as trade envoy, I have seen at first hand the difference these COVAX vaccines have made. On my most recent visit in November, I went to the Kenyatta University Hospital and met with Kenyan doctors and healthcare professionals. This hospital in Nairobi works in partnership with the University of Manchester in order to improve healthcare treatments and tackle infectious diseases. The British also developed the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, which has helped to save lives and improve the life chances of people living in Kenya; I am pleased this has been replicated across the Commonwealth, with over 2.5 billion doses being used in over 170 countries. At the G7 the Prime Minister said that we need a plan to vaccinate the world. If we want a definitive end to this pandemic, then I agree with him.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members to try and stick to the three-minute time limit if they can.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this debate at a time when the pandemic is wreaking devastation on the poorest and most vulnerable nations on earth and brutally exposing their lack of access to vaccines. I know that she is a longstanding campaigner on the issue of equitable access to vaccines for everyone. I also thank organisations such as Global Justice Now for the important research they have done to raise awareness of this issue. I am a member of the International Development Committee; it is good to see other colleagues from the Committee attend this popular debate. The Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has done a lot of good work on this issue.
One of the reasons for the pernicious spread of coronavirus, and the high global death toll, is the failure of Governments, such as ours, to support the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights waiver, proposed by the Indian and South African Governments last summer, just months before the omicron variant emerged. That was despite India and South Africa proposing, as far back as October 2020, that a waiver of intellectual property rules on covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments would allow low and middle-income countries to manufacture life-saving tools. Despite most countries, including the United States, supporting the waiver, the UK, the EU and Switzerland all prevented progress.
Action at the time would have led to life-saving covid vaccines, medical equipment and medicines all being produced licence-free. However, more than a year after the start of the global vaccination drive, our Government are still putting hundreds of thousands of lives at risk by not supporting the waiver. The reality is, as we all know, that no one is safe until everyone has access to vaccinations and all nations are immunised.
Sadly, instead of supporting lower and middle-income countries, our Government have actively blocked them from making their own vaccines and have continued to oppose a waiver on intellectual property rights. I would therefore like to hear the Minister respond to the concerns that she and her colleagues are continuing to block solutions to the covid pandemic, given the severity of the crisis affecting both the NHS and the economy as a result of rapidly escalating levels of omicron cases. Denying lower and middle-income countries full, unfettered access to vaccines is incredibly short-sighted and will lead to a situation whereby our own population will remain at risk.
A global disease needs a united, global effort to eradicate it and reduce the risk of further mutations. An intellectual property rights waiver is therefore a vital way to achieve that, and we must follow the lead set by the Biden Administration in supporting that. The Government abolished the Department for International Development. That was extremely short-sighted and regressive, and will ultimately cost many, many lives. What happened was shameful. To put the situation into context, in a six-week period over November and December, the EU, UK and US all received more doses than African countries took stock of in the entire year. That is truly shocking.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
Some 700 million doses of the vaccine were delivered instead of the 2 billion that were promised through the COVAX programme by the end of the last year. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that what is inherently wrong with the COVAX programme is that it has an unequal distribution embedded in it, and for that reason ensures that facilities that are given exclusive licences are over-relied on. Facilities can also implement export bans in their countries to stop the vaccine being distributed more widely.
Navendu Mishra
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, and I fully agree with her.
I will finish on the point that, despite having already made billions in profit, Pfizer and Moderna continue to refuse to share the new generation of vaccine technology with the World Health Organisation’s mRNA hub in South Africa. That is a major concern, and little appears to have been done since Amnesty International urged Governments, including our own, to deliver 2 billion vaccines to low and middle-income countries before the end of 2021. The continued failure to act will fuel an unprecedented human rights crisis and lead to an untold number of deaths in those countries. We must do more, and the Government have to do a lot better.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
To be fair, I am going to have to impose a formal three-minute time limit. That might reduce further because I intend to call the Front Benchers at 2.38 pm. I call Harriet Baldwin next.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I will try to be as quick as possible, Mrs Murray. I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this debate.
I want to report to the House from my privileged position as chair of the British group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. When we had our first in-person gathering of the Parliaments of the world in Madrid in November, one motion came out top of all of the motions put forward from all the Parliaments in the world. Over several days we were able to come up with a form of words that every single politician from every single Parliament that attended was able to sign up to. I want to share it with the House because it demonstrates the value of the work across Parliaments, and also addresses some of the points that the hon. Lady raised in her opening remarks that would make it difficult for me or perhaps even the Government to support everything that she asked for. If Members look up on the internet the Inter-Parliamentary Union minutes of the meeting, they will find links to the motion. I call upon colleagues to look at that because I do not have enough time to go through all of it.
The motion’s crucial wording is around the issue of the World Trade Organisation. There were German parliamentarians at the IPU who would not have been able to support the TRIPS waiver wording, but parliamentarians did work together and came up with some wording that everyone was happy to endorse. It implores parliamentarians to work with their national Governments to exert a global, collective influence on the World Trade Organisation to eliminate all export restrictions and other trade barriers on covid-19 vaccines and the inputs involved in their production. This issue is so important because, as we heard in the opening remarks, we will not be safe until everyone in the world has been vaccinated. The more parts of the world lag behind us on vaccination rates, the more the virus will be able to mutate.
Extensive covid-19 immunisation is a global public good. Although the Government are doing much good work in this area, I call on them to do even more, because it is so important to our health. It is a development issue; it has never been so obvious to everyone in this country that by helping others around the world, we help ourselves. Let us do it. Please read the motion that we all agreed.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Thank you, Mrs Murray. Last month, the former Prime Minister and World Health Organisation global health ambassador Gordon Brown said that the global vaccine roll-out was a
“stain on our global soul”.
The numbers are stark: three quarters of health workers in Africa remain unvaccinated; less than 5% of people in low-income countries have been fully vaccinated. Companies such as Pfizer have made huge profits from their vaccines, but just 1% of its global supply has been delivered to COVAX.
Corporate philanthropy is not going to solve this crisis. We cannot sit back and hope that the pharmaceutical giants will do the right thing; to do so is a death sentence for millions of our fellow human beings. I have to say, in terms of the Government’s performance, that the UK has disgraced itself by voting to block the temporary TRIPS waiver that would put human life above private profit.
As has been said time and again, we live in a global world and we will not be safe from the virus until we are all safe. We know that the more there is transmission anywhere in world, the more likely that new variants will emerge; some will be more virulent, and others may be more lethal than omicron, although hopefully most will be mild.
As campaigning group Global Justice Now has said:
“Until we allow low and middle-income countries to access covid-19 vaccines, we will be trapped in an endless cycle of variants”.
If we want this pandemic to end, we have to stop its global spread—that means vaccinating everybody. The first way to achieve that is for the UK to stop blocking the TRIPS waiver at the WTO; secondly, to encourage UK pharmaceutical companies to share their technology with the World Health Organisation covid technology access pool and the mRNA technology transfer hub in South Africa.
A lot has been said about windfall taxes in recent days. Pharmaceutical companies have made windfall profits, largely derived from public funding. If they do not start sharing their vaccines and technology and start saving lives, I can think of no better circumstance for a windfall tax, with every penny used to fund vaccines around the world. If any Conservative Members are anxious about that, let me just say that it was Rab Butler who introduced a windfall tax 70 years ago this March.
I believe the time to act is now. The Government can do the right thing—they can save lives. If they do not act, their inaction will be, as Gordon Brown said, a stain on our global soul.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this debate.
I want to take this opportunity to remember my friend, the former Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who made his last speech last Thursday while I was in the Chair. Our thoughts are with his family. He was a wonderful colleague and friend to so many of us, and he was a powerful advocate for international justice and standing up for those who are vulnerable; his last speech was about the settlement of Afghans.
Today, we debate the need for vaccinating the world and protecting people in some of the poorest communities around the world. In that spirit, I want to highlight a number of points. First, we are all incredibly grateful to the NHS and all those who have been involved in the vaccination effort in our country. As we mark the tragic milestone of 150,000 fellow citizens having lost their lives in our country, let us not forget that the battle against covid is not over, as many hon. Members have said. That is why it is important that we recognise both the moral imperative, as has been pointed out already, and the economic imperative. It is in our self-interest, as well as in the interests of the rest of the world, to work to vaccinate the world.
The UN Secretary-General said,
“COVID-19 is menacing the whole of humanity–and so the whole of humanity must fight back.”
Sadly, many Governments across the world have been found wanting, including our own. We have seen the failure to meet the target that has been set to vaccinate sections of the population in different countries. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organisation, said,
“More than 5.7 billion doses have been administered globally, but only 2% of those have been administered in Africa.”
That is the case in many parts of the world. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has been quoted today, pointed out the many huge economic benefits that the UK and other countries would gain if we vaccinated the world. That is why it is important in terms of preventing new variants from taking hold and from undermining our economy, our security and our own health, as well as global health, but also getting out of this continuous battle with the pandemic.
We will not be able to end the pandemic if we do not act together. We must remove the barriers and ensure people around the world are vaccinated, backed by resources from our Government. That is why it is important that the Minister addresses the issues that have been raised so far.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
I congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this important debate. During yesterday’s vaccine statement, the UK Government Minister dodged an issue of vital importance to international vaccine security by choosing to hide behind commercial sensitivity rather than answering my questions about Scottish vaccine company Valneva. The UK Government Minister showed a fundamental lack of understanding of the issue. Let me be clear that my questions are not centred on the commercial considerations, as important as they are. The challenge that we face on vaccines is centred on public health and meeting our international obligations and responsibilities.
The UK Government’s overemphasis on vaccination as the sole plank of infection management is deeply problematic, but even with the vaccine success delivered by Dame Kate Bingham, they have placed all their eggs in the mRNA basket. That is the wrong move. The Valneva vaccine is the only adjuvanted, inactivated whole virus covid-19 vaccine candidate in clinical development in Europe. The UK Government pulled the contract just before the phase three results were published, which demonstrated the vaccine to be highly effective and safe.
In addition, the safety and efficacy of the Valneva vaccine was questioned by the Health Secretary, who said in the House of Commons on 14 September that
“it was also clear to us that the vaccine in question that the company was developing would not get approval by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency”.—[Official Report, 14 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 820.]
That statement was untrue and had to subsequently be corrected. We have had the correction, but the company is still awaiting an apology. Importantly for the purposes of the debate, I will focus on the clinical advantages, over solely relying on mRNA. Inactivated vaccines are a well-established, tried-and-tested technology used over the last 100 years to vaccinate billions, including for seasonal flu, hepatitis A, polio and rabies, so the Valneva vaccine could play a vital role in tackling vaccine hesitancy among the general UK population. From a purely public health perspective, its availability and use could help to close the vaccination gap by increasing coverage among those who remain unvaccinated or are hesitant about novel mRNA technologies.
All of this is important, but the great advantage for global vaccine access is that the Valneva vaccine would allow the UK to meet its global humanitarian responsibilities by supplying such vaccines to COVAX, the international vaccine-purchasing agency. The Valneva vaccine does not require the same complex cold-chain infrastructure, making it easier to store, distribute and deploy internationally. Dame Kate Bingham said that the decision to cancel the Valneva contract was “problematic on various counts” and “short-sighted” and, in her lecture on 23 November, she said that it was “inexplicable”. Do the UK Government not get that?
Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing the debate; I was pleased to support the application.
We are deeply lucky to live in a country that can afford and has access to the newest vaccines in sufficient quantities. Millions, indeed billions, of people around the world would beg, borrow or steal to have only the issues that we do. We are always griping about healthcare—the long waits and the crowded surgeries—but we know we are the lucky ones. I am ashamed of the speed of our response to the need for vaccines in other countries. Human Rights Watch estimates that about 75% of covid vaccines have gone to just 10 countries. Vaccines are key to preventing innumerable diseases but, sadly, eradication is often not possible because not enough profit is on offer.
Tuberculosis is a prime example, and I am pleased to declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on global tuberculosis. TB was mostly eradicated in this country 50 years ago, although several thousand cases still occur yearly. Across the globe, however, millions of lives are blighted by it. That is because there is no economic impetus to develop a vaccine, but that is what the world needs. Investing in vaccines is cheap in comparison, so let us use this horrific pandemic as a wake-up call that strengthening health systems is cheap compared with what could happen.
In what little time I have available, I want to speak further on fulfilling our international responsibilities. The amazing work of multinational teams of researchers and scientists in British laboratories and, indeed, those everywhere have taken vast strides for humanity in the last two years. The knowledge, though, must be shared—not kept as a trophy, but used to spread health. The World Health Organisation set a target to vaccinate 40% of people in Africa by the end of 2021, but 92 countries missed that target because of lack of access. Sadly, in relation to Nepal, the real impact, despite the warnings of civil society and the requests from Kathmandu, was that no doses came forth when they were required.
The Minister may have prepared commitments to share today, but better than that would be an admission that commitments have not always been met in the past and that action is preferable to fine words.
Claire Hanna (Belfast South) (SDLP)
I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for initiating this debate on an issue that I know she and others have been highlighting since covid vaccines became a reality. The roll-out has been incredible across these islands. It has been a real victory for science and for the national health service. In public policy, it is not often that we get a silver bullet but, for covid-19, the vaccines are just that. They save lives—as vaccines have done over decades—and they help, in this context, to prevent the emergence of variants and to break the cycle of lockdowns.
News of breakthroughs in the science and the race towards vaccines for things such as malaria and HIV are bright spots on what is otherwise a fairly grim global horizon, and designing in access to vaccines will be important as that research advances, too. We are absolutely blessed to live in countries that enable us to access vaccines so efficiently and allow us to get back to some sort of normality, notwithstanding the challenges that health services continue to face.
However, the inequality of access to vaccines is stark. It is now a cliché to say that nobody is safe until everybody is safe, but it is true: inequality of access is inherently unfair, and if that alone does not move people, we know that it undermines getting back to normal in this country. Uneven access to vaccines is not unprecedented: during the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, rich countries again bought up global supplies. Back then, too, self-interest dominated, despite the known risks of not getting a grip globally, and despite the fact that the interface of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations is a recipe for disaster. As others have pointed out, vaccination rates remain dangerously low, despite the fact that vaccine makers worldwide have produced enough to vaccinate the world several times over. Not only are poorer countries left without access but they are more vulnerable due to weaknesses within their health systems, and inherent weaknesses due to other diseases that present challenges.
COVAX is key, but as we know, it has not worked to best effect. It had delivered only 700 million of a planned 2 billion vaccines by the end of last year, and as others have said, three quarters of health workers in Africa have not been vaccinated. Some 16% of the world’s population live in countries that have bought up more than half of vaccine supply, and suggestions that we are choosing between our own populations and those of poorer countries are simply not true. As others have said, it is vital to ensure that the logistics are in place. This really exposes how penny wise and pound foolish the recent cuts to aid have been, leaving health services unable to vaccinate their populations.
The TRIPS waiver, as others have made clear, is an absolute no brainer. As has been beautifully said, this technology should not be kept as a trophy: claims that it would stifle innovation are bunkum. It is hard to see how we do not all benefit from access to this technology, and it is really important that this country does not stand in the way of it.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Murray. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this important debate and for her opening remarks, most of which I definitely agree with.
The emergence of the omicron variant signifies the truly global nature of the coronavirus pandemic. In just a few weeks from the announcement of the first omicron case on 24 November 2021, this variant was running my constituency of Vauxhall ragged, with an estimated one in 20 people in London having covid-19 on 16 December. That is a truly staggering timeline, which proves that tackling this global pandemic requires a global response. Unfortunately, what we have had is a patchwork response divided along national lines: while richer countries have been able to offer at least one dose of a vaccine to 77% of their population, poorer countries have been able to offer the same treatment to just 8%. That is profoundly unjust to some of the poorest people in the world.
We do not know who will be patient zero for the next variant, but we do know that vaccinations will help stop the spread of covid-19 within our society. We also know that in many of the world’s poorer countries, the global HIV pandemic is a serious health problem in society. Although sustainable development goal 3.3 aims to end AIDS by 2030, many countries are struggling to get to grips with the virus, and 1.5 million people acquired HIV in 2020. For those living with HIV, covid-19 can be devastating: those living with HIV are twice as likely to die after being infected with covid-19, and many people with HIV who live in poorer countries cannot get access to the vital treatment or therapy that they need.
The presence of covid-19 within immunocompromised people is not only dangerous to them but can make the pandemic more dangerous for us all. While we do not know where variants will emerge, we do know that the ability of covid-19 to persist longer in the bodies of immunocompromised patients may give it time to evolve and mutate, so tackling covid-19 in the long term may be intrinsically linked to tackling diseases such as HIV. However, rather than a step up in our efforts to tackle HIV, screening in Africa and Asia has dropped by 40% and the UK Government cut funding to UNAIDS by 83%. Will the Minister speak to her colleagues in the Treasury about reversing this cut for UNAIDS so that we can tackle these two deadly viruses together?
Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)
First, I apologise to you, Mrs Murray, and to the Minister as I will have to leave straight after I have made my remarks to address a sensitive issue in the Chamber on behalf of one of my constituents. It was a year ago that the first covid-19 vaccines were approved—a moment of hope that humanity could overcome this disease. Scientists did their duty and played their part, but I am afraid the truth is that world leaders failed to deliver the vaccines to all. At least 5 million people have now died of covid globally, but The Economist estimates the true excess deaths figure to be almost 20 million.
Huge public funding went into producing the vaccines. At least 97% of the funding for the AstraZeneca vaccine, for example, has been identified as coming from public funds, taxpayers or charitable trusts. The US Government funded and co-developed the vaccine sold by Moderna. Governments should have insisted that, in exchange for billions of pounds of public funding, vaccine producers must share any successful formula openly. Instead, our Government put the interests of pharmaceutical companies first. Companies such as Pfizer, Moderna and BioNTech make $1,000 every second in profits from covid vaccines. Putting profits first means that less than 6% of people in low-income countries are fully vaccinated. Literally millions of people around the world have died avoidable deaths, and this has created the conditions in which new variants have emerged.
I will touch on what I am afraid is our Government’s shameful role. South Africa and India led the call for a temporary vaccine waiver, allowing technology to be shared. This has now won huge international support from many Governments and from President Biden, yet our Government, along with the Government of Germany, have been leading the opposition, putting profits before lives by blocking the global sharing of vaccine patents that would allow poorer countries to produce their own vaccines. A frankly racist idea, spread by those who make vaccine profits, is that Africa, Asia and Latin America are somehow incapable of making their own vaccines, even if patents were waived, but vaccine experts recently identified more than 100 companies in Africa, Asia and Latin America with the potential to produce mRNA vaccines.
Even if people are not morally outraged by the millions of unnecessary deaths, there is a simple additional reason to back the waiver: no one is safe until everyone is safe. The virus will keep winning if profit is put first. The covid-19 vaccine must be for the global public good—a people’s vaccine, not a vaccine for profit.
Mrs Sheryll Murray (in the Chair)
Order. I call the SNP spokesperson, Dr Philippa Whitford. The Opposition spokespeople and the Minister have about 10 minutes each, which will allow two minutes at the end for the lead Member to wind up the debate.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
Thank you very much, Mrs Murray. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing the debate. I declare an interest as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on vaccinations for all and vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus, which has been taking evidence every fortnight since July 2020, including hearing from Health Ministers across sub-Saharan Africa and other places who emphasise what we have been hearing today—the difficulties they have in accessing supply and the poor quality of supply they actually get.
It is certainly true that all of us have gained from the researchers who have developed new vaccines, and I pay tribute to the staff of the four national health services across the UK for the speed and skill with which they have delivered them. We have vaccinated almost 80% of adults with a third—or booster—shot, whereas access to even one shot in low-income countries is well below 10%. That simply highlights the inadequate access and inequity across the globe. High-income countries have literally hoovered up the vaccines as they were developed over the last year. That is indefensible. It is very reminiscent of AIDs, when people in Africa who were suffering from HIV or AIDs could not access the treatments that were available in the richer countries.
Last spring—well, actually, the spring before: 2020; I keep forgetting it is a new year—we heard lots of warm words about a global response to a global crisis. That is simply not what we have seen. We have seen that COVAX was established, and that the UK Government gave more than £500 million to it, but they did not give any vaccines until quite late last year. COVAX was meant to procure directly from companies. That never happened. Therefore, COVAX has ended up completely dependent on getting donated doses from wealthy countries that simply did advance procurements. That is the reason COVAX has delivered less than half of the 2 billion doses it was aspiring to deliver last year.
The UK Government promised 100 million doses in June 2021 at the G7—80 million to COVAX, and 20 million bilaterally. Less than a quarter of that has actually been delivered to COVAX. We are at the beginning of 2022. The 100 million is meant to be delivered by this coming June, which means 9.1 million per month to COVAX and a total of 11.5 million if we include any bilateral donations. The UK needs to radically step up donations of doses. That is the acute response, because that can be done in the short term. The UK has enough excess that it could carry out its third doses—and for many vulnerable patients, fourth doses, which I have had myself, as an immunocompromised person—and still accelerate the donation of doses to more than meet its target by June.
The problem is that wealthy countries think they can protect their own populations purely by vaccinating them. Omicron shows that that simply is not true. When we have large parts of the world, particularly in the global south, with low access to vaccines, that will generate high spread, and therefore more mutations—eventually, there will be new variants. Some of those variants may be as infectious as omicron—as transmissible and as good at escaping either natural immunity or previous vaccination—but may turn out to be much more severe. The fairy story that, inevitably, a virus is committed to becoming milder, is something that we are not in a position to count on.
We still, right now, two years into this crisis, need a global response. I therefore call on the Government to accelerate their donations, using the excess that we have. However, those must be predictable and in collaboration with the low-income countries that are receiving them. They also must have a decent shelf life.
We heard of Ministers having to visit their ports, every day, in case something had arrived. They had to keep stopping their own programmes because, suddenly, they got a delivery with a few weeks left on it. That is disrespectful to countries that do not have the health infrastructure that we have across the UK. It is critical to include consumables such as syringes and needles. It is also important to try to support the wider covid-19 responses.
Anyone looking at the WHO data will notice the incredibly low levels of covid—supposedly—in Africa. Africa does not have low levels; it has low levels of access to tests which means that cases are not being registered. We should not be using the doses as part of the already-reduced ODA budget, and certainly not charging more than the UK Government have paid for them.
That is the short-term approach, but the medium-term approach is to massively increase global production. The problem is that the TRIPS waiver has been being discussed for basically over a year. We would be in a totally different position if that had been moved on at the beginning. The UK is one of a dwindling number of countries that is blocking it. Over 130 countries now support it.
It is important to recognise that most of the leading covid-19 vaccines have been developed with public funding, either from university settings, which are largely publicly funded, or through the huge injection of funding made by the UK, US and EU Governments, and others. We touched on polio. The fact is that Salk did not patent his vaccine, Alexander Fleming did not patent penicillin and Röntgen did not patent X-rays, because they saw them as part of the global good.
As well as getting rid of the blockage of intellectual property rights and patents, it is important that there is proper sharing of data and technology transfer. Médecins Sans Frontières has identified 100 companies across Africa, Asia and Latin America that are certified by the European Medicines Agency, the United States Food and Drug Administration or the WHO for good manufacturing practice. To imply that it is not possible to produce vaccines to high qualities in the global south is frankly insulting.
The technology of messenger RNA vaccines holds hope for action against many tropical diseases in the future, such as TB, malaria and others. Sharing that technology now is not just about dealing with covid-19. It opens up the ability to tackle the scourges of infectious diseases that many countries face.
The UK should be increasing production of vaccines, to become a net exporter, instead of an importer. It is inexplicable why the UK Government pulled funding from the Valneva production site in Livingstone, when the trial data was about to be published. That vaccine was successfully developed using a traditional whole-virus approach, and people who were unwilling to take the messenger RNA vaccines may have been willing to receive the Valneva vaccine. It has not yet been trialled, but because it uses a whole-virus approach, it may provide a broader reaction that remains viable even when other variants arrive.
In comparison to delta, which had four mutations on the spike protein, omicron has 32 mutations. It is a totally different shape. Therefore, sadly with the AstraZeneca vaccine, the key no longer fits the lock. Pfizer does, but it wanes. We need to have broader vaccines so that we might be a bit more resistant to variants in the future.
The Government must maintain their support for routine vaccination. That means honouring the replenishment commitments to GAVI, because routine vaccinations have suffered due to the disruption of the pandemic. The UK has always been a leading funder of vaccination, and it must not pull back now. We must also think about future pandemics. The replenishment of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations is coming up this year. The UK needs to commit to that.
We are all talking about the humanitarian and the moral need to support people in poorer countries to have the access we have had, but on top of the lives lost and the huge, multi-trillion economic hit to the world, it is important that we recognise that this was a global challenge. The international community has failed, so far. If we cannot get our act together now in facing this, that does not give great hope for that other challenge—the climate crisis.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is my pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this hugely important debate. I think this issue will define this year, and the way this pandemic is remembered in history. I thank Members from across the House for their contributions.
From the very start of the pandemic, Labour and I have been clear that achieving global vaccine equity is a moral and economic imperative, yet the Government have failed time and again to answer the calls from our partners abroad, and the result is a catastrophic disparity between the countries that have and the countries that have not.
The facts speak for themselves. In the west, 70% of adults have received a vaccination, but many people in the world’s poorest areas are yet to receive a single dose. Nowhere is the covid divide clearer to see than in Africa, a continent in which immunisation rates in many countries are below even 1%, and three in four healthcare workers are yet to receive a single dose. The EU, the UK and the US received more doses in the last weeks of 2021 than African countries received all year.
From our own struggles with the pandemic, we know how desperately important it is to get jabs into arms, and of course we encourage everyone to get vaccinated; it is the way that we beat this virus. Yet why is it that when it comes to the rest of the world, last year we lagged behind the EU, the US, France, Germany, Italy and Canada in the number of doses donated to low and middle-income countries? I know that the new Foreign Secretary is perhaps a bit distracted at the moment with her own leadership ambitions, but seriously, is this global Britain? The world is right to wonder why this Government have fallen so far behind. Although Britain could be once counted upon to be a dependable and trusted leader on the world stage, our reputation has been tarnished by the Government’s failure to heed warnings about the virus mutating in less vaccinated regions and to take decisive action.
With the COVAX facility falling short of its pledges last year by over a billion doses and revising down its forecast for 2021-22 by 25%, as well as revelations that many vaccine producers not only failed to prioritise deliveries to COVAX but violated their contractual obligations, now is the time for outward-looking nations to redouble their efforts to vaccinate the world. This is not a question of trying to achieve the impossible, nor is it a choice between jabs at home or jabs abroad. We have the expertise, the technology, the resources and the production capacity, so what is stopping us?
First, there has been a shameful level of mismanagement. It is an absolute scandal that despite repeated promises by the Government to distribute surplus vaccines, more than 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine had to be destroyed after passing their expiry date in August last year. In the same month, it emerged that the UK had taken 500,000 doses from COVAX that were meant for poorer countries. What on earth was going on? The reality of the global vaccination effort is that the increasing reliance on ad hoc donations from high-income countries to fill the gaps has meant vaccines arriving in countries late, with little notice and limited shelf lives. That makes it impossible for people in those countries to plan vaccination campaigns and increase absorptive capacity so that they can get those jabs into arms.
I note that of the 30 million doses that the UK pledged to donate last year, only a third had been delivered by November, with the Government leaving it until the absolute last minute to fulfil their promise. Life-saving health interventions must not be treated like essay deadlines. We must do better and give countries adequate notice, with transparent and ambitious timelines, as well as a good level of shelf life on doses when they arrive.
Striving for vaccine equity is not only a moral imperative, but wholly in Britain’s best interests. We know from painful experience that viruses evolve and mutate. Our country’s heroic efforts in the fight against covid have been seriously set back not once, but twice, with the emergence of the more transmissible delta and omicron variants. Neither of those variants originated in the UK, but once they arrived here they quickly swept the country. That is why it is so important that our fight against covid is global.
We know, with great sadness, that another strain of this deadly virus will emerge if we continue down our current path. That is why it is unbelievable that the Government cut by 70% research programmes that track variants. As Gordon Brown so rightly pointed out:
“The grim truth remains that until no one anywhere lives in fear, then everyone everywhere will have to live in fear.”
Simply put, the current pandemic is not something that we can booster our way out of. As the emergence of omicron has shown us, as soon as a booster is administered in the west, another strain of the virus may mutate elsewhere, most often in the fertile breeding grounds where vaccinations are difficult to access.
We must remember that striving for global access to vaccines also makes economic sense. Covid is not just a health emergency but an economic emergency, and instead of being preoccupied with how much global vaccination would cost, we would be better served by considering how much it would save.
Will the Minister therefore confirm how much it costs us per dose to procure vaccines, and will she tell us at what price doses are currently being accounted for on the Government ledgers? Does she agree that donations to low and middle-income countries should not be counted towards the 0.5% ODA target? The sooner we can put an end to the health crisis, the sooner we can put an end to the economic crisis. Only when we can confidently say that the pandemic is over will global supply chains be able to adjust, our economy recover and businesses have the confidence to invest and thrive.
As the managing director of the International Monetary Fund put it, the costs of ensuring global vaccine equity would be
“dwarfed by the outsized benefits”,
with economies likely to see
“the highest return on public investment in modern history.”
This is not rocket science. It is the common sense that Opposition Members have been pleading with the Government to adopt since the pandemic first began.
If the Government are serious about global Britain, they also need to be serious about global health. If we are to have any chance of stamping out this virus once and for all, we need to work with national Governments to ensure that those with the greatest need can access vaccines, regardless of their location or the depth of their pockets. Labour has led the way on this issue, setting out the steps that the Government should take. I encourage the Minister to look at the 10-point plan that the former shadow International Trade Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), and I laid out in May last year.
In particular, I urge the Government to show global leadership by working with other Governments to negotiate a temporary patent waiver with the World Trade Organisation to allow developing countries to speed up their own vaccine production. The UK is out on a limb on this now. The majority of countries around the world have expressed support for the TRIPS waiver. It is backed by hundreds of human rights lawyers, IP scholars, civil society organisations, economists, medical experts, scientists, most Commonwealth countries and the First Ministers for Scotland and for Wales, as well as by India, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and the US. Only the UK, Switzerland and the European Union are still blocking this. There are more than 100 manufacturers across Africa, Asia and Latin America with the potential to produce mRNA vaccines. Let us give them the tools to manufacture more of the vaccine and get the world jabbed as soon as we can.
Finally, I urge the Government to leverage the UK’s world-leading expertise and work in close co-operation with national healthcare providers and trusted partners on the ground to ensure that systems are in place to allow vaccines to be distributed in an efficient and swift manner. After all, there is little point in turbocharging global vaccine production if those vaccines cannot be distributed to the people who desperately need them.
As we enter the new year, the Government have an opportunity to finally do the right thing. As a proud, outward-looking nation, we simply cannot continue down our current path, looking on as spectators while the world suffers vaccine apartheid. To do so would be not only grossly unjust, but catastrophic to the UK’s interests—our reputation, the world economy and our security.
The Government must commit here today, without qualification, to taking the urgent steps that Labour, Gordon Brown and so many more have urged all along: to look beyond our borders, recognise our mutual common interests and do the right thing. Let us make 2022 the year that we close the great covid gap and do our part to vaccinate the world.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Murray. I thank the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) for securing this debate, and I thank the many hon. Members who have contributed to it. I will try to respond to many of the points that have been made.
It is now almost two years since the start of the pandemic. We have seen extraordinary and unprecedented progress in so many areas, but too many people across the world remain unvaccinated and vulnerable to the virus, particularly in lower-income countries and in the most marginalised communities.
[Mr Philip Hollobone in the Chair]
Our G7 and UN Security Council presidencies last year drove an important international response on vaccine access. It included a G7 agreement to share and finance at least 1 billion doses for developing countries by June this year. Furthermore, last month, within days of becoming aware of the omicron variant, we convened G7 Ministers to agree a co-ordinated response. On 30 December, the Foreign Secretary announced £105 million in UK aid to help vulnerable countries respond to the omicron variant, including support to scale up testing, improve access to oxygen and provide communities with hygiene advice.
Last year, we also worked with a wide range of partners to design and fund the COVAX facility, with the participation of over 191 countries and territories, including up to 92 developing countries. Yes, COVAX faced constraints in 2021, but supply has increased rapidly, and the facility has delivered to 86 low and middle-income countries. We were a founder and, with our commitment of £548 million, we were one of the largest donors. The UK continues to support vaccinations through its contribution to the World Bank’s African Vaccine Acquisition Trust scheme. We have also pledged funding for developing covid-19 treatments and rapid diagnostic tests, and we have deployed emergency medical teams.
The UK has also committed to sharing 100 million vaccine doses. We have donated over 30 million doses so far, meeting our goal for 2021, and UK donations have helped to immunise health workers and those most vulnerable to covid-19.
Vicky Ford
The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), asked about the cost of those donations—I suspect that was the intervention that the hon. Member for North East Fife wished to make. The cost of covid-19 vaccine donations for 2021 has been additional to the ODA budget in the 2020 spending review. Our total ODA spend in 2021 will remain within 0.5% of gross national income, given growth forecasts. Departmental ODA budgets are increasing significantly over the period of the next spending review, and they will fully cover the cost of vaccine donations to meet the Prime Minister’s commitment to donate 100 million doses by June 2021.
Vicky Ford
I am not going to take interventions right now, because I want to try to answer the points that Members have made in their speeches.
The spokesperson for the Scottish National party, the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), seemed to believe that the UK holds a stockpile of covid-19 vaccines. That is not the case; the UK does not stockpile covid-19 vaccines. We manage our supply chain very carefully, ensuring that vaccine doses are used and have an impact as quickly as possible, either in the UK or beyond. A number of Members spoke about vaccines that may have gone to developing countries, but were too close to their use-by dates. Right now, vaccines that are delivered by COVAX are delivered in consultation with countries that are ready and able to begin an immediate roll-out, and they are distributed in line with the World Health Organisation’s equitable allocation framework. For bilateral donations, we have sought assurance that recipients have the capacity to roll out that quantity of doses in line with their national vaccination programmes, ahead of their expiry dates.
Supply is increasing, but it needs to be sustained and consistent, so that countries can plan and implement their immunisation campaigns. A capacity to deliver vaccines quickly is now a priority of our focus. A new inter-agency global co-ordinator for delivery has been appointed to focus on in-country delivery, and several countries, such as Mozambique, Rwanda and South Africa, have already administered most of the vaccines they have received so far. Yesterday, I spoke to our team in Ghana, where right now they are vaccinating half a million people every day, and even using drones to deliver vaccines to the hardest-to-reach communities. It is a truly remarkable effort, and we donated over a million vaccines to Ghana before Christmas as part of that work.
Although our vaccine donations make a difference and are a critical source of short-term supply, I recognise that dose sharing alone will not vaccinate the world. That is why the UK also backs the Oxford-AstraZeneca model of voluntary licensing to expand the production of affordable vaccines. About 2.5 billion Oxford-AZ doses have been delivered at cost to more than 170 countries, and about two thirds of those have gone to low-income and lower middle-income countries.
In addition, last year we announced a quarter of a million pounds for the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations in order to accelerate the collaborative development of vaccines against new diseases, including covid-19. CEPI is also providing funding to other UK institutions for the development of vaccines against other diseases, such as Lassa fever, Marburg virus disease and middle east respiratory syndrome. In March this year, the UK will host the global pandemic preparedness summit, which will mobilise resources for CEPI’s five-year strategic goal to reduce the time it takes to develop vaccines against new threats, including new covid variants.
The right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), the hon. Members for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) and for Belfast South (Claire Hanna) and others called for an intellectual property rights waiver, but that is not the solution. There is a serious risk that a TRIPS waiver could undermine the intellectual property framework that helped to produce covid-19 vaccines, and could disincentivise future research and development investment.
Several hon. Members rose—
Vicky Ford
I will answer the points that have been made on this, and if I have time, I will give way at the end. The flexibilities within the TRIPS system that were used to tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis are really important. We remain open to all initiatives that will have a demonstrable impact on vaccine production and distribution, and we continue to engage constructively in discussions at the World Trade Organisation to that end. However, we need to focus our efforts on actions that will make timely and substantive differences, such as further voluntary licensing and technology transfer agreements. That is why we support the voluntary licensing approach taken by the team at Oxford University and AstraZeneca. Their collaboration with the Serum Institute of India has massively scaled up manufacturing for global supply.
On manufacturing, we are also providing technical support to develop business cases for Biovac to manufacture vaccines in South Africa, to Institut Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal and to the Moroccan Government. This technical support is helping to catalyse the investment that will see those vaccines produced on the African continent this year. We are also engaging with the new Partnership for African Vaccine Manufacturing. Focusing on supporting manufacturing on the continent of Africa is absolutely one of my key priorities. However, vaccine supply must be matched by the capacity of health systems to deliver them. We have been working to support and strengthen health systems in some of the most vulnerable countries, and we recently launched the “Health Systems Strengthening” position paper, which sets out our determination to do more on building overall capacity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) and others point out, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance is really important, and we continue to be a leading supporter. Our commitment of £1.65 billion over five years will help to vaccinate 300 million more children against preventable disease and improve health system resilience against future pandemics.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Order. We do not have time for an intervention, I am afraid. Wendy Chamberlain has to sum up. The Minister will draw her remarks to a close.
Vicky Ford
I will. I hope I have answered as many as possible of the questions that have been raised. That is what I have tried to do. The goal to vaccinate the world is monumental, and it is one that the UK is firmly committed to supporting. We have taken global leadership on that, especially during our G7 presidency. The points raised about manufacturing and distribution are live issues that we are tackling now. We will continue to champion the collaborative approach through CEPI, including on producing new vaccines for covid-19.
Wendy Chamberlain
I am pleased to have you in the Chair for the conclusion of the debate, Mr Hollobone. With Thursday afternoon Westminster Hall debates, there is always the pressure to get back to our constituencies, and the fact that this debate was so well subscribed shows how important it is to many Members. I thank them for their attendance.
Let us think first about what we have agreed on. We are very proud of those who are involved in the development of vaccines, and those in our NHS who are involved in the supply and delivery of vaccines within the UK. We are also all proud of the UK’s previous record as a global leader in international development.
However, our differences of opinion, which became clear in the Minister’s concluding remarks, are about whether the UK is doing enough, whether it should be doing more and how it should be doing it. In relation to the TRIPS waiver, I absolutely get the intellectual property considerations, but why do 130 countries feel differently from the UK in that regard?
I say to the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) that I looked at the IPU bits, and unfortunately it felt a little bit like COP26; where we have got to is the equivalent of moving from “phase out” to “phase down”, and there is clearly more to be done there. On Valneva, which the hon. Members for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) and for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford) raised, if we can develop a vaccine that does not have those storage requirements, I do not know why we are not looking at that.
There was a degree of disquiet on this side of the Chamber when the Minister talked about donations. I saw somebody on Twitter say, in response to the debate, that our current approach is a bit like clearing the pantry of food that is about to expire, donating it to a food bank and feeling like a philanthropist.
Finally, there were lots of stats in the debate, and I thank the Members who raised them. As we have seen over the past few days, statistics are loved ones—they are people.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Order. I am afraid that the hon. Lady has run out of time.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
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Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Before we begin there are some notices that Mr Speaker requires me to read. May I remind Members that they are expected to wear face coverings when they are not speaking in the debate? 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 before coming on to the estate. Please also give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and leaving the room.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Third Report of the Transport Committee, Rollout and safety of smart motorways, HC26, and the Government response, HC 1020.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. It is the Government response that I am particularly pleased to be discussing; Select Committees scrutinise and then put forward our recommendations, and in this particular instance, it is a great pleasure that the Government have accepted all the key recommendations—and gone further. I am grateful to the Minister, who is taking my thanks on behalf of the Department.
I also want to mention the previous incarnations of the Transport Committee and the work that they have done. I thank our former chair, Dame Louise Ellman, who chaired the Committee in 2016. I was a member of that Committee when a number of recommendations were made. For reasons that I will mention later, I believe that if those recommendations had been carried forward then we might not be where we are now. I also thank my predecessor, the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who continued to shine a light on some of the failings of smart motorways. It has been a collective endeavour—a mission over the last six years—but I am pleased that progress is being made. It is also important to ensure that the Committee continues to focus on those assurances, and ensure that they are scrutinised and, ultimately, delivered. We will do so.
It would be remiss of me not to explain more about smart motorways and what their design and technology is there to do. It is there to control the flow and behaviour of traffic. There are three types and often people are baffled by the differences; I hope that I can explain them.
First, there are all lane running motorways, which tend to get the most focus because they do not have a hard shoulder at all. They rely on a series of emergency areas for motorists who become stranded. In 2019, there were 141 miles of all lane running motorway network. The fatality rate per 100 million vehicle miles, which is measured from 2015 to 2019 for the purposes of this speech, was 0.12%.
Secondly, there are controlled motorways. These have a permanent hard shoulder at all times, but still have the smart technology. In 2019, they also accounted for 141 miles, with a lower fatality rate of 0.07%.
Thirdly, there is a dynamic hard shoulder motorway concept, which is where the hard shoulder is switched to a lane at busy times during the day. There are just 63 miles of this design, with a fatality rate of 0.09%. In comparison, there are 1,564 miles of conventional motorway, without the smart technology, which have a fatality rate of 0.16%.
The data shows that between 2015 and 2019, all three forms of smart motorways had lower fatality rates than conventional motorways. However, many are concerned because the data from 2019 alone shows that the reverse is true: smart motorways tend to be less safe.
The Transport Committee launched its latest inquiry in February 2021 and reported in November, with the Government responding this week. I will summarise what the Government have agreed to do.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
Surely, to put it in context, it is best to start with why one would want to do this scheme in the first place. It is about traffic management and, in particular, reducing congestion in very crowded parts of our motorway network, especially at peak hours when people are going to work and with lorry traffic moving through. It is an enormously important part of our economy, particularly around the midlands motorway box where, I think the hon. Member would agree, the M42—the original smart motorway—works extremely well.
Huw Merriman
I thank the right hon. Gentleman and take his point on board, although it is a bit difficult to go back to the start and do as he has suggested. However, it is a familiar topic about smart motorways that will come up later. He is absolutely right. If the design guide had followed the prototype—I intend to refer to the M42 and where things then moved—we might have found ourselves in a very different place.
The right hon. Gentleman touched on the reason for this scheme, which, again, is to create the extra capacity that is needed to get people off the more dangerous A and B roads and on to the motorway network. Unfortunately, because of what has happened, there is a danger that the opposite is true, and if he will allow it I will expand on that.
There are seven key points in the recommendations that were accepted. First, there will be a pause of the roll-out of all lane running motorways yet to commence construction until five years of data is available for the smart motorway network built before 2020.
Secondly, the Government will pause the conversion of dynamic hard shoulder motorways to all lane running motorways and revisit the case for controlled motorways. Is it all about all lane running smart motorways or are other smart motorways better?
Thirdly, emergency refuge areas will be retrofitted to existing all lane running motorways to make them no further than 1 mile apart, for which the Government have announced £390 million of funding.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
My hon. Friend will know that I was the roads Minister from the summer of 2016 through 2017, and had been at the Department for Transport prior to that under a different Government. As Minister, I raised the issue of the frequency of those refuges with my office and with Highways England. It seems to me that, for the reassurance of motorists and motoring organisations, it is vital that they come more frequently. The Committee’s report recommends that. I am pleased with the Government’s response, which seems to be positive. However, it is critical that on all lane running motorways—that is the difference he highlighted earlier—those refuges are regularly available so that people can get off the road if and when they need to, without delay.
Huw Merriman
I thank my right hon. Friend for the expertise he brings to this debate. He makes some fascinating points. I am interested in whether the advice was followed by Highways England, as it then was. This was a new concept. Our recommendations included giving Ministers and the Department a little more independent advice from the Office of Rail and Road—the roads regulator. Had that been the case, there might have been checks and balances in the system, so the advice that he received might have been better for him. He rightly makes the point that if the build-out had been followed as he approved, we might not be where we are.
The fourth point was the granting of powers to the Office of Rail and Road to evaluate the Government’s smart motorways project plan. Starting this year, the regulator will report on progress annually, and carry out an evaluation of stopped vehicle detection technology and other safety measures.
The fifth point, which comes with a consultation requirement, is to introduce an emergency corridor manoeuvre into the highway code to help emergency services and traffic patrol officers to access incidents.
Sixthly, the Government will investigate the granting of new road safety powers to the roads regulator before changes to design or operational standards are implemented on our motorways and key roads. Again, Ministers would then have that independent four-eyes approach when their advice comes through.
Finally—this is important—we need to revisit the entire business case and rationale for smart motorway conversion. It is interesting that the expectation was that for every £1 spent on smart motorways, £3 would be delivered back, because we would be creating more capacity. There have not actually been that many studies of whether that has been achieved, because a longer assessment period is needed, which is now consistent with the safety assessment. However, one project on the M25 was delivering almost £3 back, although it is fair to say that the experts’ view is that it dissipates after a year, as more people use the motorway network.
The headline is a pause on new smart motorways, but the aspect that I am really determined to ensure that the Committee follows is all the retrofitting work that is needed to make the existing smart motorway network safer. That means vital work has to start on reducing the width between emergency refuge sites. We have seen that if a car is travelling at 60 mph and the distance interval is 2.5 km, it takes 75 seconds for that car to get to the emergency refuge areas. Some 40% of all breakdowns occur in a live lane, and that has to be impacted by the fact that the emergency refuge area is too far for the cars to get to, so it is essential that this is delivered.
I will touch on the stopped vehicle detection technology, which the Government are committed to ensuring is rolled out on the existing network by 2022. The Government are right to say that it was originally planned for 2023, so it will happen a year earlier. The Committee’s frustration is that we were given assurances by Highways England, the predecessor to National Highways, in 2016 that “going forward” the stopped vehicle detection technology would be put in place in the delivery of all new smart motorways. That has not occurred. When we heard from National Highways, as it now is, in our current inquiry, we were told that “going forward” actually meant “after two years”, whereas, to me, going forward means “immediately”.
Of course, the challenge now—it will be a funding challenge as well as an operational challenge—is that once those motorways are open and running, it is a lot harder and more expensive to retrofit the technology in place, which we have been told will be one of the blockers. In my view, that is precisely the reason they should have been put in to start with. I know the Government are now committed to ensuring that whenever they finish the existing smart motorways—which, rightly, cannot be stopped because they are almost there—they cannot open until the technology is in place.
John Spellar
Maybe a future programme for the hon. Gentleman’s Committee is why such bad advice is being given to Ministers inside the Department. Given that the M42 already had a system that worked and delivered much more predictable journey times, reduced fuel use, reduced pollution and, incidentally, reduced accident rates—that is all in the data from the M42 experiment—why did they cut corners after that? In the same way, they saved about £10 million on the paper licence, but it is costing about £100 million a year. Is there not clearly a systemic failure in advice and capability inside the Department for Transport?
Huw Merriman
I would be interested in hearing from former Ministers and the current Minister, but from my study of the matter over the last six years, I think the answer is that the culture has been about creating the capacity. That makes perfect sense, because if we create the capacity on the motorway network, we take traffic off the more dangerous roads. However, the difficulty is that we have then not focused on ensuring that the new roads are as safe as they can be. If we had the refuge areas at shorter distances and had the stopped vehicle detection technology, that could be done.
It was quite interesting that when we spoke to then chief executive of Highways England and asked why some of the motorways were open, notwithstanding the measures that had been put in place, he maintained that drivers wanted to try the road once the tarmac had been delivered. He stated: “We get a lot of negative feedback from the public, who say, ‘We know this is a smart motorway and you’re opening it. Why can’t we use that lane now?’”. I think it is that that has driven the feeling of, “Let’s get on and move it,” and then the safety measures and the design side seem to get cut.
I think there was a mentality in the agency that it designed this, so it became very defensive about it and tried to stretch it as much as it could. I would say that the safety bit got somewhat left behind and was not given the prominence that it should have been given. We know that the agency has a zero-harm policy: it aims to reduce harm, in terms of deaths, to zero by 2040. That is a lofty target, but it is also one that should be focused on every bit as much as creating the capacity.
I will end with this summary, because it is important that everybody else has the opportunity to speak and that we hear from former Ministers, with their ministerial expertise—there are two here to provide that. It is welcome that the Government have agreed to these recommendations. I applaud them for doing that, but it is essential that we now crack on with the safety measures that should have been there in the first place. They have not been there, but we now need to focus on getting them delivered as soon as we can.
It is vital that we use the Office of Rail and Road more, as it is the regulator and is able to challenge some of the assumptions. I welcome the acceptance of that recommendation, but the Office of Rail and Road is going to have to change as well. Of 350 employees inside that organisation, only 19 are dedicated to roads. It used to be the Office of Rail Regulation, but has been extended to cover roads; in reality, it is about rail. We do not want to get to a situation in which the culture is such—as perhaps it is with rail—that safety becomes the only issue, and we cannot ever get on and deliver innovations, because that might not be 100% safe; nothing is. We need to ensure that we still have a road-building programme in place.
Ultimately, it is really important that the Government look to whether they will continue with smart motorway build-out by assessing the data over this paused period. I very much hope that if the safety measures are brought in, that will strengthen the case for smart motorways, because the final point that I want to send to the public is that smart motorways are safe. The motorway network in this country is one of the safest in the world. People should be encouraged to use the motorway network. But we can make those smart motorways even safer, and I very much hope that this report and the Government’s response to it will help to that end.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Order. The debate will last until 4.30 pm. I am obliged to start calling the Front Benchers no later than seven minutes past 4. The guideline limits are 10 minutes for Her Majesty’s Opposition, 10 minutes for the Minister, and then the Chairman of the Transport Committee will get three minutes to sum up the debate at the end. There are five Back Benchers, with a humongous amount of highways expertise, seeking to contribute, and it is Back-Bench time until seven minutes past 4. The first of those will be Grahame Morris.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I appreciate your calling me in this debate, Mr Hollobone. It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
I begin by commending the work of the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and the way in which he has not only gone about the gathering of evidence for the inquiry, but actively promoted the response from the Government and the conclusions of the Committee. He is to be commended for that. I would also like to record, on my behalf, and, I am sure, that of all members of the Transport Committee, our thanks to the members of staff, the subject specialists and all the support staff who have been involved in preparing this third report of the current Session.
As I believe the Chair of the Committee has already pointed out, this is not the first Transport Committee report scrutinising all lane running motorways. Although I welcome the Government’s acceptance of the Transport Committee’s recommendations, safety risks on all lane running motorways, such as those raised by our predecessor Committee in 2016, should have been addressed before those motorways were rolled out.
My own party and I personally have long felt that the Government needed to halt the roll-out of smart motorways. The Committee identified considerable evidence that there are serious flaws. It is a tragedy that so many lives were lost before action was taken.
John Spellar
There is a slight danger of conflating smart motorways and all lane running motorways. There are smart motorways that work, as with the M42, which is a key part of the motorway box around Birmingham and vital to the economy of this country. We therefore need to differentiate, and to look at what has worked and at why that was not followed through on. It is enormously important not just for those travelling to work, but—given that this country and its economy runs on its trucking industry and its drivers, as we found out recently—to keep things flowing. We have to look at extending that, rather than wrapping all those together in one framework.
Grahame Morris
That is a reasonable point. I certainly do not disagree with my right hon. Friend. I point out that our third inquiry was launched in response to concerns that the Committee had received about the increasing number of fatalities and to criticism by professionals, including coroners, about the risks that arise when we do not have hard shoulders, or when they are used as an additional lane.
As we heard in the Chair of the Committee’s opening remarks, the number of miles of motorway without a hard shoulder increased from 172 to 204 between 2017 and 2019. Over those two years, the number of deaths on motorways without a permanent hard shoulder increased from five to 15. At least 38 people have been killed on smart motorways in the past five years. On one section of the M25 outside London, the number of near misses has risen twentyfold since the hard shoulder was removed in April 2014.
Thanks to the dedication of bereaved families, the roll-out has been paused. As part of the Committee’s inquiry, we heard some of the most harrowing and moving evidence from the families of those who, tragically, have died on smart motorways. That testimony, I believe, was very valuable and I thank all those who gave evidence in person and in writing.
All lane running motorways were primarily a money-saving exercise. We skirted around that issue earlier. In the rationale, they were introduced to add capacity while delivering savings on capital, maintenance and operational costs compared with previous smart motorway designs. The aim was to achieve the savings required by the 2010 spending review while maintaining Highways Agency safety standards. Clearly, those motorways could reduce the costs of implementation by up to a quarter.
It is now evident, however, that cost-cutting has played a part in the utterly inadequate roll-out of smart motorway features. That has put lives at risk. Many of the problems with the safety of all lane running motorways remain, years after the original Transport Committee report.
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
National Highways has been given £27.4 billion this year. Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that it might be a case not of a shortage of cash at National Highways, but more a lack of focus on the need for safety?
Grahame Morris
Some important questions need to be asked, and agencies and individuals need to be held to account for the decisions made.
It is staggering that since the first smart motorways went live, those basic standard safety features referred to earlier and in the statement this morning have still not been fully implemented—that smart technology to detect broken-down vehicles in live lanes. Emergency refuge areas are too far apart. CCTV cameras on smart motorways are not routinely monitored, which is an incredible admission that the Committee uncovered. Compliance with and enforcement of red X signs remain problematic.
Cameras capable of enforcing compliance will not be fully rolled out until September this year. As the Chairman of the Committee alluded to, the Committee was originally promised that the deadline for that would be six years earlier and that those cameras and that technology would be implemented in 2019. Also, we have now been told that stopped-vehicle detection will not be rolled out across all lane running motorways until September this year, six years after the Transport Committee was told that the technology worked and would be part of the standard roll-out of these schemes.
Emergency services and traffic patrol officers still struggle to access incidents in a timely manner, especially during periods of heavy congestion. Of course, the introduction of all-electric vehicles brings a whole new dimension into potential chokepoints and road traffic accidents, if such vehicles were to run out of power on an all lane running motorway.
The Committee’s report makes it clear that engagement and clear communication with the public about smart motorways will be key to their safe and successful roll-out, so education is a key issue. However, almost half of the British public do not know what to do in the event of an emergency on a smart motorway. We do not have any smart motorways or all lane running motorways in the north-east, but my constituents travel down to London and use these roads, which do not have a hard shoulder, so education is absolutely vital. However, it was a profound mistake that the first public information awareness campaign about smart motorways was not launched until 2021, years after they came into operation.
We know that smart motorways, given their current form and inadequate safety standards, are not fit for purpose and put lives at risk. I believe that Ministers were wrong to press ahead with them when there was strong evidence that safety-critical features should be introduced as the sections of smart motorways were being developed.
I am pleased that the Government have acknowledged the Committee’s concerns and paused the roll-out of all lane running smart motorways until five years of safety and economic data is available, and improvements have been delivered and independently evaluated.
I will conclude with several questions for the Minister. First, is it not illogical that hundreds of miles of smart motorway will continue to be used? What about the remedial work? How is that being programmed? Does she agree that the delay of the roll-out programme, caused by the delays in installing the relevant technology to detect broken-down vehicles, has risked lives, and that the continuing use of hundreds of miles of smart motorways before remedial work has been carried out is a risk to public safety? And will she and the Department for Transport engage with the Transport Committee to agree what data will form part of the evidence-gathering assessment over the next five years to determine the relative safety of smart motorways?
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Order. To ensure that everyone gets in and can contribute, I am imposing a seven-minute limit on speeches.
Chris Loder (West Dorset) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate, Mr Hollobone, and to serve on the Transport Committee under its Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman).
This report is the most substantial and impactful that the Transport Committee has produced for many years. It has looked to address some particularly difficult issues. All of us—both Members of Parliament and the Government—should ask ourselves why has it taken six years and three inquiries to get to this point? None the less, I am pleased that we have reached a point where a Transport Committee report has been accepted pretty much in its entirety by the Government.
My contribution will focus specifically on safety. Today, National Highways is focused on delivery, providing capacity and basically getting tarmac on the ground but, as I asked a senior director of National Highways at a recent meeting, how many people have to die on our national road network for National Highways to take safety seriously? How can it be that a fundamental part of the system—stopped-vehicle detection technology—was not working, despite the assurances that had been given to the Committee and others that it would be delivered? That is an absolute disgrace.
I hope the Minister will address that issue in her response. I look forward to hearing what she, her Department and the Secretary of State will do to address the issue. It is fair to say that very few people believe—I certainly do not—that National Highways take safety seriously enough or ensure it features in its decision making.
That leads me to the role of the Office of Rail and Road. As most Members here will know, before I came to this place my career was with the railways. I worked in the transport industry for 20 years, and I had many dealings with the ORR, in different ways. As my hon. Friend the Chair of the Committee said earlier, only 19 of the 350 employees of the ORR are focused on highways, because highway safety is not really part of the ORR’s portfolio.
In the same way that the ORR has safety responsibility for the railways, we should deal with the safety issue of our highways by having a proper safety regulator, in order to hold National Highways, and other organisations, to account. As we have seen in this report, and heard in other contributions, we have an organisation that has been able to wriggle out of delivering key safety measures. That is a national disgrace, and a matter of huge, enormous, personal pain for the families of those who have lost their lives on the smart motorway network.
In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend the Chair of the Committee and the Transport Committee team for what they have done. This is undoubtedly the most impactful report we have seen for a long time. I am especially pleased that the Government have supported pretty much everything we said, but we now need to see the Government taking these actions forward. Going forward in my role on the Committee, I will focus on ensuring that the safety issues I have outlined, specifically around National Highways’ responsibility to deliver safety matters and the ORR’s responsibility to address safety, are dealt with in the future.
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I have enjoyed the contributions from all members of the Transport Committee. I welcome its report and the Government’s response.
I take a slightly different perspective on this debate, because the spine of my constituency is junctions 28 to 30 of the M1, in which we have 30 miles of all lane running smart motorway. To the south is junctions 25 to 28, which is a controlled motorway, and to the north is junctions 30 to 35a, which is 19 miles of smart motorway. The section just to the north of my constituency, around Woodall services up to Sheffield, is the section in which unfortunately many people have lost their lives, including people from neighbouring Rotherham and Mansfield. The hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) referred to people giving evidence and those bereaved families, and our hearts go out to them.
It is a very difficult stretch of motorway from Nottingham up to Leeds, and it is undoubtedly over capacity: the amount of traffic that goes up that stretch is beyond what that road was initially designed to cope with. The smart motorway was seen as a solution to that issue, but I am not sure that it has been wildly successful. Anyone who lives in my constituency will know that we make regular appearances on the Radio 2 traffic bulletins, because the section between junctions 28 and 30 seems to have an accident on a fairly regular basis.
It is with that in mind that I read the report, and there are significant concerns about whether the introduction of the smart motorway has had the desired effects. I am not sure that it has. I am not sure that it has improved safety—as my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder) just outlined, there are significant concerns about that—but there is also an issue with the road network in my part of the world and the fact that the A1, which covers a very similar stretch, does not do its fair share of lifting, because it is not really fit for purpose and needs significant investment. I am sure that if my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) were here, she would argue the same case.
However, I want to go back to the context that the M1 is absolutely central to the local economy in Bolsover. We have a huge number of logistics firms, so when the smart motorway—or the motorway in general—is not working, that has a big impact on the local economy. A number of my constituents are constantly caught in traffic jams because when the M1 is not running, to my west it can back up almost all the villages in my constituency, and to my east there is a significant pressure because people try to get over to the A1 on the A619, which runs through parts of my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Brendan Clarke-Smith). That has a big impact on a lot of my villages, Whitwell in particular, because of the number of diverted heavy goods vehicles.
Added to that context—the Minister will smile wryly at this point—is the fact that some of my motorway junctions on that particular stretch are not fit for purpose. In particular, junctions 28 and 29 are suffering, which is having a huge, detrimental economic impact on us. I am working with Highways England—or whatever it is referred to now—to improve that particular situation, but a smart motorway on junctions 28 to 30 has brought a huge amount of congestion, an increase in near misses and a problem with air pollution, particularly in the south of my constituency around South Normanton and Pinxton. I appreciate that the rationale behind the decision to bring in a smart motorway was to increase capacity on a particularly difficult stretch, but I sympathised with the hon. Member for Easington when he said that it was perhaps just a cheap alternative to properly upgrading the motorway and strategic road network in that patch.
Given that we are in the heart of the country, it is worth pointing out to the Minister that further work needs to be done, and that is before we come on to safety. I drive down from my constituency to Westminster on a regular basis. There is a new bit of smart motorway being installed between, I think, junctions 13 and 16— hopefully someone will correct me if I am wrong—but there are other stretches in which the red Xs are totally ignored on a regular basis. I regularly see emergency vehicles unable to get to where they need to get to, and that is a worry, because we are creating an additional problem that I see on a weekly basis.
My hon. Friend the Chair of the Transport Committee spoke about the evidence regarding the benefit-cost ratio of smart motorways, and the fact that Professor Metz—I think it was him, but forgive me if I have got that wrong—was concerned about whether the return on those projects has been what we want them to be, or whether it is a one-off hit. I think he said that in the first year, they show a return on investment, but then the problems continue.
My experience locally indicates that although we have a smart motorway, it is not doing what it needs to do. As such, although I welcome the report and completely echo the concerns about safety, I have to conclude that I am not sure smart motorways are the answer. I appreciate all the comments made by the Chair of the Select Committee about smart motorways being a good thing, but I am not sure that I entirely agree with him. I wish the report had gone perhaps slightly further by looking at what else could be done to improve the road network, but that may be a separate point. It is an important report and I very much welcome the Government’s proactive stance on taking forward the recommendations. I hope the Minister has heard the plight that many of my constituents face, and that she will be proactive in looking for solutions with all the stakeholders involved. Again, I thank the Select Committee and thank everyone for listening.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to contribute to this important debate on smart motorways. The American poet Robert Frost spoke of two roads. We heard from the Select Committee Chairman that, in the case of smart motorways, there are at least three types of road. In a sense, that is the first point I want to make because that has led to confusion. As the Select Committee rightly concluded, there is a lack of understanding among many drivers of what smart motorways are, and particularly what all lane running is and what to do if, as the Committee put it, they break down in a live lane. As the Select Committee Chairman pointed out, 40% of breakdowns happen in such a lane.
People break down for two reasons. It is either a vehicular failure or some incident in the car, perhaps illness or accident. They need to get off the motorway quickly. The Select Committee also pointed out, however, that, contrary to what one might expect, hard shoulders are not actually the solution. They can cause more difficulties than they solve and can be dangerous places. Refuges are the answer, and I will return to that in a moment.
The key point I want to make at the outset is that the management and accountability of these matters needs to be urgently reviewed. When I was a Minister in the Department for Transport—I do not know if I am unique in the House, but I am certainly very unusual in having been appointed to that Department as a Minister three times—I was involved in setting up what was then Highways England. We looked at it very closely because we understood that the governance of that organisation needed to be such that Ministers could take power to direct it. Indeed, when I was speaking to my officials at the time, I said, “I want it to look as little like Network Rail as possible”, precisely because Ministers seem to have little authority over Network Rail.
There is the power of direction in respect of Highways England—what has now become National Highways—and it is necessary sometimes for Ministers to use that power, whatever their officials tell them. I do think, informed by the report and the excellent Government response to it, that from now on in Ministers need to take a very proactive approach when dealing with smart motorways.
The second point I want to make is about regulation. It has been made already, but it needs to be made again because it warrants amplification. The Office of Rail and Road is long established and, as a result, has a distinguished pedigree in regulating the railway system, but it has taken on roads only relatively recently, and it seems to me that the regulatory function needs to be enhanced, as the Select Committee has argued—that is a further way in which the decisions in respect of roads generally and smart motorways in particular can be made accountable. Both accountability to the regulator and being answerable to Ministers are vital as we move forward, and will provide the public with greater assurance about the safety of these new types of road. After all, they are a “radical change”, as the Select Committee says, to our road network, and confusing to drivers because of the various types of road that they may now encounter, particularly if they are not used to travelling a particular route. For instance, they may be going to a part of the country that they do not know and are therefore not familiar with the sort of road on which they are driving.
Finally, refuges are important not only because they provide an opportunity to get off the road in that 75-second period that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) mentioned, but because of what they broadcast about safety to drivers. They provide important reassurance to drivers that the road is indeed safe and that, in the case of emergency, there is a means of escaping the circumstances in which they might find themselves. That is why I made that point emphatically as Minister. I am delighted that the Select Committee has made it too, and that the Government have acknowledged and recognised it, although I notice the caveat in the small print that it is sometimes not possible to provide refuges at quite the regular intervals that the Select Committee recommends. None the less, I think the Government heard the message that I have emphasised once again.
It is important to see this in context. The most dangerous roads are not motorways, and they are not smart motorways. There is a good argument for thinking creatively and imaginatively about how we can make our roads more effective, as the Select Committee Chairman has said, and so build additional capacity to deal with congestion and so on. However, in order to do so, we must take the public with us. This pause is a huge opportunity for a programme of education, so that people know what kind of road they will encounter, what to expect and to feel safe accordingly.
The Select Committee has, as it should, done the House and the Government a great service. The Committee exists not only to scrutinise Government but to think about things that the Government would not otherwise consider. This is a good example of that. The Minister is an extremely diligent member of the Government. I hope she will indeed take seriously these recommendations, which are clearly made on the basis of both good faith and good information, and that we can move ahead to roads that are effective and make travel easier and, fundamentally, much safer.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to speak on this important issue of road safety. Overall, this is an area where the UK has a very good and strong track record, with both deaths and injuries falling over many years. Some problem areas remain that have proven quite difficult to make improvements on. I think especially of rural roads and the challenges among younger drivers. However, we should note that that downward trend continues and we should welcome it. When I looked at the most recent data before coming to the debate, I was very encouraged, but I note that it is from the period of lockdown, so some caution is required about data points during this period.
We must never forget one important thing: behind every stat is a life lost, a family shattered. These are true tragedies, which is why we should never be complacent about any issues with road safety. There is always more to do, and we should be spurred on to tackle more and more things. I welcome this report by the Transport Committee. It has done a good piece of work. I have to say that it is a Select Committee that I have had quite a bit to do with over the years, but mainly by appearing in front of it, rather than being a member of it. As the Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), said, the report, “Rollout and safety of smart motorways”, is the result of much detailed and prolonged work. The fact that its recommendations have been so quickly adopted by the Government shows how well that work has gone.
It is good to see all nine recommendations adopted by the Government, but I will speak about just one of them. Colleagues have spoken with great insight into other areas, but I will focus on the recommendation on stopped vehicle detection—SVD—technology. Technology is critical to the future of our transport systems. I do not just mean things like electric vehicles or hydrogen trains, although I know they are transformative and very exciting. I also mean using technology as a facilitator to reach a solution to one of the biggest challenges in transport, and that challenge is how to make it easier, cheaper and more sustainable to move increasing numbers of people and goods around our country.
I do not think this is a modal question. The challenges lie in all modes. We have not built a new railway line north of London since the reign of Queen Victoria, or a new runway in the south-east of England since the passenger jet was invented, or had a road investment programme since the 1970s, so we are looking at a period of sustained under-investment. There are reasons for that, one being that successive Governments have sought to use the existing infrastructure more intensely. In some cases, that has been more successful than others. Key successes include rail line usage, where we have seen increasing developments in rail signalling, and air corridor use. The key point is that the factor that made that possible is technological advance. More intensive use of existing infrastructure has been at the heart of the smart motorway development. As has been said, all various iterations go back decades.
Ultimately, to protect our environment, people do not really want to see huge amounts of new infrastructure. It is an environmental issue as much as a cost issue, unless we have absolutely no choice. Safety must be at the heart of all the technology and developments that will come into play. Technology is developing so fast that it has to be a factor in delivering safety on our road network, too. There have clearly been concerns about the safety of our roads, and smart motorways in particular. The speed and the size of vehicles can make us feel unsafe on motorways, and we know that the data shows, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) has said, that the hard shoulder is where people can feel most vulnerable and where problems can indeed arise. I experienced that myself recently, in the middle of the night. On a cold, dark night, a hard shoulder can be quite a grim experience.
When we bring in new technology, we have to take people with us and address their concerns. The pause that has been announced gives us the chance to retrofit, implement and review the SVD technology and perhaps improve it. The pace of the development is so fast that I am sure that developments will come into play sooner rather than later. We should expect all modes of transport to become busier as we emerge from the pandemic, and that will include our roads. As that happens, road safety must never be compromised, but enhanced. My point is that technology and the advances in it are central now and will become even more so in future.
I want to finish with one request to both the Transport Committee and the Minister. I ask them to please put particular emphasis on recommendation 4 and the technology, its deployment and development, because I am absolutely sure it will save lives, and that should be the priority in road safety planning.
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
We now come to the Front-Bench speeches. First, Tan Dhesi on behalf of Her Majesty’s Opposition.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Hollobone. I want to convey my gratitude to the Chair of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and the other hard-working members of his Committee and their predecessors for all of their excellent work in this area. We have witnessed excellent speeches from right hon. and hon. Members who have extensive experience in transport.
The Labour party welcomes the Transport Secretary’s announcement that he is pausing the roll-out of work not yet begun. The botched roll-out of smart motorways has cost lives. That is an undeniable fact. The Labour party has long warned about serious flaws in the whole process, and it is a tragedy that lives were lost before action was taken. It is thanks to the dedication of bereaved families and individuals such as members of the Transport Committee, a much-respected cross-party grouping, that the roll-out has been paused at all. We know that smart motorways in their current form, coupled with inadequate safety systems, are not fit for purpose and are putting lives at risk. Ministers were wrong to press ahead, as strong evidence warned against it.
We all want increased capacity and reduced congestion. We all want an increase in economic activity, but it must be done safely. In 2016, as the Chair of the Transport Committee has said, his predecessor Committee expressed deep scepticism about the design and implementation of all lane running motorways. The promised safety improvements were simply not delivered. Frankly, it is simply staggering that years after the first smart motorways went live, standard safety measures to detect broken down vehicles in live lanes have still not been fully rolled out. As the report has found, the CCTV is not routinely monitored. It is unacceptable that the distance between emergency refuge areas on motorways in operation today is far above what should be considered safe.
Coroners ruled that the lack of a hard shoulder contributed to four recent deaths. At least 38 people have been killed on smart motorways in the last five years. On one section of the M25 outside London, the number of near misses has risen twentyfold since the hard shoulder was removed in April 2014. Let us be clear: lives could have been saved if the safety-critical features identified by parliamentarians in report after report had been implemented.
Of course, we welcome the Minister’s announcement, but the devil is in the detail, as right hon. and hon. Members have highlighted. It is that on which I would like to press the Minister, and on two key points in particular. The first is the implications for the existing 200 miles of live lanes currently in use, and the second is the precise plan for the retrofitting of those lanes. I have to say that we are deeply concerned that yesterday’s announcement was an implicit acceptance that there are serious safety concerns on all lane running motorways, but they will continue to be in operation while the issues are addressed and the data evaluated.
At the very least, the announcement yesterday was an admission that the data do not currently support the continued roll-out of smart motorways. Otherwise, why has it paused for five years while we await further data? The clear implication is that motorists driving on the 200 miles of live lanes will be guinea pigs in order to justify the 67 miles left to be deployed. That is utterly illogical. It is quite simple: if Ministers cannot justify the safety of smart motorways on roads still to be built, they cannot justify the safety of those currently in use. The priority must be passenger safety.
Grahame Morris
My hon. Friend is making some solid points, and I just want to seek some clarification. It is also in relation to a point made by the hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) in respect of recommendation 4 and the stopped vehicle detection technology. My concern is that the Roads Minister previously told the Transport Committee that although stopped vehicle detection technology improves safety, it is not necessary to make all lane running motorways safe, because
“all-lane running motorways were designed to—and do—operate safely without it.”
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that we may not be using this five-year period to retrofit the safety-critical systems, if that is still the view of Ministers?
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend is correct. I made this very point in the main Chamber earlier today, and I will come to the point about technology.
We reiterate our call for Ministers to reinstate the hard shoulder while the safety-critical work is carried out, the botched public information campaign is properly rolled out, and a further review of the evidence takes place.
Let me turn to the Government’s pledges on remedial work. Back in June 2016, the Transport Committee said that the roll-out of smart motorways should not continue unless there are emergency refuge points every 500 metres. Typically, they are now 1.2 miles apart. The difference for drivers may not sound like a lot, but in reality it is enormous. Forty-five seconds could be the difference between breaking down in a live lane or not. On average, 38% of breakdowns in all lane motorways are in live lanes. It can take approximately 20 minutes for authorities to be alerted to the breakdown, the lane to be closed and support to arrive. That is simply unacceptable and it will be the reality on hundreds of miles of motorway while this remedial work is under way and while safety-critical features are still not in force. How can the Minister justify that?
On the remedial work itself, the Government committed to an additional £390 million to install additional areas—but they were silent on the detail. We know the stocktake had an ambition for refuge areas 1 mile apart, so further clarification on this point is essential. Will the Minister provide a clear answer to the following questions? First, will 150 additional lanes be installed exclusively on live lanes currently in use, or does this include the 100 miles under construction? Secondly, when the remedial work is completed, what will the average distance between refuge areas be on ALRs? Thirdly, what will the distance be, once work is completed on the M25 in particular, where emergency refuges are furthest apart? Will the Minister deposit in the Commons Library an analysis of average distance between refuge areas on each motorway, making use of smart motorway technology and the estimated distance after this remedial work has taken place?
Ministers were warned that a gap of that distance was dangerous. They were wrong to press ahead in any event. They now must be open and transparent about the full implications of their announcement. On the roll-out of stopped vehicle detection technology, which my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) mentioned, it is frankly scandalous that this technology has not been put in place in parallel with the upgrade of motorways. The Committee noted starkly that had this been in place—as was promised way back in 2016—lives would have been saved. Will the Minister outline whether it is still the plan for the roll-out to be completed this year? Will she also explain why, if there are question marks over the effectiveness of this technology, CCTV is still not being routinely monitored? That is a recurring problem, as has been pointed out by various media reports.
Finally, on communication, it is distressing to discover that nearly half of motorists do not know what to do if they break down on a smart motorway. It is extraordinary that the first information campaign was not launched until 2021. What plans do the Department have to launch an effective mass information campaign to dramatically boost those numbers. Taken in total, it is clear that in the absence of a safe distance between refuge areas, a proper independent evaluation of data, the Department’s action plan, the roll-out of safety measures and low public awareness, existing all lane motorways simply cannot be considered safe. Ministers should have listened; they did not, and now the public are paying the price. Lessons must be learned.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I must begin by thanking the Chair of the Transport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman), and all the other members, for their hard work. I was once a member of a Select Committee, so I know the number of hours in preparation and effort that are put in by both the members and the team of staff that support the Committee to ensure that the information and witnesses that inform an inquiry are using evidence-based information and are fair and balanced. On behalf of the Secretary of State and all of us in the Department for Transport, I put on record our gratitude to the Transport Committee for its report and the way it has collaborated and worked with the Government. That is why we are in the position to take forward not one, two, three, four, five or six, but all nine recommendations in the report.
I know that the Committee took evidence from many experts with differing views. I believe, as do the Secretary of State and the Roads Minister, Baroness Vere of Norbiton, that the resulting report is a thorough examination of issues. It is a rounded report, with sensible and pragmatic recommendations, which the Government will take forward. Members will have seen the Government’s response, published yesterday, 12 January. I hope they will agree that it demonstrates our commitment to help ensure that these motorways continue to be as safe as they possibly can be.
Our motorways are among the safest in the world. Compared with the rest of Europe and the United States, we stack up particularly well. Are they as safe as they can be? There will always be room for improvement.
I pay tribute to everybody who has been involved in the campaign that has informed the recommendations. The actions we are taking are certainly, in part, a result of their effective campaigning.
I will make a number of general points, then will address some of the questions raised by right hon. and hon. Members today. First, we must remember why smart motorways were developed. A smart motorway can carry 1,600 additional vehicles an hour in each direction. They decrease journey times and provide more reliability on our busiest stretches of motorway. They have a lower impact on the environment, with five times lower carbon emissions from construction, a decrease in loss of biodiversity and a lower land take through construction. They are also provided at a lower cost—estimated at 50 to 60% less costly than widening—and are delivered more quickly.
Secondly, we should also acknowledge that the evidence to date supports the safety case for smart motorways. In terms of fatality rates, all-lane-running motorways are the safest in the country based on the available data. Smart motorways without a permanent hard shoulder account for 1% of fatalities, motorways with a hard shoulder account for 5%, and all other fatalities—94%—occur on other roads.
Sir John Hayes
While we are on the subject of other roads, it would be remiss of me not to make a case for Lincolnshire. We do not find motorways in Lincolnshire, smart or otherwise, but we do find a number of key arterial routes that carry an immense amount of traffic and need improvement. While I am here and the Minister is here, too, I ask her to look again at support and funding for those roads that feed our arterial routes—those connecting roads. When I was responsible for the road investment strategy, I made it clear that those connecting routes are critical, both in terms of capacity and in terms of safety. Let us have more money for Lincolnshire roads.
Trudy Harrison
My right hon. Friend makes an excellent case for road improvements in his South Holland and the Deepings constituency. I have some sympathy with that challenge. I, too, have no motorway in my Copeland constituency. It is about an hour and 20 minutes for me to get to junction 36 on the M6, so I know how important good connectivity is. I am sure the Roads Minister, Baroness Vere, and our officials, will have heard his calls.
Thirdly, we should recognise that the focus and attention of many stakeholders and the media has resulted in a significant investment in the existing smart motorway network, and we are now going even further to invest £390 million in additional emergency areas, which we have heard an awful lot about today. That will bring us an extra 150 emergency places to stop—safe refuges, as they have been referred to today—which I know are important in creating safe perceptions for drivers.
The Government accept that there is more work to be done to move to a position where all drivers feel confident on smart motorways. That is where we need to get to.
Grahame Morris
The Minister has quoted some statistics, but I would refer to the statistics that were quoted earlier in the debate regarding the number of accidents on smart motorways that have been caused by vehicles that have broken down. I cannot remember the precise figure, but I think it was 48. Could the Minister clarify her view on the retrofitting of stopped-vehicle technology? Is she committed to ensuring that this five-year period is going to be one in which the retrofitting of specialist technology cameras to detect broken-down vehicles will be accelerated?
Trudy Harrison
I absolutely can confirm that, and I will move on to that when I address Members’ comments. The Government are bringing forward work to ensure that it is complete by September, which is six months ahead of the previous target.
We are taking forward all the recommendations made by the Transport Committee, including the recommendation to pause the roll-out of future all-lane-running schemes in order to gather further safety and economic data. We want to make sure that we have five years of that data across a wider network of open all-lane-running motorways. We want to complete and evaluate the roll-out of measures within the stocktake, which the Secretary of State commissioned, and the action plan with its 18 actions. It will enable evidence to be gathered to inform a robust assessment of options for future enhancements of capacity on the strategic road network as we prepare for the next road investment strategy. We will also take forward the recommendations to pause the conversion of dynamic hard-shoulder smart motorways to all-lane-running motorways until the next road investment strategy.
We will retrofit more emergency areas across existing all-lane-running schemes. We will conduct an independent evaluation of the effectiveness of stopped-vehicle detection technology. We will explore the introduction of the emergency corridor manoeuvre into the highway code, and we will investigate the benefits of health and safety assessments being undertaken by the Office of Rail and Road.
Chris Loder
I thank the Minister for the points she is making. Can I press her on the point about health and safety assessments by the Office of Rail and Road? It is very clear from a lot of the work that we as a Committee have seen that there is a fundamental and systemic problem with the prioritising of safety within National Highways. Does she agree that the need to have an assessment might not be quite as substantial as it should be? Will her Department look to consider a substantial regulatory role for road safety within the ORR going forward?
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
The Minister will want to respond to the intervention, but I remind her that she has four minutes left before Huw Merriman sums up the debate.
Trudy Harrison
Thank you, Chair. I am aware of that. To respond briefly to my hon. Friend’s point, who has experience with the Office of Rail and Road, we will shortly be establishing an expert panel to help us review existing regulatory responsibilities. It will report back to Ministers later this year. I hope that is helpful.
Moving on to other Members’ points, my good friend, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) mentioned how important it is to have places to stop in an emergency. As I have said, that £390 million, which is part of the £900 million, will be invested in ensuring that we have an extra 150 safe refuge areas at least every mile and, ideally, every three quarters of a mile. That is a huge improvement on what is available at the moment.
On the point made by the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris), I am delighted to hear that the M42 is working so well. I note his calls for better awareness. That is why the recommendation for the highway code to feature the emergency corridor manoeuvre is so important. I have just realised that I got the hon. Member for Easington mixed up with the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar), who has the M42—apologies. I can confirm the continued working relationship between the Department for Transport and the Transport Committee, which has been an incredibly successful one.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) has conducted an exceptionally passionate campaign for improvements on his section of the M1, with its 13 miles of all-lane running motorway between junctions 28 and 30. The Roads Minister in the other place will have heard those calls. I appreciate my hon. Friend’s appreciation of the Transport Committee report and of the swift action taken by the Department.
My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings has great experience as a Transport Minister, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones). It is correct that hard shoulders are not safe places. Indeed, one in 12 fatalities on our motorways takes place on hard shoulders. It therefore does not make sense to stop the progress that is being made and to send people on to motorways where there are hard shoulders or, even worse, on to local roads—smart motorways are safest, in terms of fatalities.
To conclude, as we have heard today, the Secretary of State takes the concerns expressed seriously, as demonstrated by our response to the Committee’s report and by the additional investment that we have committed to. I can say genuinely to right hon. and hon. Members that we are wasting no time in taking immediate steps to progress the actions set out in the Government response. I will keep the Commons and Parliament updated on progress. We will continue to be transparent with the data as it emerges, so that the public may assess for themselves the safety of motorways. I very much hope that they will have the confidence that they should have in our motorway network, especially smart motorways, thanks to the Transport Committee.
Huw Merriman
Thank you for chairing the debate, Mr Hollobone. I also thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have contributed.
I thank the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) and my hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Chris Loder), who represent the finest of our Committee membership. I am very fortunate as a Chair to have such brilliant members. We are not particularly diverse on gender, but we are on thought. We all work hard together to make recommendations. I am grateful to them.
I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher). I know junction 28 to 30 well—I was a candidate for two and a half years in North East Derbyshire. I would have been his neighbour had I been more successful there. He made good points about his fascinating local experience, and he has educated us all.
I heard fantastic speeches by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), who have experience in the Department—that was particularly fascinating. I thank them for their expertise—we will focus not just on recommendation 4, but on the lot, in delivering.
I thank the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) for his words, and I thank the Minister of course. She is a popular presence, and we look forward to continuing to work with her.
With this pause, we clearly now have the opportunity to ensure that the safety record and evidence can be demonstrated properly on smart motorways. That must guide the Department and National Highways on what we do in future. Are they as safe as conventional motorways? Are they in fact even safer, which means that the case has been made for them to be rolled out further? We need to know that, and the time allows us to get that understanding and that crucial evidence base.
Equally during the pause, we have the opportunity to ensure that smart motorways can be retrofitted with the safety measures that the Committee has called for before. We know that those will now be delivered. We have to ensure that they are, and I know the Minister will take that seriously. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings is right: public perception is key. To get more people to use the motorway network, we must show them that it is safe. The RAC has shown that 84% of those polled were concerned about the removal of hard shoulders from the network and said that it compromised safety. That is crucial.
Written Statements
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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VAT: Penalty Reform
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Frazer)
In the Finance Act 2021, the Government legislated to reform penalties for late submission and late payment of tax, initially from 1 April 2022, and to align interest charges for VAT with other major taxes.
Today, I am announcing that these changes for VAT businesses will now be introduced nine months later, on 1 January 2023.
HMRC is committed to becoming one of the most digitally advanced tax authorities in the world. The ambition and pace of change needs to be balanced with well-tested systems and good customer service, particularly when businesses are facing additional challenges and uncertainty.
This extra time allows HMRC to ensure that the IT changes necessary for the new penalties and interest charges can be introduced as effectively as possible, ensuring a high standard of service to customers.
[HCWS537]
Gibraltar: UK-EU Negotiations
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for Europe (Chris Heaton-Harris)
On 14 and 15 December 2021 the UK hosted a fourth round of negotiations with the European Union (EU) on Gibraltar, following previous rounds in December, November and October 2021.
Talks have been constructive and are making positive progress. Discussions have covered a range of issues within the political framework agreed between the UK Government, together with the Government of Gibraltar, and the Kingdom of Spain on 31 December 2020.
Ensuring the fluid movement of people between Gibraltar and the EU has been the key area of discussion. Other areas have included the movement of goods, law enforcement and criminal justice, transport, social security co-ordination, citizens’ rights, and data protection.
Negotiations with the EU will continue in the coming weeks. The UK remains fully committed to seeking a treaty based on the careful and pragmatic balance achieved by the political framework. The UK has been clear we will not agree to anything which compromises UK sovereignty.
We are, of course, working closely with our Gibraltarian friends for a solution that works for the people of Gibraltar so they can go about their business. The UK Government and Government of Gibraltar agreed our joint approach to negotiations at the UK-Gibraltar Joint Ministerial Council on 29 March 2021. Since then, we have and will continue to work closely together as discussions with the EU progress.
The UK Government and Government of Gibraltar have also continued work to ensure robust plans are in place for all eventualities, including a no negotiated outcome. While the political framework provides the route to a treaty it is only prudent to prepare for all eventualities.
In parallel to the UK-EU negotiations the UK Government, with the Government of Gibraltar, are maintaining a regular dialogue with the Kingdom of Spain.
In December, the Foreign Secretary travelled to Madrid to meet the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, to discuss strengthening the bilateral relationship between our two nations. The Ministers also welcomed the constructive nature of negotiations between the EU and the UK, reaffirmed their shared commitment to the political framework and agreed that it is in everyone’s interest to conclude these talks in the first quarter of 2022. The UK looks forward to hosting the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs on a visit to London in the coming weeks.
[HCWS534]
Sanctions Regulations Report on Annual Reviews 2021
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
My noble Friend the Minister for South and Central Asia, United Nations and the Commonwealth (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon), has made the following written ministerial statement:
Today I am pleased to publish “The Sanctions Regulations Report on Annual Reviews 2021”.
Section 30 of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 requires the Minister to annually review each set of sanctions regulations to assess whether they are still appropriate for the purpose stated in them. The Minister must lay before Parliament a report containing conclusions of the review, the reasons for those conclusions, and a statement of any action that that Minister has taken or proposes to take. “The Sanctions Regulations Report on Annual Reviews 2021” meets the requirement of section 30.
Since the end of the transition period, the UK has been pursuing an independent sanctions policy, driven by our foreign policy objectives and projecting the UK as a network of liberty and defender of human rights. As set out in the integrated review, the UK uses our sanctions regimes as part of an integrated approach to promote our values and interests, and to combat state threats, terrorism, cyber-attacks, and the use and proliferation of chemical weapons.
[HCWS535]
UK-India Free Trade Agreement Negotiations
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Trade (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
Today I am formally launching free trade negotiations between the UK and India from New Delhi, where I am meeting my Indian counterpart, the hon. Minister for Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal.
In line with our commitments to scrutiny and transparency, the Department for International Trade has published, and placed in the Libraries of the House, more information on these negotiations. This includes;
The UK’s strategic case for a UK-India free trade agreement (FTA)
Our objectives for the negotiations
A summary of the UK’s public consultation on trade with India
A scoping assessment, providing a preliminary economic assessment of the impact of the agreement
A UK-India FTA would be a substantial opportunity for both of our economies and a significant moment in the UK-India bilateral relationship.
Trade negotiations are a priority for both countries and build upon the enhanced trade partnership launched by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May 2021.
The UK-India bilateral trading relationship is already significant, amounting to over £23 billion in 2019, and both sides have agreed to double bilateral trade by 2030. The UK and India will seek to agree a mutually beneficial agreement supporting jobs, businesses and communities in both countries.
By 2050, India will be the third largest economy in the world. The size and growth of the Indian economy mean a deal would unlock opportunities in every nation and region of the UK and across all parts of our economy. Tens of thousands of UK jobs are already supported by trade with India, and a trade deal has the potential to almost double UK exports to India, boost our total trade by as much as £28 billion a year by 2035, and boost wages across the UK by as much as £3 billion.
The opportunity is illustrated further by looking at some specific sectors. UK exports such as Scotch whisky and cars currently face large duties of 150% and 125% respectively. A deal that removed these significant barriers to trade would make UK firms such as car makers in England’s north-east and whisky distilleries more competitive.
Services account for almost half of current exports to India and our analysis shows UK companies—from insurance providers, to construction firms, to financial services—are set to gain from a deal as India’s economy continues to grow. This could include opportunities for companies that trade digitally, as the Indian Government aim to have a trillion-dollar online economy by 2025 and increase internet access to more than 600 million people.
In addition, India’s plan to rapidly expand offshore wind power generation is a major opportunity for the UK’s world-leading renewable industry that could see UK wind turbines making a major contribution to helping the world reach net zero. UK exporters would benefit from a reduction of tariffs such as a 15% tax on certain wind turbine parts.
A deal with India would be a big step forward in the UK’s strategy to refocus UK trade on the Indo-Pacific, where half the world’s people live and 50% of global economic growth is produced. A new economic partnership with India, alongside UK membership of the Asia-Pacific trading bloc, the comprehensive and progressive agreement for trans-Pacific partnership (CPTPP), would create a pillar in the region supporting free and fair trade.
During negotiations, and on the path to a comprehensive agreement, both Governments will consider the option of an interim agreement that generates early benefits for both countries. In parallel to trade negotiations, the UK-India Joint Economic and Trade Committee will continue to work in improving the UK-India trading relationship and addressing market access barriers outside of a trade agreement.
The first round of FTA negotiations will begin on 17 January. As negotiations progress, I will ensure that parliamentarians, UK citizens and businesses are provided with regular updates.
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Review of Intergovernmental Relations
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
Today the UK Government have published an update on how the UK Government and the devolved Administrations intend to conduct formal intergovernmental relations with each other. All four Governments have agreed to work under these new arrangements. I will be depositing the Review of Intergovernmental Relations in the Libraries of both Houses.
The Review of Intergovernmental Relations, developed jointly by all four Governments, provides an up-to-date and fit-for-purpose system, introducing new structures for more regular, formal intergovernmental engagement and new processes to increase impartiality and to avoid, resolve and, where necessary, escalate disputes. It is a commitment to a co-operative spirit and to constructive collaboration with the devolved Administrations, through more transparent and accountable arrangements, and will be to the benefit of citizens in every part of the UK.
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Grand Committee
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Arrangement of Business
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)
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, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes—or earlier if agreed.
Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021 (Airspace Change Directions) (Determination of Turnover for Penalties) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the Grand Committee do consider the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021 (Airspace Change Directions) (Determination of Turnover for Penalties) Regulations 2022.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, these draft regulations will be made under the powers conferred by the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021, which I will abbreviate as “ATMUA”.
Part 1 of ATMUA grants the Secretary of State powers to direct a person involved in airspace change to progress or co-operate in an airspace change proposal, or ACP, where doing so would assist in the delivery of the CAA’s airspace modernisation strategy. These powers are delegable to the Civil Aviation Authority, or CAA, as I have already mentioned. These powers will help deliver quicker, quieter, and cleaner journeys for the benefit of those who use UK airspace and are affected by its use. If the directed party does not comply with a direction, the CAA can issue them with a contravention notice, which may be followed by an enforcement order. If that enforcement order is contravened, this may result in a financial penalty consisting of a fixed amount, not exceeding 10% of the person’s turnover and/or a daily amount not exceeding 0.1% of the person’s turnover. A person’s “turnover” is to be determined in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State, which is the draft instrument being considered by the Committee today.
Airspace has to be managed so it can be used safely and efficiently. ACPs can include proposals to, for example, amend airport flight paths or change the classification of particular airspace. In 2018, the CAA published its Airspace Modernisation Strategy, which set out the ends, ways and means of modernising airspace. The CAA is currently consulting on a refresh of its strategy, and I encourage those with an interest to put forward their views. The programme of airspace modernisation is under way, and includes the wholesale redesign of the UK’s airspace to unlock the benefits of modernisation. It is being delivered by the aviation industry, with support from the Department for Transport and the CAA, which provide joint leadership and oversight of governance as co-sponsors of the programme.
Airspace change usually relies on individual sponsors, airports and air navigation service providers, or ANSPs, to bring forward their own proposals and choose when, if and how, they progress them. Previously, when a sponsor declined to participate in an ACP on a voluntary basis, neither the department nor the CAA had the powers to ensure co-operation and co-ordination. This meant that one sponsor could hold up another or several others, thereby delaying the modernisation programme and the benefits associated with it.
With the recent passing of ATMUA, the Secretary of State will have the power to direct progression or co-operation in an ACP, once Part 1 of ATMUA comes fully into force. Where there are difficulties for a sponsor to overcome, the CAA will seek to help it in finding solutions—for example, in terms of resources. Our intention is that the direction-making powers will be a last resort and will only be issued where they can be practicably carried out. Before any direction is made, consultation would take place as required by ATMUA. These regulations are required to ensure that the legislative framework can operate as intended, and therefore their commencement will be aligned with Part 1 of ATMUA, so far as that is not already in force.
The draft instrument enables the CAA to enforce directions effectively, when imposing a penalty, by setting out how a person’s turnover is to be calculated. The amount of penalty must in all cases be appropriate and proportionate. These regulations have been drafted to take account of the diverse nature of persons involved in airspace change. Maintaining an appropriate level of penalty for all organisations will deter non-compliance and support ACPs to take place in a co-ordinated manner, which will contribute to a more effective airspace modernisation programme. It will also ensure that, where penalties are imposed, they are both transparent and proportionate.
The department consulted on the enforcement powers within ATMUA in 2018. Respondents, including airlines and airports, were broadly supportive, provided that application is proportionate and used as a last resort. The CAA would, of course, have regard to the requirement of proportionality in using the power to fine, in accordance with its statutory duties and the better regulation agenda.
A person’s turnover is determined with reference to the sum of all amounts received in the course of their business, as shown in their published accounts. If the person has not published accounts, the accounts prepared by that person will be used. Turnover includes loans from public or local authorities, but it excludes capital receipts and loans made by a third party. The annual turnover considered is for the most recent business year, ending on or before the last day of the period specified in the enforcement order for complying with the requirement, the contravention of which is subject to the penalty. Only one year of turnover is used in the calculation.
The use of this 12-month period is in line with the Civil Aviation Act 2012 and Part II of the Transport Act 2000, which both specify calculations based on the “last regulatory year”. We are using the same period here to ensure consistency of regulation across the aviation and wider sectors. Amounts are to be calculated according to generally accepted accounting principles and practices in the UK. Provision is also made for situations where a person does not have 12 months of accounts. The turnover period to be used in determining the level of penalty is decided according to the compliance date for the relevant requirement in the enforcement order.
This instrument is being made so that the Government can ensure effective and proportionate enforcement by the CAA against airspace change sponsors who put the delivery of the airspace modernisation programme at risk. I commend these regulations to the Committee, and I beg to move.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
I am grateful to be able to contribute to the debate on this statutory instrument, and I shall be very brief. I note that this is the first use of the power in paragraph 12 of Schedule 2 to the Act, and I simply want to ask my noble friend a couple of questions.
First, could my noble friend give some examples as to why it is felt necessary to bring this forward now, since this is the first use of the power in the Act? Equally, I listened carefully to what she said, and she said that the power would be used only in extremis, but I am not clear how the rate of fine will actually be applied. She talked about it being proportionate, but proportionate to what? Who will decide what that proportionality is? Crucially, what will be the appeal process for any fine that is imposed?
My real concern is about the relationship with the Ministry of Defence, and I would be grateful if my noble friend could outline that relationship. Clearly, the MoD operates a number of airfields across the United Kingdom, most of which happen to be out of the main flight paths in Lincolnshire, but of course some are not—such as RAF Northolt in London. As the CAA moves forward with the Airspace Modernisation Strategy, can she outline what the relationship with the MoD will be in the implementation of that strategy? Crucially, what will be the resolution process if there is a disagreement with the MoD about the implementation of that modernisation strategy?
Lord Naseby (Con)
My Lords, I welcome very much this SI today. By way of background, I have had the privilege of reading the CAA publication Airspace Modernisation Strategy, and I have had the chance to look at the Airspace Change Organising Group’s work so far. From my background as a former pilot in the RAF who takes an interest in aviation, my stance is that I certainly do not accept the view put forward as a result of COP 26 that aviation is in decline mode; I think that aviation is absolutely fundamental to the future success of our country and our economy. I welcome enormously the work that the CAA is doing alongside the department involved, because it is absolutely vital for our exports trade and for internal trade that we use to the maximum possible the airspace that is available.
Having said that, I have just a couple of short questions. One of our previous problems, particularly with unmanned aircraft—in other words, drones—was that people claimed that there was not proper awareness, the publicity was not adequate and somehow or other they had missed out on this, that and the other. Given the nature of these penalties, which are absolutely justifiable, we need to take particular care to ensure that there is proper publicity in depth and to check, by way of research, that people are aware of the changes being made.
Other than that, I just ask my noble friend, because I do not quite understand, why, according to paragraph 7.4,
“Public consultation on some of the airspace change proposals is likely to commence in 2022.”
From reading the material I referred to, it is a package in toto, so I am not quite sure how you can regulate just a section of the airspace—unless it is felt that you can do Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland separately. I am not quite clear why it should be just “some”, as opposed to a complete package. I look forward to my noble friend’s responses.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome this regulation. On first reading, I thought that it was a bit of a sledge-hammer to crack a nut, but when you start reading the Aerospace Modernisation Strategy—127 pages of it—you can see why it is necessary. I question whether the strategy will not need some amendment as a result of Brexit, but I shall come on to that.
I have one interesting suggestion, which relates to paragraphs 2.1 and 2.2 of the Explanatory Memorandum on the regulations. It seems to me that, having cancelled EGNOS—which I shall come on to—the Government could be seen to be contravening the notice in those paragraphs. Could the CAA instruct the Government to reintroduce EGNOS or face a fine of 10% of the Government’s turnover? That is a pretty stupid question, but it is a consequence of the way it is written. I hope we will never get to that, and I am sure we will not. My interest in EGNOS is that I live on the Isles of Scilly and spent three days waiting to fly out after Christmas, because it was a bit foggy and there are no ships, so we rely on aeroplanes. I think that some of the Scottish islands are in a similar position.
I have been following EGNOS over the years, which, as we all know, is a satellite-based system that is a great deal cheaper than the ILS that they have in Heathrow, Gatwick and other places. Originally, the Government were enthusiastic about EGNOS, and I understand that the Secretary of State wrote to the CAA just after he became Transport Secretary to direct it to prioritise the airspace change proposals necessary to put EGNOS in place. Sadly, of course, in May last year, it was cancelled, and the Secretary of State confirmed that the Government could not agree terms with the EU for continuing to use EGNOS, saying:
“I recognise that it nonetheless remains a disappointing outcome.”
I certainly agree with him there.
I have had discussions with the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, who played a major part in setting up the Galileo satellite system when she was in the European Parliament. She is very surprised about this decision, which I do not think she knew about. There has been very little comment about it. In April, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, put down a Written Question, which did not really get much of an answer from Ministers, but they did say that they agreed to cancel EGNOS because
“it was not considered value for money.”
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I follow up that final comment by saying that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has raised some important issues, and I would really appreciate being copied into any correspondence that flows from his comments. Indeed, I would like to be invited to any meetings that the Minister chooses to hold.
Although this SI is evidently very technical, it allows us a useful opportunity to ask some important questions, as noble Lords already have, about the progress of airspace modernisation and its implications. This legislation flows from a policy implemented at a time when our skies were busy and there was an expectation of further expansion.
I want to make clear that it is obvious to me that airspace modernisation is a good and vital thing. It is very important environmentally, but it comes in the “Good but difficult” category because, once you develop new air corridors for an airport, you are concentrating flights over one set of people, who, not surprisingly, will be unhappy at that, whereas all the other people who no longer have those flights going over them are relieved that that is the case. It is balancing upsetting one set of people against pleasing others.
Of course, there is also the balance between the benefits to one airport and another, which has sparked this SI. That issue is probably most acute in the south-east of England, but it can and does occur in other parts of the country.
We are now in a very different situation with aviation, so my first question to the Minister is: how have the Government adapted their policies in relation to airspace modernisation, if at all? Have they slowed down the pace of change as a result of the impact of Covid? Whatever emerges as aviation regrows, and I share the view that it inevitably will, there will be a change in pattern in the short and medium term as various parts of the world recover from Covid more rapidly than others. But there will also be a change in pattern of the type of traveller. I venture that business flights will never recover to the level at which they once were. That, of course, spells trouble for any airport that concentrates on a lot of business travellers. They will have to adapt, and I am sure they will, but it means a change in pattern of use and direction for the traffic.
The crucial point of difficulty in the airspace modernisation process is the consultation with residents. The Explanatory Memorandum indicates that this is planned to start in 2022. I would be pleased if the Minister could explain that to us in a little more detail. What proportion of the consultation with the public will take place in 2022? Will just a few pioneer airports do it, or will most of the public consultation take place then?
It will take time for competition to shift, change and adapt to the new patterns. Therefore, I ask the Minister whether it is wise to go ahead to the point where, in extremis, we start fining airports for lack of co-operation when the whole new pattern of competition is still settling down. The aviation industry has had a very tough time. Airports have suffered badly and had relatively little alleviation from the Government. Therefore, anything that adds a burden by fining them for a lack of co-operation could be the last straw for some of them.
I am, of course, attracted to the idea of penalties for non-co-operation being based on the resources and size of the company concerned, but will this take account of the different treatment of airports in the last couple of years? Aviation has not benefited from total alleviation of business rates in England but it has in other parts of the UK, so there has been a patchwork in the way airports have been treated.
Once again, we are in a situation where the CAA is being given additional powers. The Minister used the phrase “in extremis”. What discretion will the CAA have when taking into account the financial difficulties of an airport as a result of airspace modernisation and the implications for its future business?
The EM says that 71 or 72 organisations are affected, yet there is little assessment of the financial impact of this measure. The process of modernising airspace and consulting the public is very expensive; the cost of familiarising yourself with the legislation is really marginal. I am therefore surprised that there is no full impact assessment. I ask the Minister whether perhaps that should be reconsidered. The whole process could, or will, have a significant impact on some individual airports, because modernisation will disadvantage them. That surely needs to be taken into account at this point in time, which is very difficult for those in the aviation industry.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the introduction of these regulations, which help to determine the financial penalties for those who do not comply with airspace modernisation directions. The Minister will recall that during the passage of the Act, these Benches supported the aims of airspace modernisation; we therefore support these regulations, which assist that process. The aviation industry is critical to the UK economy, and it is in everyone’s interests that we redesign UK flight paths to deliver quicker, quieter and cleaner journeys. On this, can the Minister update the Committee more generally on the process of airspace modernisation and the timetable that is currently being worked towards?
On the specific legislation before the Committee, can the Minister explain why this formula for calculating turnover was not included in the original Act? Can she also confirm how the department determined this formula? The instrument has the support of the Opposition, but I would be grateful if the Minister could provide answers to these questions. I would be quite content to receive a letter in response. On my noble friend Lord Berkeley’s issues, I would be grateful to be copied in if there is to be a meeting or correspondence.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
That was a surprisingly short speech by the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for which I am grateful. I hear his comments about wanting to be included in correspondence on any meetings with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, about EGNOS. I also note the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, on being included in that.
The noble Lord has raised a very important point and I am therefore pleased to take that forward. As he said, the UK’s participation in the EGNOS programme ended on 25 June 2021 and, since that date, no UK airports other than the three Channel Islands airports have any arrival procedures in place linked to the EGNOS working agreements or should be preparing to use them. The Government continue to assess the impact on the aviation sector of the UK’s withdrawal from the EGNOS programme but have yet to determine whether there needs to be a UK-led EGNOS replacement.
I am very happy for a meeting to be arranged for the noble Lord and others. I will go one better than a meeting with me and ensure that it is with the Aviation Minister, so that he can hear the concerns directly. I will be happy to attend too but he will be more useful than me on the topic, I fear.
I turn to other issues raised by noble Lords in the consideration of the regulations before the Committee—and I am grateful for all contributions. A number were raised around the airspace modernisation programme as a whole. It feels like a little while since we have discussed airspace modernisation, and it is quite good to return to the topic. The Government remain committed to the airspace modernisation programme; we believe that, despite the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the aviation industry and air traffic levels, the need to modernise the UK’s airspace design remains clear.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, will she clarify further how much progress the Government expect to be made this year on the public consultation? I ask that because I am very aware that there is pressure on airports and the services that they run at this time, and to expect them to be doing public consultation effectively and efficiently at the same time might be rather too complex.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I deliberately swerved that question, yet did not advise her of the fact that I was doing so, because I do not have the answer—it was also raised by my noble friend Lord Naseby—but I will respond precisely on that matter. How the public will be involved, which ACPs are going forward and where, and all those sorts of things, I will put in a letter. I beg to move.
Merchant Shipping (Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments) Order 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the Grand Committee do consider the Merchant Shipping (Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments) Order 2022.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, the purpose of this order, which was laid before the House on 4 November 2021, is to give the Government the powers to implement the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments—or “the convention”, as I shall now refer to it—into UK law. The order relies on powers in Section 128(1)(e) of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, which I shall refer to as “the 1995 Act”. This order, if approved, will contain powers to make a new statutory instrument under the negative resolution procedure this year.
As noble Lords will be aware, shipping is essential to our global economy. In fact, it is estimated that it transports around 90% of the world’s commodities. In doing so, it transfers 3 billion to 5 billion tonnes of ballast water every year. This makes ballast water one of the most effective vectors for the transport of species around the world. For example, noble Lords may well have heard of the Chinese mitten crab, which is native to eastern Asia but was first discovered in the Thames estuary in 1935. It is one of the most destructive examples of invasive non-native species, as it preys on native populations, burrows extensively, causing damage to flood defences and riverbanks, and causes commercial losses in fisheries.
I should like to give some background about what the Government have done regarding the convention and outline the Government’s reasons for wanting to ratify it. In doing so, I remind noble Lords that our purpose today is to discuss the use of this draft order as a mechanism to provide the powers for the implementation of the convention, rather than to discuss the detail and implementation of the convention itself, which remains in progress.
The convention was adopted at a conference convened by the International Maritime Organization, or IMO, in 2004, and it entered into force internationally on 8 September 2017. It aims to prevent, minimise and ultimately eliminate the transfer of invasive non-native species through the control and management of ships’ ballast water and sediments. It does this by prohibiting the discharge of ballast water and sediments unless they have been managed in accordance with the convention requirements. The United Kingdom has not yet ratified the convention.
Noble Lords will note that the convention entered into force internationally four years ago, and it is quite reasonable to ask why we are only now seeking powers to implement the convention. The reason is that the UK had concerns regarding the availability of the equipment required for the sampling and analysis aspects of the convention. Delaying the UK’s ratification of the convention has allowed for these concerns to be addressed.
Subsequently, the UK rescheduled ratification and implementation of the convention to wait for amendments to the convention to enter into force, thereby ensuring that the UK implementing legislation, which is coming down the track, reflects the most up-to-date version of the convention. The Government made a public commitment to accede to the convention in 2020. This was again rescheduled to avoid placing extra burdens on the industry during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Government consider that the implementation of the convention into UK law is an important step to ensure that UK waters are protected.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this fascinating draft order. It is interesting that the Government blame everything on things coming from the Far East, be they Chinese or Japanese knotweed or Japanese oysters. I expect that equal blame goes in the opposite direction.
This needs doing—I have no problem with ensuring that ballast water is sampled and tested—but I wonder whether the Minister can just help me. How is this sampling done? It is presumably done when the ship is in port, then sent away for analysis—that seems quite clear to me—but what happens if some of the samples are found to be non-compliant with whatever regulations we are coming up with? Will they nail a writ to the mast of the ship, the next time it comes in? Will they send our Navy out on to the high seas? How will these things actually be enforced?
It is wonderful having regulations. These have been coming for a long time. The IMO worked very fast to get them ready by 2017. It probably takes 10 years to do these things, and now we are taking another five. It is important to understand how these regulations will be enforced. They need to be enforced around the world. We can do only our bit, but we can set an example. I hope there is a way of doing it without us spending too much money on it.
Lord Greenway (CB)
My Lords, I too am grateful to the Minister for introducing this order. As she said, the convention dates from 2004 and was not ratified until September 2016 by 30 states, representing 35% of the world’s merchant tonnage. By the time it came into force a year after that, over 60 countries had ratified it, representing over 70% of the world’s shipping.
The Minister mentioned the delay in bringing forward this order. I am not certain that I entirely buy her explanation. It seems to me that when so many other countries, representing so much of the world’s shipping, have already ratified it, it does not do our reputation as a so-called maritime nation much good when we are seen to be dragging our feet over these conventions.
She also mentioned in passing the Chinese mitten crabs. When I went through the list, it read more like something out of a science-horror movie, since we also have round goby, North American comb jelly, zebra mussels, toxic algae and even cholera, which has been transported on micro-organisms such as plankton. There are some very nasty things going around, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, just said, and this convention was brought in for very good reasons.
There is one thing I would like to ask the Minister. What has been the position with our ships? This measure does not mean that an awful lot of ships, in the general sense of the word, would be affected because our Merchant Navy is a shadow of what it used to be. But what has happened to those ships to enable them to continue trading? Have they been, on their own accord, taking the actions necessary to comply with the convention in order to trade? If they were seen to be operating under the flag of a country that had not ratified, they would quickly be picked up by port state control around the world and forbidden to trade. I would be grateful if the Minister could shed some light on that.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this important environmental measure and thank the Minister for her explanation. In particular, I was fascinated by paragraph 6.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which explains the complexity about which comes first: the ratifying of the convention or these regulations. However, that does not explain why it has taken since 2004 for us to get to this stage.
I realise that we were not alone because, as the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, just explained to us, it took until 2017 for 30 countries representing 35% of the world’s tonnage to ratify the convention. But it is a serious matter of concern and shame for us that the nations with 70% of the world’s tonnage have now signed up and we have not yet managed to do so, although it will happen soon. It is depressing that, as a once-great maritime nation, we yet again have been slow to adopt international and environmental measures that were a matter of urgency.
Perhaps the Minister can clarify, but am I right that our slowness has simply been because of the huge backlog of maritime measures that the Department for Transport managed to build up? Was it simply overlooked, or has it been a lack of enthusiasm by successive Governments to sign up that has been the problem?
There is a key point, not explained in the Explanatory Memorandum. I am sure that noble Lords will forgive my ignorance, but do ships need new technology to manage their ballast water in the way that will be prescribed, or is it just a matter of better management? I am not clear whether it is that all modern shipping would have the correct equipment, and so on—but I am surprised that there has been no impact assessment. I would assume, whether it is better management or modern equipment, either way there will be costs for ship owners as a result of this SI. However, I welcome the fact that we have finally got round to it.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I support the introduction of this order to implement the 2004 International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water and Sediments. The convention ultimately aims to eliminate the transfer of harmful aquatic organisms and pathogens, which is why the control and management of ships’ ballast water and sediment is so crucial. However, given that the UK played a pivotal role in negotiating the convention, it is a shame that it is only now being brought forward. I note that the Minister gave some explanation on this delay but, clearly, it is a matter of concern on all sides of the Committee. I hope that she will produce a full answer and, if there are areas on which she cannot answer today, write to us all.
On the legislation itself, I would be grateful if the Minister could answer three questions. First, are the Government already fully in compliance with the convention? Secondly, what engagement has the department had with the shipping industry over the implementation? Finally, how many countries have ratified the convention, and how many further are in the process of ratification?
We support the introduction of this order and the implementation of the convention, but this is only one step in cleaning up the seas. I hope that the Minister can offer the Committee a brief explanation of the other steps that are being taken by the Government.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate to consider this order. I shall provide a bit more information, if I can, on the timeline to getting to this stage. We probably all wish that we had got here earlier, but there were some reasons behind that. I hope that the next SI will cheer up noble Lords, because we are certainly ahead of the game on that one.
There are several reasons why the UK did not ratify the convention earlier. As the convention was new, equipment availability was limited both to treat ballast water management systems and to sample and analyse the discharged ballast water, which is integral to its enforcement. The industry was not confident in the equipment and was concerned that it would be unfairly penalised. Those concerns were eased by the development of the experience-building phase, which established a period of implementation and review during which ships would not be penalised due to non-compliance with the discharge standard if operating a type-approved ballast water management system.
Secondly, the UK’s ratification was rescheduled to allow time for the latest amendments to the convention to come into force and thereby ensure that the UK’s implementing legislation reflects the most up-to-date version of the convention. These amendments were adopted during the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee meetings held in April 2018, and accepted in April 2019. That introduced a phased approach to implementation, which also alleviated the concerns around equipment availability. At that point, it was very much full steam ahead until Covid arrived.
It is true, and noble Lords will have heard me say before, that we have had to delay some of our statutory instruments, which is not ideal. Although I do not think this SI falls under the definition of backlog as set out by Minister Courts when he went to see the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, it is certainly on our list of things to do, so I am really pleased that we are able to do it today. I reassure noble Lords that we are actually making quite good progress on our maritime backlog. I have a little note here to say that a couple of others with very long titles are also heading their way through Minister Courts’s office now, and no doubt we will be returning to this Chamber to debate them in due course. I reassure the Committee that we are very focused on our maritime SI backlog.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
Before the noble Baroness sits down, could she write with a list of prosecutions that the MCA has done on these issues? She mentioned that, for non-compliance, the MCA would be the prosecuting authority. Has it done any yet?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
It would not have done anything against the convention, because, obviously, the convention is not implemented yet. So that would be a difficult list to compile at this stage. Perhaps I will send the noble Lord some nice information about the MCA and its enforcement, shall I? Excellent. We will do that. I beg to move.
International Organization for Marine Aids to Navigation (Legal Capacities) Order 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the Grand Committee do consider the International Organization for Marine Aids to Navigation (Legal Capacities) Order 2022.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, this order will allow the UK to recognise the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities, or IALA, and assist in the completion of its transition from a non-governmental to an intergovernmental organisation. The IALA may not be familiar to some noble Lords, but its work is fundamental to maritime safety and, given that 95% of all of our import and export tonnage is transported by sea, the wealth and prosperity of our island nation. The IALA is and will remain a technical, not-for-profit body whose key aim is to co-ordinate
“improvement and harmonisation of marine aids to navigation and related services to the benefit of … navigation, efficiency of shipping traffic and protection of the environment.”
It brings together marine aids to navigation authorities, manufacturers, consultants and scientific and training organisations from all parts of the world, providing a vital forum for the exchange of views, expertise and experience.
The UK was a founding member of the current organisation when it was first established in 1957. Our illustrious maritime heritage and continued leadership on aids to navigation through the work of our general lighthouse authorities—Trinity House, the Northern Lighthouse Board and Irish Lights—means that we have played, and continue to play, a significant role in all its achievements. These include the introduction of a single buoyage system, which replaced the more than 30 different types in use worldwide as late as the 1970s. Many of these had confusing and, worse, often conflicting rules. As a result, many ships were wrecked and lives lost simply because there was no consistency and mariners were often unable to fathom intended meaning.
This represented a significant barrier to the improvement of navigation safety and was the biggest challenge faced by the IALA when it was first formed. Although there was a clear need for consolidation and an internationally recognised consistent method of marking and wayfinding at sea, agreement on the details remained difficult. The IALA managed to navigate a path through these problems and created the IALA maritime buoyage system in 1976, adopted by the IMO in 1977. It remains a fundamental cornerstone of maritime navigation today, and has had an immediate and long-lasting impact on maritime safety.
The IALA continues to set international standards for all marine aids to navigation, make recommendations and deliver guidance. It has been instrumental in facilitating the delivery of enhanced navigation safety—for example, in facilitating the introduction of purely electronic aids to navigation, the transition from filament bulbs to LED lighting and the delivery of new power sources, such as solar. It also advises on challenges to navigation safety, such as offshore windfarms, and new technologies, including autonomous vessels.
The UK’s maritime heritage, although at times painful and tragic, means we have an obligation to others to incorporate and share our learning regarding safety in all of the IALA’s outputs. This is vital if we are to prevent the reoccurrence of the mistakes and tragedies that litter our history. That is why this order is so important. It will facilitate the IALA’s richly deserved transition to intergovernmental status.
The order is a very simple SI that confers the legal capacities of a body corporate on IALA in the UK. Article 1 provides that the order may not come into force until the future intergovernmental organisation comes into existence for the UK. If the UK is one of the first 30 states to ratify, this will be 90 days after the date of the deposit of the ratification instrument of the 30th state. If the UK ratifies after the convention is already in force, it will be on the 30th day after it deposits its instrument of ratification. This article also provides that the order’s provisions extend to the whole of the UK.
The UK was a founding member of IALA when it was first established in 1957. We are very keen to be at the forefront of its transition to an intergovernmental organisation. As I have noted, there is a process that things have to go through, and we need this order for the process to really get going and for us to be able to recognise IALA. I commend the order to the Committee.
Lord Greenway (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing this order. I declare a non-pecuniary interest as an Elder Brother of Trinity House, the general lighthouse authority for England, Wales, the Channel Islands and Gibraltar. As the Minister said, Trinity House has been closely involved with the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation since its formation in 1957 under its previous name, the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities, which is where the acronym IALA comes from.
At a meeting in Spain in 2014, IALA agreed that the best way forward to develop and improve marine aids to navigation for the benefit of the maritime community and the protection of the environment would be to seek international intergovernmental organisation status as soon as possible through the development of an international convention. Three subsequent diplomatic conferences were held to thrash out a draft convention, and it was finalised and adopted at a fourth conference held in Kuala Lumpur in February 2020. Just under a year later, the convention was opened for signature in Paris, where IALA is headquartered, and some 20 countries have now signed. Five of these—Singapore, Norway, Japan, Malaysia and India—have since ratified.
The convention will lead to increased international acceptance of standards, enhancing harmonisation, and will raise IALA’s status at the International Maritime Organization from merely consultative to equal partner, facilitating direct links with the experts working at the sharp end of research and development and thereby obviating difficulties that have arisen in the past when dealing with some governmental bodies.
Despite the huge technological strides that have been made in the aids-to-navigation sector over the past 20 or so years—here Trinity House has played a major role—the importance of such aids is as great now as it ever was, arguably more so due to the greater emphasis being given to environmental concerns. Bearing in mind our close association with IALA, I sincerely hope that the Government will see their way to ratifying the new convention at the earliest opportunity.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome this order. As the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said, it is well overdue but is certainly going to happen. It appears to be going at a faster rate than on ballast water, perhaps because it will be based in France; we can conjecture on that. However, that is not really what I want to ask the Minister about.
As the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, said, Trinity House is responsible for the lights and other navigation aids in England. It must have been more than 10 years ago that the shipping industry got very upset because it was paying its light dues for when ships use British ports—the light dues go to maintaining the lights—and we discovered that the lights being maintained included all the lights around the Irish Republic as well as those around England and Scotland. I recall that at the time my noble friend Lady Crawley, who was a Minister, was having great trouble negotiating with the Irish Government on the rather simple idea that they should pay for the maintenance of their own lights. She said, “They’re not very keen to negotiate”. That was not a very good answer from the Irish Government.
It was finally sorted out, and the other thing that was sorted out was that Trinity House and the Government together found a way of becoming much more efficient, as they are now, and therefore reducing the light dues applied to ships coming into this country. I am very pleased with the way it has gone, but can the Minister confirm, if not today then in writing, that there is no question that any of the money from ships coming into UK ports and paying light dues goes towards funding anything to do with lights in the Irish Republic?
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I welcome this important measure on maritime safety. I am very pleased to see that someone in the Department for Transport has been much more enthusiastic about signing up to this new convention, opened to signature by the French Government only a year ago, than was the case with the previous convention. It is good to see the UK in an enthusiastic leadership role after recent years when we have been—from the perspective of an internationalist, as I am—withdrawing from our international responsibilities. The development and maturing of international organisations is always good to see, especially one as practical and useful as this one.
I had written down two questions, one of which the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, has partly answered for the Minister—but I shall still ask it in part. Can the Minister update us on the progress on the other signatories? Are we in good company? The noble Lord, Lord Greenway, gave us some names, but is this regarded by the Government as good progress for something that they clearly support? Since this is a French-based organisation, does the EU join as a group, as one organisation, or do the individual EU countries join—and, if so, what is the progress with that?
I note that IALA will remain consultative. I move on to paragraph 7.6 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which says:
“Membership of IALA … will allow the United Kingdom to continue to play an active role”,
et cetera. This question is linked to my previous question. Did our withdrawal a year ago from the EU mean that we were put at a disadvantage in relation to this issue of international maritime safety? Did our previous relationship link in any way with our membership of the EU, and therefore leave us out in the cold somewhat? Was that an important—and very good—reason for wishing to join this convention as soon as possible?
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the introduction of this instrument to help to facilitate and recognise the new International Organization for Marine Aids to Navigation. The Committee will be aware that this new organisation is a transition from the previous International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities, which has functioned since 1957. First, given that only five other nations have ratified the related convention, can the Minister provide the House with an estimate of when the transition will be completed? Secondly, can the Minister confirm whether the support and resources given by the UK to the new organisation will in any way differ from the support and resources given to its predecessor? Finally, can the Minister briefly explain the UK’s strategic aims for engagement in the organisation, as well as related bodies such as the International Maritime Organization?
We fully support the work of the new International Organization for Marine Aids for Navigation, and I am therefore pleased to welcome this order.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, once again, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this short debate on this order. I particularly welcome the expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Greenway. It is very good to have somebody in the Room who has such expertise.
I will give a little more information on the timeline from the UK’s perspective. All being well and subject to the agreement of your Lordships’ House and it being passed at the other end—I cannot recall whether it has yet—this order will go to the Privy Council in February. This would be the ratifying document that will then go off to Paris at the end of February or in early March.
I am really pleased that the United Kingdom will join a good list of people—indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Greenway, has already mentioned the countries that have ratified or accepted the IALA convention. The other point to note about that is that it has also been signed by 20 different countries, too. The process is therefore well on its way. Looking down the list of countries that have already signed it, there are a large number of heavy hitters—ones we would really want to be associated with. The EU does not really have a locus here. There is no impact of EU withdrawal on this. Looking at the countries that have signed, we have Belgium, France, obviously, the Netherlands, and all sorts of different countries. I do not think that is a fruitful or relevant area to discuss further.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, that we need to make sure we have an enthusiastic leadership role in the maritime sector. I know that the Maritime Minister is very keen that we do. We have a lot of expertise on maritime aids to navigation. The general lighthouse authorities will continue to represent the UK at the intergovernmental organisation when it is established. Any member state obligation, should it arise, will be met by the Department for Transport in the first instance with FCDO input. In essence, our involvement will not change too much in terms of resources. Indeed, we will save ourselves around £15,000 a year on subscription costs. That is clearly beneficial.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked whether the Irish pay for their own lighthouses. Yes, my Lord, they do. The Governments of the UK and Ireland have an agreement that all work by Irish Lights in the Republic of Ireland is paid for by the Irish Government.
If there is anything else I will write further, because I am at the end of what I have been briefed to say, but I will check back through Hansard to make sure that there is nothing else. Otherwise, I beg to move.
House of Lords
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Mikheil Saakashvili
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Harries of Pentregarth
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they are making to the government of Georgia about the continued imprisonment of Mikheil Saakashvili, the former president of that country.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, we are closely following events connected to the detention of former President Saakashvili. The former Minister for Europe, Wendy Morton, raised Mr Saakashvili’s detention with the Georgian Ambassador on 15 December, highlighting concerns about his health and treatment. Our ambassador and other officials have raised Mr Saakashvili’s case at senior levels in Tbilisi, including with the Deputy Foreign Minister and the Speaker of Georgia’s parliament. We will continue to monitor developments regarding this case.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
I thank the Minister for his reply. Under Mr Saakashvili’s presidency, Georgia flourished economically. He took significant steps to eliminate corruption and when he lost power in 2013, he transferred power peacefully, the first ever peaceful transition of power in Georgia. Since then he has been stripped of his citizenship and put in prison on trumped-up charges in what Amnesty International describes as apparent political revenge. I pass all this on to the Minister, but my question focuses simply on his imprisonment. Yesterday I received a letter from him, smuggled out of prison, in which he talks about being denied private communication with his lawyers and being repeatedly assaulted by prison officials. Will Her Majesty’s Government protest most strongly to the Georgian Government about this and ask that our own ambassador might visit him in prison?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble and right reverend Lord for providing that additional information. I will of course take that forward and pass it to both our team here in London and our ambassador on the ground in Tbilisi. On the issue of Mr Saakashvili’s continued detention, we are urging the Georgian Government to ensure the fair treatment of the former president. We welcome recent steps to facilitate medical care for Mr Saakashvili and to accord him the right to due process in legal proceedings. I share the noble and right reverend Lord’s view of Mr Saakashvili’s tenure. Of course, when he returned in October he did so willingly and was at that time taken into custody. I will certainly take forward, as the noble and right reverend Lord suggests, any further action on the additional information that he provides.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, while I recognise that it is not for this House or any Member of it to judge former President Saakashvili’s innocence or guilt, is the point being made to the Georgian Government that if, as I think we would much desire, there is to be an ever-closer relationship between this country and Georgia, it is going to count in that matter whether Georgia applies the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights in full and in a correct manner?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord about the importance of the request by the European Court of Human Rights to the Government of Georgia that they ensure the safety of Mr Saakashvili and inform the court about the applicant’s current state of health. We will continue to make that case and, as I said earlier, to ensure that he is given both the right to legal representation and medical care.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, the former president’s detention is symptomatic of the greater problem of the deterioration of human rights in Georgia, particularly labour rights. According to the Georgian Trade Unions Confederation, just last year 22 workers died in one month alone. Can the Minister tell us, like he did yesterday, what he is doing to raise human rights and to work with the ILO to ensure that Georgia meets the obligations of that organisation, to which Georgia is also committed?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
The noble Lord is quite right to draw attention to the issue of human rights and, if I could term it thus, the democratic backsliding that at times we have seen on rights generally across Georgia. I assure him that we are engaging directly. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary mentioned the importance of promoting democratic values, which is central to our foreign policy. On 1 December, during discussions with the Georgian Government in Tbilisi, our regional director for eastern Europe and central Asia raised important issues around various elements of human rights and, beyond that, the politicisation of appointments. There has also been a decline in LGBT rights; the noble Lord will be aware of the attack on the Pride march. All of this forms part of our engagement directly with Georgia.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I was in Tbilisi in 2017 shortly after the former president had his citizenship revoked while he was the governor of Odessa, in Ukraine. He subsequently also had his citizenship revoked by Ukraine. This situation is open to significant influence from Russia, in addition to the concern about the individual case. As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, has indicated, Amnesty International has raised concerns that this treatment is political revenge. Will Britain indicate to the Georgian Government that operating under the premise of due judicial process and respecting human rights are core elements of Georgia’s membership of the Council of Europe, and that working in this way is the best security against external influence from Russia?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I can certainly assure the noble Lord that that is exactly our approach. We will continue to raise this directly and with key partners, including in international fora such as the Council of Europe.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, following on from that question, is the Minister aware that monitors from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe visited Georgia last month? They have returned and said that is absolutely vital that the two main parties overcome the extremely polarised political climate. They are Georgian Dream and the United National Movement, which is Mikheil’s own party.
Will the Minister make particular use the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and specifically ask our ambassador to the CoE to raise this issue at the Council of Ministers meeting, so that multilateral action can be taken? As I said during another Question earlier in the week, this kind of multilateral approach is much better than a government-to-government approach, which is sometimes misunderstood.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord and as I have said to him previously, I look forward to working with him directly on this agenda and I pay tribute to his valuable work within the Council of Europe. I am looking specifically at the work of the Council of Europe and will take forward what the noble Lord suggests. Whatever we do in the multilateral fora, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, it is also important that we complement, consolidate and strengthen it through our bilateral representations.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
My Lords, in light of current events, would it be worth advising the current Administration of Georgia that admission to NATO requires a respect for human rights?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I assure the noble Lord that we remind Georgia in our bilateral discussions of its international obligations. Let us not forget that Georgia itself, in the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, faces direct challenges of the very nature the noble Lord alludes to.
Ambulance Queues: Health Outcomes
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Scriven
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on health outcomes of the time spent by ambulances waiting in queues to transfer patients into hospital Accident and Emergency departments.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name and draw the House’s attention to my interests in the register.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
We recognise that waiting times can impact outcomes, so patients in queues remain under constant clinical supervision and care and are prioritised according to need. Delays tend to be concentrated in a small number of hospitals, with 29 acute trusts across 35 sites responsible for 57% of the 60-minute handover delays nationally so far this winter. These trusts are receiving intensive support to improve, including through placement of hospital ambulance liaison officers and the safe cohorting of patients.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, half a million acute bed days each year are lost due to delays in discharge directly attributable to non-availability of social care, which leads to bottlenecks in emergency departments and ambulances being unable to unload patients. Does the Minister agree that the split of money raised by the health and social care levy over the next three years therefore needs to be more generous to social care, so people stop having to wait up to seven hours in the back of ambulances?
Lord Kamall (Con)
As the noble Lord will be aware, when the charge was initially announced it was intended to help with social care, which has been neglected for a number of years under successive Governments. Given the pressures of the backlog, the NHS has decided to divert some of those resources to help tackle it. We have invested money in social care in the short-term winter plan, and in the longer term we have announced extra investment to ensure that social care is an attractive career and offers real prospects.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that his response, saying that this involves a small number of trusts, does not address the data from NHS England for the seven days to January 2, which showed that 23% of all arrivals by ambulance had delays of half an hour or more—that is over 19,000—and that some 10% of patients waited more than an hour to be handed over? This meant that those ambulances were also unable to deliver first aid and first implementation of treatment to people who were waiting. Therefore, when patients arrived at emergency departments, they were even sicker than necessary, and it may be that some lives were lost.
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Baroness makes an important point. In anticipation of the winter crisis, last year we published the Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery 10 Point Action Plan to look at the direct pressures on not only A&E but the call centres, and at some of the wider system issues. For example, when people cannot get access to their doctor, they tend to go to A&E. At other times, they cannot get the replacement medication they want and have to call an ambulance to go to A&E and get it. We are looking at some of the wider system problems to make sure we address the backlog.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, NHS workers on the front line have been warning for months and months that the service is under strain due to a combination of waning workforce, Covid, respiratory infections, a backlog of patients and a build-up of health problems over lockdowns. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has been calling for months for a response from Ministers to provide short-term and long-term solutions. We called on the Health Secretary last summer for urgent additional support to be put in place. Why are we still waiting for that leadership and necessary support to materialise?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I am sure the noble Baroness will acknowledge that a number of people have been calling for ways to address this. The Government announced the Urgent and Emergency Care Recovery 10 Point Action Plan last year, which includes supporting 999 and 111 services, looking at primary care and community health services, greater use of urgent treatment centres, increased support for children and young people, better communications and call handling, improving inflow and hospital discharge, looking at mental health needs and a number of other issues. In each of those 10 points we have drilled down on working with trusts and the ambulance service to make sure we can address the issues that are currently being raised.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, could the Government look at how many lives have been lost as a result of delays? I suggest this might be more of an issue than the Government are aware of.
Lord Kamall (Con)
We regularly talk to the NHS—every day, in fact. We have, for example, daily omicron calls. Looking at some of the data, over 925,000 calls to 999 were answered by the ambulance service in December 2021, which is nearly 30,000 calls a day. That is 2% more than in November 2021, 22% more than in November 2020 and 9% more than in December 2019. We have invested in more people in the call rooms, working with BT to better handle the calls, and ensuring we have more staff where we need them to handle the whole system and ensure we can respond quicker.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, wishes to speak virtually. I think this is a convenient point for me to call her.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, yesterday NHS England data showed that trolley waits of more than 12 hours in A&E rose in December to just under 11,000, which is three times higher than in December 2020. One hospital reported that it had a dozen patients waiting on a trolley for a bed for over 24 hours. The Minister has talked about extra money, but without staff and bed capacity in both hospitals and care homes, the crisis remains. Can he say what the Government are doing right now to help alleviate the current crisis?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for giving me the opportunity to say what the Government are doing right now. We are working closely with ambulance services, NHS England and the Association of Ambulance Chief Executives to reduce the handover delays. The 10-point plan I referred to earlier goes into detail about how we handle this, both in handling calls at call centres—some calls are not emergencies, for example, and patients are directed elsewhere—and in making sure that the wider system is available to make sure that patients are unloaded within the 15-minute target and that ambulances are turned around as quickly as possible. Where we have spotted disproportionate pressures in the system, as in the 29 hospital trusts across 35 sites, we have focused more resources there.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I appreciate that my noble friend has to read out what he has in his brief, but would he take time to read the report on social care published by the Economic Affairs Committee of this House, which received pretty well universal endorsement? Will he then discuss with his colleagues whether we really have fixed social care and whether the resources he is claiming are sufficient to meet the problem?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for drawing my attention to the report and the work of that committee. I will commit to reading the report and look forward to future discussions with my noble friend and many noble Lords across the House.
Lord Bird (CB)
Would it be possible at this time to talk also about preventing the next crisis and the crisis after that? Are we not always chasing something? The NHS, which does not spend a large amount of money on prevention, is now being hoist by its own petard,
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Lord raises a very important point. One of the things the NHS is looking at in more detail, and something we will discuss in forthcoming debates on the Health and Social Care Bill, is how we move a system culturally to not only treat patients once they are ill or need treatment, and work in terms of prevention and encouraging healthier lifestyles. When patients are kept too long in hospital, they can lose certain facilities such as muscle function, so we need to look at prevention as opposed to just treatment. Getting the right balance is something that the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care are looking at closely.
Baroness Jolly (LD)
My Lords, as a result of Covid’s impact, many A&E departments have reconfigured their internal infrastructure and their working practices. Could the Minister tell the House how best practice is being disseminated to other NHS trusts? What support, financial and otherwise, have trusts received to do this?
Lord Kamall (Con)
Given that it was identified that there were particular pressures on 29 trusts across 35 sites, extra resources have been targeted and teams have made site visits to work out, for example, the flows in those hospitals, and to make sure that they deal not only with the immediate issues that those departments face but also with the wider system issues. For example, as I have mentioned, sometimes patients cannot get hold of doctors and go to A&E as a substitute because they want a face-to-face appointment. We are looking at a number of those wider issues. We announced £55 million of winter funding for all ambulance services and have boosted staff numbers by 700, including for the availability of the ambulance fleet, through a £4.2 million investment to improve times. We have also invested nearly £2 million to support the well-being of front-line staff during these pressures; they have experienced increased pressures, so we must make sure we look after them as well.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)
My Lords, is there a breakdown on the difference between physical resources in hospitals and the shortage of staff?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I am not sure whether there is a breakdown. As my noble friend said, sometimes I have to read out what is in the pack and sometimes I freelance, as I am sure many will appreciate—or maybe will not appreciate when I divert from the government line. But I will endeavour to find out whether those stats are available.
Money Laundering
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Rooker
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have, if any, to commission an independent assessment of the scale of money laundering in the United Kingdom.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office and the Treasury (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
My Lords, the UK money laundering regulations require the Government to make an assessment of the UK’s money laundering and terrorist financing risks and to keep this assessment up to date. The Government accordingly published a national risk assessment in 2015, 2017 and 2020. Assessments detailing specific threats are published by UK law enforcement more regularly, including by the National Crime Agency’s National Assessment Centre and the National Economic Crime Centre.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his Answer, but is he not curious about the effects of transnational kleptocracy by British professional service providers such as HSBC and Mishcon de Reya, which enable crooked elites to launder their money and reputations? Would he condemn, as does the recent Chatham House report, the lawyers and PR agents who make quasi-libel defamation cases against journalists and researchers researching money laundering and then go on to deter the ill-resourced regulators, who can be bought off, as in the recent Mishcon case?
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
I am sure the noble Lord will be aware that a number of very substantial fines have been levied for breaching money laundering regulations over the last few years. In 2020, Goldman Sachs was fined £48 million; in 2019, Standard Chartered was fined £102 million; and, even in the last few weeks, NatWest was handed a fine of £264 million. This just emphasises our commitment to dealing with this whole area.
Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, having had the dubious privilege of being one of those who helped to draft the anti-money laundering directives in Brussels, and thereby finding himself described by friends as an expert in money laundering, may I enquire about the word “proportional”, which appears in the directive? Does my noble friend feel that that word is being properly applied by our financial institutions to small investors and those who will never be engaged in money laundering? Does he think that that is balanced and fair and that we have the right approach?
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
I would certainly defer to my noble friend as someone who is an expert in this area, which I am not. It is extremely difficult to get the right balance in these things, because what one person would consider an intrusion, another would consider a protection. We have to remain alert and sensitive to the different forces, but what is most important is that we have a coherent system which is clamping down on an extremely complex and fast-evolving crime.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, in last year’s parliamentary debate on the Church Action for Tax Justice report Tax for the Common Good, the Minister assured us that progress was being made on reducing money laundering and financial fraud in our British Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies. Would he be able to update the House on this? If he cannot do so now, would he please write to me with information on the progress we are making?
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
It is important to remind the House that the overseas territories are independent entities and that we cannot just force them to comply with our own regulations. But we have an ongoing dialogue with them. For example, we have a very useful exchange of information through the exchange of notes arrangements, and they have agreed to introduce publicly accessible registers of companies’ beneficial ownership. The discussions are very much ongoing and I respect the right reverend Prelate’s concern.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, at the anti-corruption summit in 2016, the Government committed to producing a register of overseas owners of British properties. In 2018, they produced a draft Bill on that which has still to become law. Could the Government say whether they are in fact committed to stopping this sort of overseas activity in the UK?
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
My Lords, I can assure the House that we are absolutely committed to stopping that. I accept that the introduction of the Bill is taking too long, but active discussions are going on at the moment about a new economic crime Bill and I hope that we might see its introduction within the next few months.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister’s colleague, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, said during our proceedings on the NICs Bill:
“In the last three years, we have recovered over £550 million from the proceeds of crime, charged over 100 people with money-laundering offences, and seen over 75 people convicted for money laundering.”—[Official Report, 10/1/22; col. GC 113.]
That is a pathetic figure—or at least it feels like one. In his original Answer, the Minister indicated that assessments had been made over three recent years. What he failed to do was tell us what the answer was. Could he provide the answer so that we can judge the success so far and see whether the right resources and energy are being devoted to this issue?
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
My Lords, if we were to go the very top-down figures, which are ultimately the most important, I would look at the tax gap, which we have been very successful in closing over a number of years. In 2005-06, the gap was 7.5%; in the last year for which figures were available, 2019-20, it was down to 5.3%. That is of course against the enormous headwinds of the build-up of hot money around the world. I would therefore be more optimistic and say that we are making good progress.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Evans of Bowes Park) (Con)
My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats. The noble Lord, Lord Jones of Cheltenham, wishes to speak virtually. I think this is a convenient point to call him.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
My Lords, the Royal United Services Institute suggests that the scale of money laundering in the UK is “too big to measure”. Transparency International has had a stab at it and says that the problem may be causing £325 billion-worth of harm to the UK economy each year. Why has the UK become such a magnet for this illegal activity, which damages the vital financial services sector and our reputation as a safe place to do business?
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
My Lords, as I am sure the noble Lord will be aware, the City of London is one of the largest financial centres in the world and therefore the flows of money going through our economy, particularly in the City, are enormous. However, we lead the world in our attempts to reduce bad activity. I refer the noble Lord to the Economic Crime Plan, which lists some 48 action points to tackle the whole spectrum of money laundering and financial crime. We are in good shape in implementing those, and we are committed to an economic crime plan 2.0 that will be announced this autumn.
Baroness Manzoor (Con)
My Lords, to take us back to the question on resources, there is some evidence that where banks refer cases to the police, such cases are not high on their agenda. Do the police have sufficient resources to tackle this crime and to investigate it thoroughly?
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
My Lords, we have the National Crime Agency as the main crimefighting force in anti-money laundering. It is an extremely effective organisation, and it is well funded. Of course, one could always say that more money is needed, but I can assure my noble friend that we believe that we have adequate resources.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
The Minister has mentioned some fines in respect of a limited number of banks, but much money laundering is in respect of property transactions, particularly in London. Since the passing of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, how many prosecutions have there been of professional people who facilitate money laundering: the estate agents, the solicitors and others?
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
My Lords, more than 97,000 organisations are monitored for money laundering in this country and some 54 anti-money laundering inquiries are open with the FCA at the moment.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has referred to the work of the Assets Recovery Agency. Paramilitary organisations have undertaken considerable money laundering over many years throughout the UK. Can the Minister provide us with a detailed assessment, including figures, of the amounts that have been laundered by paramilitary organisations? I am thinking in particular of Northern Ireland, where it has had an insidious impact on society.
Lord Agnew of Oulton (Con)
I share the noble Baroness’s concern about money laundering getting into the hands of serious organised crime groups, but we are very much aware of such concerns. I do not think that one can put a figure on it, because, if we knew what it was, we would be able to stop it. We have created a large umbrella structure to oversee all these organisations. It is overseen by the Chancellor and the Home Secretary. Underneath that sit a number of organisations; for example, the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision. A whole range of such agencies are now working and sharing intelligence. I believe that we are getting better all the time.
Railway Timetables: Disruption
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Randerson
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that full railway timetables are restored as soon as possible, following the disruption caused by staff absences.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, the department has been working closely with rail operators to mitigate the impact of Covid-related staff absences on train services. Many operators have implemented temporary revised train timetables, which are providing passengers and especially the country’s key workers with certainty so that they can plan their journeys with confidence. The department will continue to work with operators to ensure that services meet demand as staff absence pressures ease.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I regret that there was no absolute reassurance in that Answer that timetables would be restored. At the same time as reductions, the Government are requiring train operating companies to make 10% savings and imposing a 3.8% increase on fares for passengers. The Government found the money for freezing fuel duty and reducing domestic APD, but rail passengers face the double whammy of reduced services and higher prices. Does the Minister recognise that the Government should do everything they can to encourage us out of our cars and back on to public transport, but instead government policy is setting the railways up to fail?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I do not agree with the noble Baroness’s assessment that government policy is setting the railways up to fail. We are introducing all sorts of measures under the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail which will improve rail services and make them fit for the future. It is the case that demand is currently running at around 55%; because of Covid absences, we have a temporary timetable in place—I reassure the noble Baroness that it is a temporary timetable, which she will know expires on 26 February. We are working closely with the rail industry in relation to the progress of omicron and how timetables may look in the future.
Lord Haselhurst (Con)
My Lords, is not the more potent factor in this situation the lack of passengers, which is making train operators wary of introducing services across the country that are visibly empty?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
Not entirely, my Lords. Clearly, the rail operators working with the Department for Transport want to provide the services. At the moment, they cannot do so because of Covid pressures on staff, but we will work in the longer term with the rail industry to streamline the passenger offer, to remove duplication of services and to ensure efficiency.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, we are obviously in the middle of a public health crisis and the Government have difficult decisions to take, but will the Minister repudiate the prophets of doom who somehow think that we are all going to stop travelling in the usual way once Covid has ended? Will she acknowledge that in the periods when we have opened up between the waves of the pandemic, passengers have returned to the railways very quickly—passenger usage on the Tube in London was up to two-thirds before we had the latest lockdown—and that it would be a huge mistake if the Government were to start cutting services, which would discourage people from returning to the railways after 20 years of massive investment in them, which has been a great good news story for this country?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
The Government are very keen for passengers to return to the railways. We are working closely with the industry as it supports demand and revenue recovery. However, we accept that there may be enduring changes in the way in which people travel, whether it be for work versus leisure. That is why the Rail Delivery Group is working closely with VisitBritain to establish a new domestic rail tourism product, so that we might perhaps go interrailing around our own nation.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned the 10% cut that the Treasury has asked all the rail industry to impose. Can the Minister confirm that the Night Riviera sleeper, which keeps Cornwall connected to London and the rest of the country, is safe from this, or will that be cut as part of the 10%?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
My Lords, I cannot comment on the Night Riviera sleeper; I wish I could, but I will write if I can find out any information on it. However, we do need to look at our railways to ensure that they are financially sustainable for the future. The Government have committed £14 billion since the start of the pandemic to support our rail sector. We know that in future, we will be looking for workforce reforms and cost efficiencies. We want passengers to come back and, of course, overall, we want an excellent performance for all passengers and freight.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the less than full railway timetables are not solely caused by Covid-related staff shortages. The hourly Chester to London and London to Chester direct trains have just disappeared. Whenever I make any queries about the return to the pre-lockdown timetable, I am met with an “It’s Covid, innit?” shrug. Can the Minister look at this cavalier establishment of the new normal as a cover for what are, effectively, cuts in services? Worryingly, it is not just confined to the rail network, but it is always at the expense of the public and it is happening without anyone discussing it.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am not sure I agree with the noble Baroness. Clearly, we are discussing it today and we have discussed timetables in the past. Timetables are never static: they have changed twice a year for a very long time. It is true that we will be asking the rail industry to submit plans through the routine business-planning process, and it may well be that there are further changes to timetables. We do, however, ask all the rail operators to engage very closely with local communities to ensure that we are able to deliver the right services to the right places.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, the Government recently announced that 100,000 tests would be made available for key workers, but the Minister will be aware that the number of key workers available is many millions. Can she confirm how much of the 100,000-testing commitment will be designated for public transport, and what proportion of the workforce she expects that to cover?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I do not have the figures with me today, but I can say that those 100,000 tests were actually for critical workers rather than key workers. These people are even more critical than key workers. The sort of places we will be using those tests for are places such as operation centres: you literally cannot replace one person for another when it comes to rail service operators. We are looking at those people without whom we cannot do. That is really important, because they are critical—more critical than some other workers.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, can the Minister say—she did not really answer the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, fully on this—when we can expect to have a reasonably certain timetable? Those who travel by train regularly need to be able to plan carefully, and many of us feel that, although Covid has been a reason for much, it has been an excuse for many things as well.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I completely accept my noble friend’s point. It is the case that we want all passengers to be able to travel with confidence. At the moment, we are advising passengers to check first, but that is why the process that we put in place because of the Omicron intervention was two-phased. There was a reactive phase over Christmas, which necessitated some short-term cancellations. We knew that employee absences would possibly rise, so that is why we were proactive and put in place this planned timetable just for six to eight weeks until 26 February. That will provide some certainty until then. Then, of course, I would have to ask my noble friend to look at the timetable again.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
Earlier, the Minister said that the Government were very keen for passengers to return to the use of rail. What would she say to rail travellers in Yorkshire, who are facing the insult of increases in rail fares totalling nearly 50% over the last 10 years or so, yet are also facing services in relative decline? There will be no HS2, no HS3 and no full electrification. Yorkshire folk like value for money and they are not getting it. What does the Minister have to say to them?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I just point the noble Baroness to the Williams-Shapps plan for rail. There is an enormous amount in there that will be beneficial to passengers in Yorkshire and beyond. We will be looking at ticketing, which is insanely complicated. Sometimes multi-leg ticketing is cheaper than a single leg and it is all slightly mad. Obviously, we will be very passenger-focused to make sure that the right services exist for people in Yorkshire and beyond.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, can the Minister confirm that those drivers of trains on shunter routes are paid less than those on, for example, the east coast main line route and the west coast main line route? Is there any evidence of an exodus of these drivers to earn higher salaries as lorry drivers?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I am not sure that the skills are interchangeable, but it could be that some people have chosen to become HGV drivers instead. However, I reiterate that the rail services that we currently have are not financially sustainable without workforce reforms. That is going to be an absolutely essential part of the way we take forward rail services in this country. We need to make sure that we have the right people on the right trains on the right pay and with the right conditions.
Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (Status) Bill [HL]
Thursday 13th January 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (Status) Bill [HL] 2021-22 View all Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (Status) Bill [HL] 2021-22 Debates Read Hansard Text
Baroness D’Souza (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as an executive committee member of CPA UK.
Lead Ammunition (Restriction) Bill [HL]
Thursday 13th January 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Lead Ammunition (Restriction) Bill [HL] 2021-22 View all Lead Ammunition (Restriction) Bill [HL] 2021-22 Debates Read Hansard Text
Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill
Thursday 13th January 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill 2021-22 View all Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill 2021-22 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 12 January 2022 - (12 Jan 2022)
Vaccination Strategy
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the staff of the NHS, volunteers and others, who have made extraordinary efforts during the vaccine rollout to save lives and build a world beyond Covid, while a particular debt of gratitude is owed to the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, who is standing down from his role.
To drive up vaccination rates, there is a growing need to tackle anti-vax propaganda and stop intimidation and abuse. Will the Minister commit to a communications campaign to tackle misinformation, particularly focusing on places and people with lower rates of take-up? Following the Labour amendment to the policing Bill that was agreed last night in your Lordships’ House, will the Government now take the opportunity to fast-track buffer zones around schools and vaccination centres?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for raising these issues. The first issue, that of anti-vaxxers, is really important. In a free society we always have to get the balance right between freedom of speech, making sure that people are free to go about their daily work, and making sure that those who want the vaccine get it as soon as possible. The Government are aware of this and are looking at it, but it is really important that we get the right balance. Whatever we think of the anti-vaxxers’ message, they have a right to say it, but we have to make sure that it does not impinge on the liberty of others to get their vaccine, especially since we are encouraging as many people as possible to get vaccinated.
I join the noble Baroness in paying tribute to the Chief Medical Officer, Jonathan Van-Tam. He appears on our daily omicron calls and I have had a number of conversations with him, and I know that there is incredible respect for JVT across the country. Indeed, I know that a number of people tuned in to his Christmas lectures on the virus; as the noble Baroness says, they were an excellent explanation of the virus and how to tackle it.
As for how we reach local communities, particularly those communities that have not come forward, I have had a number of conversations with noble Lords and Baronesses with their own experience of working with local communities in a bottom-up way. We have seen a number of local activities; indeed, my local masjid, or mosque, has a walk-in vaccination centre, and we have seen that in other faith places. A number of faith-based and interfaith networks have worked closely with the local community, because often some communities do not have the trust in authority that they have in priests, vicars, bishops—if I may say so—imams, et cetera. That is really important. We have also recorded promotional films in a number of languages, including Punjabi and Urdu in Birmingham, and got some celebrities to come up. I know I have gone on too long but I am very excited about what we are doing.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness to speak.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, I too echo the gratitude that this House and this country shows to Jonathan Van-Tam. Four months on, there are still severely clinically extremely vulnerable people eligible for a third primary dose and then a booster who cannot book their booster because the data system still cannot record this. Many CEV young children with underlying conditions are still waiting for their vaccines, as well as for guidance on how they, their families and their schools can keep them safe from Covid. This is important because there are now more children in hospital with Covid in the last three weeks than in the nine months of the first wave. Please can the Minister say how these people, who the Government say need the vaccines right now to keep them safe, can get them?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for making me aware of the issues. She will recall that we had a meeting on how we can address the concerns of the clinically extremely vulnerable, and I had hoped that a number of action points had flowed from that. If those have not been acted upon, I hope she will write to me and I can chase up the department and the NHS. I had assumed that that meeting, where we gave them some action points, was effective. I am sure she remembers that we requested a letter with action points, but if those have not been followed up, I will endeavour to chase that up.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
The noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness to speak.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB) [V]
My Lords, how much research is being done on persons who may have developed Guillain Barré syndrome after the coronavirus vaccine booster? Is the noble Lord aware that there have been several cases of this serious condition recently?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for the question. I will have to write to her with the answer.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
Can the Minister update us on global statistics on vaccination? This is not only about justice, equality and dignity; it is also about the fact that new variants will arise unless we address the issue of international vaccination. What are the Government doing to ensure that everyone across our world is offered full vaccination? What focus is being given to the international situation, beyond ourselves?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the right reverend Prelate for raising this incredibly important issue. I know a number of noble Lords across the House feel very strongly about this. Indeed, many of us are part of diaspora communities and understand that many communities across the world are very concerned. From the start of the pandemic, the UK has worked to support access to Covid-19 vaccines. We helped to establish the international joint procurement initiative, COVAX. At the end of 2021, the Government confirmed that they had delivered more than 30 million Covid-19 vaccines to other countries, benefiting more than 30 countries. We have invested £71 million to help COVAX secure early supply deals. The UK is one of the largest donors to the COVAX advance market commitment, which supports access to Covid-19 vaccines for up to 92 low and middle-income countries. I have a list of a number of other initiatives that we have taken part in. In addition, in bilateral, G7 and G10 discussions, we have put this issue on the agenda, making sure that we are working in a multilateral way across the world to help those countries.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, first, in relation to the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, very few cases of Guillain Barré syndrome have been reported following vaccination with Covid vaccines. That is not so surprising because it occurs with any vaccination, so it is not a reason at all for anybody to be denied vaccination. Secondly, and much more importantly, social media is full of worries that young women are particularly affected, because of the nonsense perpetrated that it will make them infertile. There is no scientific reason behind this. Does the Minister agree that all young women should take the vaccine? Thirdly, there are many pregnant women now in hospital because they were not vaccinated because of wrong advice that pregnant women should not be vaccinated. Again, there is no reason why pregnant women should not be vaccinated, and the recent data which suggests that mothers who breastfeed will transfer their antibodies to the newborn is good news too.
Lord Kamall (Con)
One of the wonderful things about your Lordships’ House is its range of expertise. I thank the noble Lord for enlightening us on the earlier question. However, as I committed to the noble Baroness, I will check the department’s reply and hope it corresponds with the noble Lord’s response; otherwise, I am sure we will have more discussions.
On young women, the noble Lord is absolutely right that we should be encouraging as many people as possible to take the vaccine, even—I know this is being broadcast publicly—those who have not had their first or second vaccine. It is not too late. We urge everyone to have their first and second vaccine, but also to have the booster. It is the best protection, even for those who have previously had Covid. We know that almost all pregnant women who are hospitalised or admitted to intensive care with Covid-19 are unvaccinated. The latest data from the UK Health Security Agency shows that Covid-19 vaccinations provide strong protection for pregnant women against the virus. It shows that the vaccines are safe for pregnant women, with similar birth outcomes for those who have had the vaccine and those who have not. We have launched a new campaign that urges pregnant women not to wait to take the vaccine; it highlights the risks of Covid-19 to mother and baby and the benefits of vaccination.
Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Following on from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, I want to pick up the issue of pregnant women. The Government have belatedly—very belatedly—announced a campaign to persuade pregnant women to get vaccinated. Had they done it earlier, some deaths would have been avoided. Is the Minister aware of the particularly low levels of vaccination among pregnant women from ethnic minorities? What are the Government doing to reach out to them in particular, to persuade them to get vaccinated and save their own lives and those of their unborn children?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Baroness makes an incredibly important point that I am sure we all agree with. This is a combination of two issues. One is reaching those communities that generally, pregnant or otherwise, are not being vaccinated. The other is making sure that pregnant women are receiving the message that it is safe to have the vaccine. We are doing this through a number of channels, including through medical staff and the NHS, but we also have a number of targeted campaigns, looking at those communities to make sure we build trust, break those gaps down and give them the confidence to come forward and be vaccinated.
Afghanistan: Humanitarian Crisis
(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I recognise that the Answer acknowledges the efforts of the United Kingdom to mobilise the international community on this terrible situation that has developed, but can I ask a specific question? Gordon Brown wrote to the Foreign Secretary specifically to ask that Britain convenes an international pledging conference, certainly no later than February—he stressed perhaps earlier, in January—to raise the necessary £4.44 billion to ensure that the 23 million people suffering are fed in the year 2022. Secondly, did the Minister hear on Radio 4 this morning the interview on British Council employees who have been left stranded in Afghanistan? What can he tell us? Can he give us some assurance that assistance will be given to them?
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord for acknowledging the work that the UK Government are doing with international partners in what is, as the noble Lord rightly described it, a terrible and continuing perilous situation on the humanitarian front in Afghanistan. I assure the noble Lord that we remain fully committed. As he will be aware, I laid a Written Ministerial Statement in advance of Christmas detailing the agencies we are working with and the amounts we are giving in support, particularly targeting vulnerable groups. We will make additional announcements, particularly in light of the call to action and the new request from the United Nations.
I share with the noble Lord that the previous request was made for flash funding support for the UN. It is quite noticeable was that it was fully funded; indeed, funds are being distributed. He make a point about Gordon Brown calling for a meeting to be convened. We are, of course, working very closely with the United Nations in this respect. Any calls to action are welcome, and we will see how best we can mobilise further action. I will be speaking with key partners in the region to ensure that the call that has been made is also funded in the manner that is currently required.
On the British Council, I first pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Newnham, who has been meticulous and consistent in raising in particular the issues of the British Council, along with other noble Lords. Let me give the noble Lord this reassurance: with the opening of the ACR scheme now formally announced, the promised support to cohorts, including the Chevening scholars and the workers associated with the British Council, will be upheld.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Barker) (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, is taking part remotely, and I invite her to speak.
Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD) [V]
My Lords, what are the Government doing to secure safe passage of food and essential supplies to the most vulnerable in Afghanistan?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I am working directly and very closely with key agencies on the ground in this respect. Just before Christmas, I had a number of meetings, including with the likes of David Beasley of the World Food Programme. I assure the noble Baroness that through direct interaction, including with near neighbours, we have access points which are providing humanitarian support to all regions of Afghanistan. Indeed, I was updated on that just this morning. I will continue to update the House, as I have done, through briefings directly at the Foreign Office as well as through debates and discussions we have in your Lordships’ House.
Baroness D’Souza (CB)
My Lords, could the Minister say what discussions, if any, are being held or planned with the authorities in Kabul and at provincial level to assist in the distribution of humanitarian aid? I imagine that the Taliban will be there for the next few months at least, if not more, and presumably discussions will take place. Some agreement has to take place, and I wonder what the attitude of the British Government is under these circumstances.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
As the noble Baroness will be aware, we have taken direct action in the sense of having officials who have visited Kabul continuing to engage at official level on these very priorities that she listed: humanitarian support and aid distribution within Afghanistan. Earlier this morning, I met Sir Simon Gass, who is one special representative among others. We are also looking forward to others engaging directly with the Taliban operationally. On the specifics, I assure the noble Baroness that we are working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN commission directly on the ground, as well as UNICEF, the World Food Programme and the ICRC, all of which have operational agreements and arrangements in each state to ensure effective distribution. There are others such as the Aga Khan Development Network, which has assured me through direct meetings that all its facilities—including support for the population, such as health clinics—are fully operational.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, is this not a situation where we are going to have to work closely and carefully with the Chinese? They seem to be acceptable to the Taliban and are working closely with them. The Chinese are always talking about the win-win nature of their intervention, which I think we have to take with a pinch of salt, but there is no doubt that they have the resources. They are there and they have substantial volumes of aid ready to bring in, and we have the humanitarian skills. Maybe this is an area where, despite all our very extensive differences with them in other areas, we might have to work together to get results.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, there are often challenges to the multilateral agencies working on the ground, particularly the United Nations. It is crises such as the Afghanistan crisis which really show the best of the world and how we can come together in response to humanitarian crisis. The UN provides the umbrella whereby we can work with all international partners, including China as well as others, to ensure humanitarian aid reaches those who most need it.
Baroness Northover (LD)
Taken together, given the expertise in the FCDO in relation to Afghanistan—even with cuts in funds—will the department play a key role in the MoJ/Home Office decisions made under the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme on who will be admitted to the United Kingdom because their lives are in danger in the country? The situation since August has been totally unacceptable.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, since August we have helped close to 4,000 people to leave Afghanistan. The noble Baroness rightly raises the issue of co-ordination. The recent announcement by the Minister for Afghan Resettlement outlined the various schemes and the pathways within each scheme. I have already alluded to one pathway where the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is directly involved with the commitments we have made. I assure the noble Baroness that, overall, both with the department concerned, which is the MoJ, where Victoria Atkins sits, and more broadly—with the ARAP scheme, for example, which continues to be administered and run by the Ministry of Defence—we continue to co-ordinate and work together.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, we know that before the full takeover by the Taliban, there were many examples of co-operation between the Taliban locally and aid organisations, though it was very patchy in different parts of the country. Can the Minister tell us anything about the direction of travel on this post the Taliban takeover? Is it still patchy, or is there any evidence at all that those areas where the co-operation did not work successfully are learning from those where it does and benefits the people? How is this moving? Is it getting better or worse?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware, there are various strands. The Taliban themselves are not a homogenous group, and there are various factions within the Taliban which control various parts of the country. However, promisingly, I was updated that with the commitments we have made and the support we have given to organisations, such as the World Food Programme, they have been able to distribute humanitarian aid and support not just to a selective number of regions but to most parts of the country. We are encouraged that there is good co-operation on the ground, but this could change very quickly, so we should we remain ever vigilant. I assure the noble Lord that I will continue to update your Lordships’ House accordingly.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, the Answer acknowledges the impact on women and girls, and we have seen brave women protesting in the streets across Afghanistan. Can the Minister tell me if any women have been part of the UK delegations meeting the Taliban, and does he agree that such representation sends an important message of support to women in Afghanistan?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, the answer to my noble friend’s first question is positive: it is “yes”. We are engaging directly through our diplomats. Secondly, I have certainly been encouraging other key partners, for example Qatari Minister Al Thani and Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. Women are an integral and leading part of the world community. If the Taliban want to engage, it is important that we also fully support women’s full engagement. Equally, I can share with my noble friend that some leading lights of the former Afghan Government are right here in the United Kingdom. Earlier this week, I met with the brave, courageous Fawzia Koofi, and we are working directly with Afghan women who were part of the Administration, such as Hasina Safi, the former Minister for Women, to ensure that our next steps and future policies are informed by those who know best, who are the women of Afghanistan.
Health and Care Bill
Thursday 13th January 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Health and Care Act 2022 View all Health and Care Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 71-II(b) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Second Marshalled List) - (13 Jan 2022)
Baroness Thornton
“(3A) In section 13G (duty as to reducing inequalities), at end insert—“(2) NHS England must publish guidance about the collection, analysis, reporting and publication of performance data by relevant NHS bodies with respect to factors or indicators relevant to health inequalities.(3) Relevant NHS bodies must have regard to guidance published by NHS England under this section.(4) In this section “relevant NHS bodies” means—(a) NHS England,(b) integrated care boards,(c) integrated care partnerships established under section 116ZA of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007,(d) NHS trusts established under section 25, and(e) NHS foundation trusts.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would give NHS England a statutory duty to publish guidance on how NHS bodies should collect, analyse, report and publish performance data on factors and/or indicators related to health inequalities.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to open this debate on the issue of health inequalities. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have gone through the Bill to ensure that addressing health inequalities is absolutely central. Unless the Bill deals with the kind of inequalities that the pandemic, for example, has brought into sharp relief, it will have failed. Many amendments in this group directly and indirectly address the issue, and I look forward to the many contributions we will hear. This is one area where our NHS may not be among the best in the world. In fact, inequality is often entrenched. Some might argue that, through the famous inverse care law, it even makes things worse. As with other public services, the better-off, with better connections and sharper elbows, get more out of a service than those with less social capital who are already disadvantaged by other factors.
A report published today by the Northern Health Science Alliance, a health and life sciences partnership between the leading NHS trusts, universities and academic health science networks in northern England, says that
“people in ‘left behind’ neighbourhoods are 46 per cent more likely to have died from the virus than those in the rest of England, and 7 per cent more likely to have died of the virus than those living in other deprived areas”
that are not left behind. In left-behind neighbourhoods,
“Men live 3.7 years fewer and women 3 years fewer than the national average,”
and
“men and women can expect to live 7.5 fewer years in good health than their counterparts in the rest of England.”
Tackling the health inequalities facing local authorities of left-behind neighbourhoods and bringing them up to England’s average could add an extra £29.8 billion to the country’s economy each year. The co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for “Left Behind” Neighbourhoods, the right honourable Dame Diana Johnson, said that:
“Every person in the country deserves to live a long life in good health”,
but this new research demonstrates that this is not currently a reality.
We are all aware of the work of Sir Michael Marmot. In his review, which explored the changes since 2010, he highlighted five policy areas:
“—Give every child the best start in life —Enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives —Create fair employment and good work for all —Ensure a healthy standard of living for all —Create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities”.
The key messages from that review make stark reading. This is one of the strongest:
“The amount of time people spend in poor health has increased across England since 2010. As we reported in 2010, inequalities in poor health harm individuals, families, communities and are expensive to the public purse. They are also unnecessary and can be reduced with the right policies.”
In a note that I think all noble Lords will have received from Crisis and other voluntary organisations, they point out that, as it stands, people who experience the most extreme health inequalities, such as those who are homeless, sex workers, Gypsy, Roma, Travellers, vulnerable non-UK nationals and people with substance misuse issues, encounter significant barriers to accessing and receiving the healthcare that meets their needs. These barriers can include stigma, the lack of a fixed address or ID, fragmented services, the lack of continuity of care because of unstable accommodation, and lack of awareness from healthcare professionals of specific needs.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, is taking part remotely in these proceedings and I now call him to speak.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, Professor Sir Michael Marmot’s work, to which my noble friend just alluded, has shown that health inequalities have widened across England in the last 10 years. The impact of these inequalities has been both exemplified and amplified by Covid-19. I support Amendments 11, 14 and others that address this massively important problem and I fully agree with my noble friend’s analysis.
Health is powerfully influenced by the social, economic and environmental conditions in which people live and work. Place-based and whole systems are therefore vital to improving health and reducing inequalities. This is recognised in the NHS Long Term Plan and the move towards integrated care.
Sir Michael endorsed the findings of the Creative Health report of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Well-being, which in 2017 documented over 100 studies on how the arts and creative activities have supported health. In 2019, the World Health Organization’s scoping review of the role of the arts in improving health and well-being provided evidence that creative activities could mitigate the detrimental impact of stressful environments and the negative health impacts of growing up in disadvantaged conditions. Engaging with the arts, the evidence shows, can improve social cohesion and lead to a reduction in social inequalities in deprived areas. It can build skills and mutual support, which can improve social mobility. The positive effects of the arts can make a particular impact on early years development, as is demonstrated in the evidence provided to DCMS by Dr Daisy Fancourt et al in 2020.
Social prescribing, through bringing people together in shared creative activity and voluntary work, helps to build social capital and better health and well-being in deprived communities.
Research by the MARCH network, a UKRI-funded research programme, has shown that the health benefits of engaging with cultural and other community activities are felt by all, regardless of socioeconomic status. We know that there is a social gradient in participation in cultural and community activities and that those living in areas of higher deprivation are less likely to engage in them. However, the MARCH research indicates that when individuals in areas of high deprivation do engage, the mental health and well-being benefits may be particularly great for them, even greater than for those who live in more affluent areas. Therefore, targeted investment in cultural and community opportunities in areas where people are likely to benefit most can help to reduce health inequalities.
For instance, in Manchester, the Natural Cultural Health Service of the Whitworth art gallery is encouraging activities by local residents from diverse backgrounds that promote physical and mental well-being. Contact, a theatre company, supported by the Wellcome Trust, offers a health and well-being space for use by local community groups. Manchester Camerata has moved its base to Pugin’s wonderful Gorton abbey, in a deprived part of the city. Its musicians are working to support people with dementia and the Camerata is providing a resident composer and musician for local schools. Evaluation has shown that encouraging children to express themselves through music-making has raised their confidence and self-esteem, with a positive impact on their schoolwork and all the implications for them and their community that can follow from that.
The Big Noise project, run by Sistema Scotland in Govanhill since 2008, provides free orchestral training to young people. Evaluation has shown positive health outcomes as a result of improved confidence, social and other skills and emotional well-being. Similarly, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has run its In Harmony project to improve the life chances of children through music, and since 2009 has benefited 2,500 children in the Everton and Anfield areas of Liverpool.
The cultural and VCSE sectors have a key role to play in reducing health inequalities and should be fully embedded at systems level and in the health decision-making process. Integrated care partnerships provide the gateway to making this happen.
The National Centre for Creative Health, a charity of which I am chair, is currently working in partnership with NHS England in pilot programmes with four ICSs with a specific focus on mitigating health inequalities. We are looking to establish how best to embed creative health into healthcare strategies. We are also hosting a further AHRC-funded research project called Mobilising Cultural and Natural Assets to Combat Health Inequalities. The outputs will support ICSs to maximise the potential of the arts and natural assets in improving health and reducing inequalities.
I hope the Minister will assure us that the Government recognise the indispensable role of the arts and culture, as well as engagement with nature, in mitigating health inequalities, and that the system created by the Bill—designed, I hope, with an unambiguous purpose to reduce health inequalities—will fully embrace such non- clinical approaches.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for introducing this group of amendments. My name is attached to her amendments, and I have some amendments in my name; I thank noble Lords who have added their names. I will speak in particular to Amendments 11 and 14 but what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said applies to other amendments, and I agree with them and have added my name to them.
Covid-19 has exposed and exacerbated existing health inequalities in England, and the Government have committed to “levelling up” the country. Progress on national NHS commitments related to reducing health inequalities has been slow in recent years, and NHS England has urged local systems to accelerate action to tackle health inequalities after the pandemic. A step change is clearly needed, yet the Bill’s current provisions on health inequalities amount to no more than the same: transposing existing inequality duties from CCGs to the new NHS ICBs.
One area where there is clearly scope for improvement is strengthening reporting on health inequalities. There is currently no explicit requirement for NHS England to publish national guidance about which performance data and indicators relevant to health inequalities should be collected, analysed and reported on by NHS bodies. The NHS’s current system oversight framework, as a means to define national priorities and monitor the overall performance of local systems, also includes little in the way of concrete measures on health inequalities, with those that are included being focused primarily on shorter-term Covid-19-related equity impacts.
The amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, addresses this. It would require NHS England to publish guidance on collecting, analysing, reporting and publishing data on all factors or indicators relevant to health inequalities. I hope the Government will commit to considering this amendment in order to drive more action on inequalities and enable better tracking of progress across different areas.
The only thing I would add to this is the NHS Priorities and Operational Planning Guidance that was published by NHS England just before Christmas—in fact, on 24 December; it could not be much nearer to Christmas. On page 6 of this, as one of the priorities for 2022-23, NHS England asks local health systems to:
“Continue to develop our approach to population health management, prevent ill-health and address health inequalities—using data and analytics to redesign care pathways and measure outcomes with a focus on improving access and health equity for underserved communities.”
It also states that in delivering all the NHS’s priorities, it intends to maintain the
“focus on … tackling health inequalities by redoubling our efforts on the five priority areas”—
already mentioned by the noble Baroness—
“set out in guidance in March 2021.”
It reiterates that ICSs will take a lead role in tackling health inequalities and notes:
“Improved data collection and reporting will drive a better understanding of local health inequalities in access to, experience of and outcomes from healthcare services, by informing the development of action plans to narrow the health inequalities gap. ICBs, once established, and trust board performance packs are therefore expected to be disaggregated by deprivation and ethnicity.”
On page 29 onwards there are further details about this.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, this is my first contribution to the debate on the Bill and, listening to earlier exchanges, it struck me how many were being made by those who had either run the NHS as administrators or, indeed, as Ministers. I can join that happy band. I was a Health Minister in 1979 and put on the statute book the Health Services Act 1980, abolishing area health authorities. Nostalgia has overcome me, as phrases I used 40 years ago about streamlining the structure and making it more efficient have been recycled in debates on this Bill.
My first piece of health legislation followed the appointment of commissioners to run the Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham Area Health Authority which was breaking its cash limits and behaving illegally. Unfortunately, our suspension was also illegal, and I had to pilot through the other place the National Health Service (Invalid Direction) Bill, with much hilarity at my expense from the Opposition. So, more than 40 years later, it is good to join in another debate about NHS reorganisation. Today’s debate about inequality was actually raised 40 years ago: noble Lords may remember the Black report on inequalities in health. I was rereading it last night and it struck me how many of the 37 recommendations made 40 years ago are still relevant today.
Mine is the lead name on four amendments, but I plan to say very little on Amendment 66 and leave it to the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Faulkner, to make the case for a specific reference to smoking as a key factor in reducing health inequalities.
As we have heard, the Bill gives integrated care boards a responsibility to reduce inequalities in access to health services and in health service outcomes. The biggest cause of inequalities are factors such as smoking, obesity and alcohol, particularly smoking, which is responsible for half the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest in society—an issue that was raised an hour ago during Oral Questions. Others will say more about the imperatives of tackling these hazards to health.
I will focus instead on Amendment 152 in my name and will also speak briefly to Amendments 156 and 157. These amendments are supported by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, who will focus on housing and why legislation is necessary, and by the noble Baronesses, Lady Neuberger and Lady Watkins. I am grateful to Crisis, the homeless charity, for its briefing.
I commend the Government’s welcome commitment to tackle health inequalities and hope the forthcoming White Paper on levelling up will have a strong section on this, following the recent report of the Public Services Select Committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong. I hope that will put flesh on the bone of what risks becoming more of a slogan rather than a policy, meaning different things to different people. I hope the levelling up White Paper will directly address inequalities in health.
As the Secretary of State for Health has said recently, we must tackle the “disease of disparity”, and these amendments highlight the experiences of those groups who are undoubtedly at the worst end of that disease. In current NHS policy and documents, these groups are referred to as “inclusion health populations”—a term used to highlight the need for health services to overcome the social exclusion and marginalisation that many people face, resulting in dire consequences for their health. That group includes rough sleepers, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, vulnerable non-UK nationals and people with substance misuse issues.
These people develop health conditions usually seen in people in their 70s and 80s up to 40 years earlier, and often die from them. Tragically, the average age of death among people experiencing homelessness is 46 for men and 42 for women. Clearly, these are not health outcomes we should accept for anyone. The solutions exist, and chime very well with what the Health and Care Bill seeks to do. However, it currently does not go far enough.
The Bill places a welcome emphasis on integrated services. To tackle the health injustices for people who are socially excluded, we need holistic, integrated health services to meet their needs, and we need them everywhere. They do exist in some places; they are also referred to as “inclusion health services” and they have a significantly positive impact. For example, Pathway, the leading health charity for inclusion health, has helped 11 hospitals in the UK create multidisciplinary teams of doctors, nurses, social care professionals and housing workers. These teams support over 4,000 patients every year who are homeless, with very positive outcomes. An audit of Pathway’s services in 2017 showed a 37% reduction in A&E attendances, a 66% reduction in hospital admissions and an 11% reduction in bed days. However, despite these successful services, inclusion health services are not currently commissioned at the scale required, and access to them is a postcode lottery. King’s College London found that 56.5% of homelessness projects in England do not have a specialist GP inclusion health service in their area—hence the amendments on best practice.
During my time as a Housing Minister, I saw the impact of social exclusion on people, including how not having a stable home to live in is devastating for people’s physical and mental health. Therefore, working closely with expert organisations across these sectors including Crisis, Pathway, St Mungo’s and many others, we want to amend the Bill to ensure a strategic focus in the new systems being set up to help the most socially excluded in our society.
The amendments introduce two important and necessary changes. The first would place a duty on integrated care partnerships to have due regard to the need to improve health outcomes for inclusion health populations when they create their healthcare strategies. Placing a duty on partnerships will make it clear that inclusion health is a strategic focus, and that should follow through and be reflected in the resourcing and commissioning decisions of integrated care boards. I do not regard the requirement to “have regard to” as an onerous imposition.
The second change would make clear the importance on health outcomes of having a stable home. It would mean that, in addition to the partnership having to consider health and social care in its strategic integration arrangements, it would also need to consider housing. This possible change would make clear that housing is on a par with health and social care services. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will say more about this.
With the advent of the Everyone In scheme in March last year, which sought to provide safe accommodation for those who without it would have continued to sleep rough, we saw how critical it is for people to have a place of their own. We need to build on that success and prevent rough sleepers drifting back on to our streets. My amendment legislates to ensure that health, social care and housing services continue to work more closely together to consistently support people who too often fall through the gaps between these services.
These amendments are firmly within the scope of the Bill. They will complement and strengthen its welcome aims to integrate health services across the whole system and tackle health inequalities. The amendments are neither overly prescriptive nor bureaucratic; their aims are simple. I look forward to my noble friend the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Greengross (CB)
My Lords, in October last year, during the debate on the Ageing: Science, Technology and Healthy Living report, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, confirmed that the Government maintain their commitment to ensuring that people live at least five extra healthy and independent years of life. A practical first step towards achieving that goal would be to ensure that tackling health inequalities is a priority in this legislation, and the amendments in this group seek to achieve that. We know that health inequality is a problem that has been getting worse, and we need to tackle it as an emergency. I support the amendments in the group calling for NHS England, NHS trusts and the integrated care strategy to collect relevant information and data, as well as to take the necessary action to prevent health inequalities and improve healthy living.
In 2010, as we know, Sir Michael Marmot published his report on health equity, finding that social position determined people’s health outcomes and that people at the lower end of the social gradient had worse health. At the time, the report recommended that the focus on improving this should not be targeted just at those from the most disadvantaged parts of the country but should take a universal approach to improving health outcomes, which is very much needed. The report highlighted the economic benefits of addressing health inequalities. In particular, it raised the issue of lost productivity, increased spending on welfare and lost tax revenues due to people having to leave work as a result of poor health.
Just before the pandemic, in 2020, Sir Michael Marmot did his 10-year review, and we know how alarming the findings of that report were. For the first time, life expectancy had stalled in the UK. In the poorest 10% in England, the life expectancy of women actually declined between 2010 and 2012 and between 2016 and 2018. Mortality rates for people between 45 and 49 years old increased, and in many cases those were deaths of despair, due to suicide or substance abuse. That is terrible news. The level of child poverty has also increased in the UK to 22%—compare that with Norway, for example, where child poverty is 10%. That is also alarming. The number of years lived in poor health across England has increased and continues to be worse in the poorest parts of the country.
We hear much about the so-called levelling-up agenda from the Government. One finds it hard not to dismiss it as little more than a glib and somewhat trite slogan, because there is little to back it up in real policy to try to address issues such as health inequality. However, I am an optimist and I see the Bill as a step towards trying to address these challenges. But to do this effectively we must have a better understanding of the drivers of health inequality. We must have plans at a local and national level to address those drivers. This group of amendments offers some solutions to start addressing health inequalities through this legislation. I look forward very much to the Minister’s response to these amendments and to hearing his view on how the Bill is going to achieve the Government’s goal of people living at least five extra healthy and independent years of life.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, my name is attached to six amendments in this extremely important group. I should like first to turn to Amendment 14 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to which my name is attached. Other noble Lords have expressed support for amending the triple aim to explicitly include health inequalities, and I add my voice to that call. The examples given by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and others about the real-life causes and impacts of health inequalities show just how important it is that we strengthen the Bill.
I would like briefly to highlight the specific impact of mental health inequalities, which are pervasive and deeply embedded. As the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said in our debate on Tuesday, mental illness itself causes inequality. People with severe mental illness live, on average, between 15 and 20 years less than the general population. Black people are more than four times as likely as white people to be detained under the Mental Health Act. There are higher rates of suicide in the LGBT community, yet many in that community do not, or feel that they cannot, seek healthcare because of fear of discrimination. People with a learning disability often suffer with significantly worse physical and mental health than the general population.
The Centre for Mental Health Research has shown that it is often groups of people with the poorest mental health who have the greatest difficulty accessing healthcare that meets their needs and produces good outcomes for them. Unless an ICB is focused on which groups of people have the poorest health in the first place and understands why that is the case, it will, frankly, struggle to reduce the inequalities flowing from that.
Amendment 14 would amend the triple aim duties specifically for NHS England. Amendments 94, 185 and 186 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, to which I have attached my name, would replicate that explicit inclusion in the triple aim for integrated care boards, NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts.
As the noble Lord, Lord Young, has said on health inequalities, regarding them as implied in the first element of the triple aim—to consider the impact of decisions on the health and well-being of the population—does not, in my view, get us any further than where we are today. Given the statistics that I have outlined and the fact, as we have heard, that the pandemic has made things a lot worse, we clearly need to go further.
I turn now to Amendment 65, regarding the role of local health systems. It seeks to strengthen the health inequality duty placed on integrated care boards by giving them a requirement to
“implement systems to identify and monitor inequalities in physical and mental health between different groups of people within the population”
of their area. As things stand, the provisions in the Bill will ensure that NHS organisations are required to address inequalities in a similar way to how CCGs currently do it. But we need to see more ambition. The provisions would be strengthened and not merely transferred. The current requirement to “have regard to” is not enough. Local health systems have a central role to play in addressing health inequalities. They are ideally positioned to understand the challenges in their areas and, to use the jargon—for which I apologise —co-produce local solutions with communities. The development of integrated care systems gives us a new opportunity for local areas to take population health and place-based approaches, so that the vulnerable groups who have been referred to do not fall through gaps.
There is a lot about health inequalities that we do not know; we suspect, but we just do not have the data. Amendment 65 proposes that the Bill includes clearer and more direct requirements for integrated care boards to focus efforts on identifying and monitoring those inequalities. Currently, the quantity and quality of data collected is inadequate for it to be fully disaggregated against the different protected characteristics and provide a real insight into the inequalities that exist. That is why I have attached my name to Amendment 61 in the name of my noble friend Lady Walmsley, which I strongly support.
Robust information and data are prerequisites for any action. Improved data collection—both on health services and on wider inequalities in the area—will lead to a far better assessment of what needs to be done, particularly in areas such as public mental health and the local NHS workforce. I will quote one statistic about GPs. A GP working in a practice serving the most deprived patients will, on average, be responsible for the care of almost 10% more patients than a GP serving a more affluent area. This simply cannot be right.
I will end by quoting from work we have already heard about—the work of Professor Sir Michael Marmot. It needs no introduction. He has demonstrated that efforts to address health inequalities will benefit society as a whole. The NHS Long Term Plan states:
“While we cannot treat our way out of inequalities, the NHS can ensure that action to drive down health inequalities is central to everything we do.”
I urge the Government to ensure that the Bill does just that.
Lord Desai (Non-Afl)
My Lords, as an NHS patient but not an expert, I will say one small thing about inequalities. Given the way in which the NHS is structured, with no money paid up front and with excess demand and inadequate supplies because of budget shortages, it is forced to allocate treatment by queuing—and queuing, obviously, means that people have to wait.
There is a fallacy that somehow the poor have more time than the rich. In my experience it would improve matters immensely if, when appointments are given, there was less delay in the patient seeing the person whom they are supposed to see. I know that, right now, there are standard regulations that cover these matters, so that people end up waiting three hours. I have done that. But my time is not as valuable as that of someone poorer. You do not measure the value of your time by your income. So it would improve matters if the allocation of services were made using communication devices. This would waste less of patients’ time and help them better access services.
The Lord Bishop of Carlisle
My Lords, I will speak on behalf of my noble friend the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. She has added her name to Amendment 65, and we on these Benches support the other amendments in this group that seek to reduce health inequalities. As we have heard, these amendments would help to ensure that the Bill does not forget the underserved and disadvantaged in our society, many of whom have been mentioned already.
In the Christian and Jewish faiths, there is a Biblical concept—shalom—which embodies a sense of flourishing, generosity and abundance. Shalom can be summarised as experiencing wholeness, or a state of being without gaps. This is reflected in the World Health Organization’s definition of health, which is about not only the absence of disease but mental, physical and social well-being. It is a vision for individuals and for the whole of society. Our efforts to design a more holistic health service are, in effect, aimed at achieving that sort of shalom. We see this clearly in the decision made to place 42 integrated care systems across the country. What is not yet apparent is the relationship of these systems and boards to the wider community.
This Bill must seek to involve local communities—and not just professionals—in the reduction of health inequalities. These amendments highlight the monitoring of both physical and mental inequalities, take account of the experiences of young people and children and place more emphasis on the strength of local interventions to help reduce and prevent health inequalities. I commend them wholeheartedly to your Lordships’ House and to the Minister.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, I rise in support of these amendments, in particular Amendment 66 in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Young of Cookham and Lord Faulkner of Worcester.
This amendment would expand the duties of integrated care boards. We want them to exercise their functions with respect to reducing inequalities relating to
“modifiable risk factors, such as smoking.”
Our aim is to help the Government achieve their manifesto commitments to reduce health inequality, level up and increase healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035. This amendment would mean that integrated care boards would have a responsibility to reduce inequalities in access to health services and the outcomes achieved. They would also be responsible, in consultation with partners such as local health and well-being boards, for drafting joint five-year plans to explain how they would discharge their responsibilities, including those to reduce inequalities.
At present, there are significant inequalities in both patient access to health services and in the outcomes achieved. The biggest causes of inequalities in health outcomes are behavioural risk factors, such as smoking, obesity and alcohol. As the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, said, smoking alone is responsible for half the difference in life expectancy between the richest and poorest in society. It is a greater source of health inequality than social position and it remains the leading cause of premature death in this country.
We all hope that the integrated care systems will contribute significantly to reducing inequalities in smoking and other behavioural issues, but they are likely to succeed only if addressing such modifiable risk factors becomes a core function of the NHS, working in collaboration with local authorities. Amendment 66 would ensure this.
The difference in healthy life expectancy between those living in the most and least deprived areas of England is around 19 years for both men and women—in other words, almost two decades. Let us look at one place in particular. As measured by the index of multiple deprivation, Blackpool is, sadly, top of the table of the most deprived local districts in the country. Over the last decade it has consistently had one of the highest smoking rates in the country, at over 20%. Most distressingly, more than 20% of mothers in Blackpool are smokers at the time they give birth. So our amendment is needed because the recently published NHS inequalities strategy—which is impressive in parts—does not address the behavioural causes of health inequalities. In fact, it says nothing about them at all.
The Government’s inequality strategy sets out five clinical areas that are crucial to improving health outcomes for the poorest 20% in society. They are chronic respiratory disease, serious mental illness, early cancer diagnosis, maternity and—last but not least—identifying people with high blood pressure who need to be pre-treated to prevent heart attacks and strokes. In all these areas, behavioural factors such as smoking, obesity and alcohol very significantly increase the dangers to health. If appropriate action is taken, it can greatly improve patient outcomes and, at the same time, reduce pressure on our NHS.
To take just one example, chronic respiratory disease is caused primarily by smoking. It is estimated that smoking is responsible for 90% of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but one-third of patients diagnosed with COPD carry on smoking. There is nothing in the NHS England inequalities strategy about this, and no target for reducing smoking rates among those with chronic respiratory disease. Yet stopping smoking is the most effective and cost-effective treatment. Only by quitting smoking can those with COPD prevent further decline in lung function.
Smoking, obesity and alcohol are also causally linked to cancer and hypertension. People with mental health conditions die on average 10 to 20 years earlier than the general population. Smoking is the single largest factor in this shocking difference. The question we must therefore ask today is this: given that modifiable behaviour risk factors are core to all five identified clinical focus areas, why are they not included in the NHS England inequality strategy? Perhaps it is because the Government do not see addressing these population-level health risk factors as a core responsibility of the NHS.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
My Lords, I am delighted to speak to this group of amendments, which I support; I am particularly delighted to speak to Amendment 156, as one of its co-sponsors. I very much support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Young, who has highlighted the appalling health disparities faced by people who are the most socially excluded. I, too, ask the Government to recognise how amending the Bill in the way proposed would help them to realise their ambitions in this area.
We know that the level of ill health among people who would be considered under inclusion health is significant. We have heard the shamefully low average age of death for people experiencing homelessness in England and Wales. We also know that the life expectancy of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities is around 10 to 12 years fewer than that of the general population, although one study has found that this gap can be as high as 28 years. This disparity in life expectancy clearly demonstrates the devastating impact of extreme social exclusion.
It is clear to me that the health and social care system has a significant role to play in tackling the health inequalities experienced by these groups. These amendments would facilitate crucial progress towards that and encourage social enterprise involvement to reach the most socially excluded individuals. We have seen examples of this at the relatively new Plymouth dentistry school, where the training clinic has been set up as a social enterprise to serve some of the poorest people in Plymouth.
In relation to Amendment 156 in particular, we know that NHS services must be integrated with wider services to reflect how people’s lives work. A main aim of the Bill is integration, yet integration could not be more important for the groups that experience the most complex needs and require very effective, co-ordinated care. As I know from my time in nursing, there has been a historic lack of integration between housing, health and social care, yet housing is fundamental to reducing health inequalities. Without integration across these different systems, people will continue to develop acutely poor health.
People who experience social exclusion, and extreme health inequalities as a result, often fall through the gaps in the provision of primary and secondary care, mental health and substance misuse services, health and social care, and even health and wider systems, such as housing. For example, we know that people experiencing homelessness attend A&E six times as often as people with a home, are admitted to hospital four times as often, and stay three times as long. One study has found that homeless people attend A&E 60 times more than the general population. This has tragic results for the individual and also places incredible strain on our healthcare system.
We must act to alleviate the pressures on the NHS where we can. Severe and multiple disadvantage is conservatively estimated to cost society more than £10 billion a year. It is clear that the cost of doing nothing is too high, both to the individual suffering severe health inequalities and to the NHS. This amendment would help address these issues by ensuring that housing is considered by integrated care partnerships. It is non-mandatory, therefore speaking to the Government’s aims of enabling local decision-making and flexibility, but would ensure that partnerships think of the important role that housing plays by providing a stable place from which people can then engage with wider health services. A wide range of expert organisations are supportive of this amendment and related Amendments 152 and 157, including Crisis, Social Enterprise UK, Doctors of the World, and Friends, Families and Travellers.
The NHS must work effectively for all who are entitled to use it, including those who need it most. If we get access and outcomes right for the most marginalised in our society—those who experience the poorest health —we will likely get access and outcomes right for everyone. That is why I call on the Government to support the amendments in this group.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, Amendments 68 and 95 are in my name. I declare my role as president of the Rural Coalition. I support the broad drift of these amendments, which engage with the important issue of reducing inequalities.
Rural health and social care has often presented challenges in terms of proximity to services, the types of services available within a local area and the demographics of rural areas. It is complicated. Rural areas have a higher proportion of older residents, which is always a greater burden on healthcare services compared with areas with younger populations.
Furthermore, a variety of issues that feed into rural health and social care are beyond the remit of the Bill. In March 2017, Defra produced its Rural Proofing practical guidance to help policymakers assess the impact of policies on rural areas. At the time, this was a welcome initiative to ensure that rural interests were being adequately considered and, to quote the report, that
“these areas receive fair and equitable policy outcomes.”
Unfortunately, concerns have since grown among rural groups that this guidance has become a sort of bureaucratic box-ticking exercise in Whitehall that does not take into account the complexities of rural life.
Funding allocations are often the result of specific metrics or formulas, many of which disadvantage rural communities. For example, a 2021 report by the Rural Services Network, Towards the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, highlighted how many of the post-Brexit levelling-up funds disadvantaged poor rural areas due to way in which they measured poverty. The Department for Transport’s own 2017 statistics showed that, on average, travel from rural areas to either a GP or hospital was 40% longer by car and 94% longer via public transport when compared with travel in urban locations.
Further, 2017 figures from Rural England highlighted the higher rates of delayed transfer of care from hospitals in rural areas: 19.2 cases per 100,000 compared with 13 per 100,000 in urban locations. Analysis by the RSN has shown that, when compared with predominately urban areas, rural local authorities received significantly less grant funding per head to pay for services such as social care and public health responsibilities, in spite of the fact that they generally deal with older populations. Other problems include limited intensive care capacity in rural areas, the loss of local services through amalgamations, the relatively few specialist medical staff in rural areas, and the general staff shortage and retention issues facing rurality.
It is commendable that the Government have legislated in this Bill to introduce a duty on integrated care boards to reduce inequalities between patients with respect to their ability to access health services. My amendments would extend this principle and reduce those health inequalities with respect to where someone lives, whether it is an urban or rural area, and place a duty on ICBs to co-operate with each other for the purpose of reducing healthcare access inequalities. In effect, this is a statutory rural-proofing requirement.
This duty to consider rural access when reducing inequalities extends to co-operation between ICBs because rural areas often exist on the periphery of a large geographical region where patients in one area may reside closer to crucial services in a neighbouring board. Naturally, rural areas lack the economies of scale of urban areas, and greater cross-ICB co-operation will be required to utilise joint resources most effectively when delivering different services to rural areas that fall within border zones of ICBs.
One area where a collaborative approach between ICBs will be crucial for rural areas in the near future is the current reorganisation of non-emergency patient transport by NHS England, which will shift to ICBs shortly. Although rural areas undoubtedly are being considered as part of this re-organisation, patient transport is already a rural inequality that needs addressing. Putting rural proofing with respect to health care on a statutory footing presents a more concrete way to implement the existing rural-proofing guidance. The need for co-operation between administrative areas and for overall plans to be rural proofed will become more essential, particularly for secondary health services, if teams of specialist clinicians become increasingly consolidated in ever fewer locations.
Can the Minister outline how the Government intend to reduce the inequalities in healthcare access and funding that many rural areas face, and how they will effectively ensure that ICBs adequately rural proof their plans in line with the Government’s own guidance?
Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased to follow all noble Lords in supporting all the amendments in this group. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Thornton on the way in which she introduced the debate when moving Amendment 11. I will speak briefly to Amendment 66, which was tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and signed by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and me.
It was enjoyable listening to the noble Lord, Lord Young, taking a voyage down memory lane to more than 40 years ago, when he was a Health Minister. He could perhaps have added that we would have become a smoke-free country rather earlier, had his advice and proposals for tobacco control been accepted at the time, and had he not been removed from health on the instruction of Sir Denis Thatcher and given another role in government. He is and remains a pioneer, and I am delighted to be behind him with his amendments; we shall come to other smoking amendments later.
Amendment 66 would require integrated care boards to address the leading preventable causes of sickness and death, particularly smoking. The Bill as drafted fails to get to the root causes of health inequalities and will have only a limited effect. Our amendment would correct this oversight as far as smoking is concerned. In 2019, there were 5.7 million smokers in England, one in seven of the adult population. As the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said, in England smoking is the leading cause of premature death, killing over 70,000 people a year and leaving 30 times as many suffering from serious smoking-related disease and disability.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, now that we are in Committee, I remind the House of my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I rise to speak to Amendments 152, 156 and 157, to which I am a signatory. I will not repeat all the excellent points made by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, and others, but I hope the Government will accept that what is being proposed is central to the success of this Bill, and that is because the NHS does not exist in a vacuum.
We know that prevention and early treatment of people’s ill-health will help them, reduce demand for hospital beds and lead to a more efficient use of public resources. We know well enough that poor housing contributes to poor health. These amendments to Clause 21 present an opportunity for the Government to demonstrate their commitment to truly tackling health inequalities and, in particular, to ending rough sleeping, by the end of this Parliament in 2024. As the noble Lord, Lord Young, and others have clearly laid out, the beneficial impact on a range of groups experiencing social exclusion and poor health outcomes would be significant. That means that there must be integrated approaches between housing, health and social care at the point when integrated care partnerships create their healthcare strategies.
Research shows that an average local authority might have around 1,400 people a year experiencing multiple disadvantage, including support needs around mental and physical health, homelessness and contact with the criminal justice system. Around 58,000 people a year experience the most severe disadvantage. It is therefore essential that local integrated care partnerships consider all the ways in which health intersects with housing.
I was concerned to read recently that in July last year 77% of women leaving our largest women’s prison became homeless. Homelessness inevitably leads to poor health. As Professor Dame Carol Black’s recent review of drugs highlighted, unless housing and housing support needs are addressed, the health service will fail to improve people’s health consistently, regardless of how effective the commissioned health services may be.
We know this approach works. The Government’s welcome effort to vaccinate people who were homeless went alongside a push for not only GP registration but provision of emergency accommodation. This acknowledged the need to bring together support into housing alongside access to basic health services. Indeed, we have seen the Government revisit this approach just before Christmas, with the Protect and Vaccinate scheme. Since the Government have recognised the need for this integrated approach, I cannot see why they would object to these amendments that would help continue it.
Amendments 152, 156, 157 and others seek to make our NHS systems more effective in the delivery of services to the most excluded and marginalised in our society. As it stands, people are forced to attempt to navigate a siloed and fragmented health service that does not adequately address their complex health needs. For example, one patient with alcohol and other addictions, supported by Changing Lives, could not access mental health services until after his alcohol addiction was addressed. However, with the right support from Changing Lives’ inclusion health approach, this patient is now managing abstinence from alcohol and engaging with mental health support. Crucially, his experiences highlight the challenges in addressing substance misuse in isolation, without making support available to address mental ill-health at the same time.
The Government may argue that it will be sufficient to address these concerns in guidance, but I hope they do not. I acknowledge that guidance would be beneficial in ensuring that approaches to inclusion health populations are considered within integrated care systems. However, without legislation, tackling inclusion health would become nice to do rather than something that must be done.
A recent example of this is Covid-19 vaccine uptake among people who were homeless. We know that where inclusion health services existed, there was a concerted effort to ensure good vaccine uptake, but without these specialist services we simply do not know how effective vaccination programmes have been. The only data available from July 2021 show vaccination rates to be substantially lower among people who were homeless compared to the general population.
I am aware that commissioning strategies and services for inclusion health populations is already on the agenda of some integrated care systems, but we need all integrated care systems to play their part. Guidance will not be effective enough to ensure the provision of specialist support everywhere, not just in some places.
In conclusion, the level of complexity of the marginalised and excluded experience can be met only by embedding inclusion health throughout the health and care system at the highest levels. Legislation is the most secure way to achieve this. Otherwise, there will continue to be a postcode lottery in access to the right healthcare services for these groups, resulting in that “disease of disparity” the Secretary of State wants to address.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I first join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for the thoughtful way in which she introduced this group of amendments. I support Amendment 14, in the noble Baroness’s name, and Amendments 65, 94, 186 and 195 in the name of my noble friend Lord Patel. This is a vital group of amendments, as your Lordships have already heard, because it is focused on inequalities. Clearly, no society, Government or Parliament can tolerate the inequalities that we see in both clinical outcomes and access to healthcare that have remained despite our remarkable healthcare system and the NHS. It is for that reason that it is absolutely right that, in the opportunity afforded by this Bill, inequalities are properly addressed.
More worrying is that, despite this country’s substantial investment in healthcare and the development of health systems over the past 70 years, these disparities in outcomes and access to healthcare described geographically and across different ethnicities and socioeconomic groups have continued to grow. That is despite all the success we have seen more broadly in delivering healthcare, addressing prevention and improving treatments.
It is also right to recognise that inequalities in outcomes and access to healthcare are best addressed at the local level. Through a focus on integration in not only the capacity of services but the capacity to integrate the development of policy and its execution across healthcare and through local government and the other elements of the state—education, employment, housing and so on—we will have the greatest opportunity to address social determinants of health. There has probably been no other health Bill presented to this Parliament since the creation of the NHS that provides the greatest opportunity to take that combined and collective approach.
It is therefore quite right that one turns attention to the triple aim. This is a laudable addition to the Bill, with an absolutely appropriate focus on promoting health and well-being, ensuring access to quality care for all citizens and ensuring the appropriate and effective utilisation of healthcare resources. Why not add to that triple aim a fourth clear objective to address issues of inequality? The triple aim does not mandate action, but it provides the context in which a framework should be developed locally, cognisant of the healthcare needs of the local population. An ideal framework would ensure that we drive collaboration and co-operation as required to focus activity and the allocation of resource and establish a local vision and determination to address health inequalities.
To fail to take this opportunity would be disappointing and, quite frankly, unacceptable. As we have heard in this excellent debate, if we fail to address these inequalities not only will they have a continuing and profound impact on health outcomes and access to healthcare for large numbers of our fellow citizens, but there are broader societal and economic consequences of continuing to accept inequalities in healthcare. I hope that, in answering this debate, the Minister will be able to confirm that Her Majesty’s Government are prepared to consider this issue and will put inequalities the heart of this Bill in the triple aim—becoming a quadruple aim—and will ensure that, at a local level, data collection and reporting become a primary focus of healthcare systems.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, I begin by declaring my interest as the recently departed chair of NHS Improvement. I support these amendments, especially those that seek to extend the triple aim, such as Amendments 14, 65 and 94, as the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, just set out so eloquently. It seems there is no disagreement in the Committee about the importance of addressing health inequalities. Anyone who has lived through the past two years can see that plainly and clearly, as Covid has so cruelly highlighted the health inequalities in this country. The question is how we make sure this Bill genuinely tackles the issue that we all agree about so passionately. Why is it important, as just set out by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, to put the duty to address health inequalities in the Bill?
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, I support all the amendments in his group but particularly Amendment 68, in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, about health inequalities faced by those living in rural areas. When you live in a rural area, it is often difficult physically to access a GP practice—if you do not have a car, try getting a bus in a rural area whose timetable coincides with the opening hours of your surgery—and to access health information if your internet is not up to scratch. There are many rural areas where connectivity still leaves a great deal to be desired. Pharmacies, too, can be difficult to access; although some run outreach services, they are by no means universal.
In rural areas, the important non-clinical services mentioned by my noble friend Lord Howarth are largely dependent on the voluntary sector. During the pandemic, when village halls, with their plethora of exercise, dance, art and social support services, were closed, many older people in rural areas were cut off completely, with disastrous effects on their mental health.
The problems of delivering social care in rural areas are also well known. When care workers are paid for home visits only for the time when they are in the home and not for travelling time—time that will of course be extended by the spread-out nature of those visits—it is no wonder that many private and voluntary agencies are handing back social care contracts to local authorities because they simply cannot deliver them.
Poverty, the underlying cause of inequality, is more widespread in rural areas than is often acknowledged. Escaping to the country is a nice idea, but unless you recognise the particular inequalities faced by country residents, it is not as you see it on the television. Moving as a couple approaching retirement is a different picture when one—usually the husband, both the gardener and the driver—dies, leaving an isolated widow in declining health. The cost of fuel is also more acute in rural areas, and you will find many older people who may own a nice-looking cottage having to choose between heating and eating, with consequential effects on their health and future dependency.
I very much hope that when the Minister replies, he will emphasise that when integrated care boards are considering the provision of services for the purposes of achieving equality of access for patients, they will consider those living in all parts of the board’s area.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, this is my first intervention on the Bill. I draw the Committee’s attention to my relevant interests in the register, namely as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and a non-executive director of Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
I support this suite of amendments—particularly Amendments 11, 14, 65, 94, 186 and 195—which explicitly puts the issue of health inequalities in the Bill and makes it central to the aims of the NHS. It also deals with reporting and holding people to account for helping to reduce health inequalities.
The reason for my support is simple. I speak as a former NHS manager who, as a rookie many years ago, in the very early 1980s, was on the general management trainee scheme. For the first three months, our aim was just to go around. I remember asking the very naive question: “Who’s responsible for quality?” I expected the person who was showing me around to say, “Everyone”, but he said, “Follow me.” We went in his car for five miles outside the hospital to the health authority. We then went into a lift, down into the basement and through lots of corridors, and finally came to a door at the end of the corridor. The door was opened and in a dimly lit room was a middle-aged woman, surrounded by piles of paper. I said, “Who’s this?” I was told, “This is Gladys. Gladys is responsible for quality.” It was seen as someone else’s job.
That is why I have cringed a little when the Minister has said, in previous debates and Answers on health inequalities, that the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities is being established. That is well and good, but that office is not responsible for reducing health inequalities; everyone in the healthcare system and its partners must work together to reduce health inequalities. That is why it is really important that this is explicit. It is not just about health issues; it is about people’s income, work, environment, green space and transport. It should be explicit in the Bill as part of the triple aims—which will become four aims—and become part of monitoring. This issue must become central because something that I have learned about the health service is that unless the centre asks for it, and asks for it to be monitored, it just does not get done because it is not seen as important. That is why monitoring this at both local and national level will hold people to account so it does not become Gladys’s responsibility.
The Bill gives us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not just to put health inequalities centrally in the Bill but to make them explicit in the way that the NHS and its partners work. With a little extra legal push to the mill, so to speak, as well as the monitoring, the data and holding people to account, I believe that we can finally start to deal with these issues in a systematic way that shows improvement and will allow the NHS and its partners to know where to push a bit harder to get this done. That is why I support the amendments.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, this debate has shown clearly that attacking health inequalities must go beyond the bounds of the NHS as the impact of external factors is massive. I remind the Government that in 2015 poor housing alone was estimated to cost over £10 billion. That was in part because of the poor housing but it was compounded by inactivity and, as a result, obesity.
We should look at the antecedents of complex problems. Marie Curie’s report Dying in the Cold revealed failures in healthcare, bereavement and grief and the challenges of providing care for those with complex needs. Learning difficulties and autism, for which we often do not know the underlying causes, are disproportionately prevalent among people who are socially excluded and at high risk of homelessness, yet for them managing homelessness alone is particularly difficult because of their overall vulnerability. It has been estimated that autism alone has a twelvefold prevalence in those who are homeless compared to the general population.
The antecedents of many of the problems go back to childhood. They carry a life sentence of their trauma, which feeds into worsening health inequalities, aggravating factors such as alcohol and drugs consumption and other behaviours. Unless we strengthen the wording in the Bill to monitor and do something about the data that comes forward, the proposal of my noble friend Lord Kakkar—it is essential that we address this as a core problem to be tackled—will not be realised. I hope that when the Minister replies he will provide some assurance that the Government will consider strengthening the wording in the Bill in the light of this debate.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, I wonder if I might be allowed to speak at this point for the simple reason that I am shortly due to take over from the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, in the Chair and if I do not contribute now, I will not be able to at all. I have no special expertise to bring to the scrutiny of the Bill, therefore this is the first time I have spoken on it and it may be the last. I want to speak in support of the contribution of my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport, right at the beginning of what has been a very long and extremely interesting debate but which, until recently, when my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley mentioned it, did not refer back to the points he raised.
In making my brief remarks, I draw attention to my own interests, which are mostly to do with the arts. I am thinking about what my noble friend Lord Howarth said about the arts sector and what it can contribute. I ask the Minister, when he comes to reply, if he would look to one side of his department—particularly towards the Department for Education and to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—for further evidence, in addition to the very strong evidence my noble friend Lord Howarth put forward, of the impact of engagement with the arts, particularly on people suffering from often multiple disadvantages.
It is very clear that the data emerging in relation to education points to a strong impact on the health, particularly the mental health and well-being, of young people in education settings when they are able to engage creatively with the arts and arts practitioners. It would be very easy, in thinking about the huge diversity of issues that have been raised here which bear on health inequality, to see engagement with the arts as a “nice to have” extra—something that, if we get everything else right, we can perhaps add in. But it is more important than that, as the evidence is now strongly beginning to show. I therefore ask the Minister not to forget what my noble friend Lord Howarth said at the beginning of the debate in his reply, and to consider very seriously how health inequalities can be properly and creatively addressed by further engagement with the arts sector.
I will say one last thing, which perhaps seems not quite at the heart of it, but it is important. My noble friend Lord Howarth, in giving his examples, spoke about arts organisations, many of which are trying to contribute to this area. To be able to do that, they need people with skills who can deliver the work. Nearly all the people who can deliver the work and have those skills are freelancers. As we all know, they have suffered hugely in the last two years as a result of the crisis that we have all been through. Freelance workers in all sectors, but particularly the cultural sector, have had a very bad time and quite a lot of them have left. I add that as an additional thing to remember when we look at the expectations we can reasonably—and should—have of the arts sector. It needs to be able to properly support the people it has to engage to deliver the work that it can do.
Lord Mawson (CB)
My Lords, I did not want to speak in this part of the discussion but I will make a few comments. I absolutely support what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, have been saying.
When I first arrived in Bromley-by-Bow 37 years ago this year, I found on my doorstep the largest artistic community outside New York and none of the systems had even noticed or understood its significance. Over the last 37 years, we have been exploring the whole arts and health agenda and the massive impact it can have on local people’s lives.
When we began to put the Olympic project together —as I said on Tuesday, I was involved in it from day one for 19 years—we took that really seriously and engaged with that large artistic and creative community in health, jobs and skills, education et cetera. That £1.2 billion development going on at the moment in the middle of the Olympic park, bringing together University College London, the London College of Fashion, Sadler’s Wells, the V&A, the BBC orchestra and others, is all about this innovation agenda. It is moving it to scale. If this is to happen, we need the systems of the state and the public sector to learn from this entrepreneurial behaviour, which is happening on the ground, in real places and now to scale, and to understand the detail of what it means for the macro systems of the NHS.
I will say more about place later today, but I thank the noble Baroness for making those points, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, because this is fundamental. It relates to the fundamental question: what is a human being? A human being is fundamentally a creative being. Health and creativity and, I suggest, entrepreneurship and doing things, are fundamentally connected.
Lord Bethell (Con)
My Lords, I came face to face with the nation’s health inequalities every morning in the departmental Covid response group, the COBRA meetings and the COBRA gold, when we went through the hospitalisation details and ICU data and heard stories from the front line of how people who had comorbidities particularly associated with obesity were filling up our hospitals as the virus spread through the country in wave after wave. That health inequality hit this country hard in very real terms. It cost a lot of lives, caused a lot of misery and cost our health system an enormous amount of money. It cost this country and its economy a huge amount of money and it is time that we came to terms with that challenge and solved the problem.
As a number of noble Lords have pointed out, the NHS must step up to its responsibilities in this area. There are complex reasons for these inequalities; some are environmental, some are behavioural and some are to do with access. But the NHS and whole healthcare system must realise that it needs to be involved in all aspects of those, and prioritise and be funded accordingly. The Bill already does an enormous amount to change the healthcare system’s priorities. Putting population at the heart of the ICSs is one really good example of that.
To anticipate some of his remarks, I know that the Minister will point to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. As the noble Lord pointed out, however, it has a tiny budget and cannot take responsibility for the nation’s health. Our councils are stony broke, as I found in my experience of dealing with them over the last two years. There is no one else to do this; this is not someone else’s problem. This is to do with the British healthcare system, and it needs to stand up to that responsibility. Zero progress has been made in the round over the last few years and we have gone backwards in the last two years in a big way. We need to make this a massive priority.
This is a fantastic Bill; I am really supportive of it. It came from the healthcare system originally. In this one area, however, there is a graphic lacuna that needs to be addressed. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, put it so well in his inimitable way. The prioritisation of inequality must be put in the Bill and it needs to be heard throughout the healthcare system that this is the new, central priority that needs to be added to everyone’s job description.
If, for some reason, we do not do that there will be huge consequences. The healthcare system is unsustainable in its current form. We cannot continue to have a large part of the population carrying grievous comorbidities or disease and afflictions which are undiagnosed or not properly mended turning up in our hospitals at a very late stage and costing a fortune to mend. These health inequalities, whether they relate to disease, injury or behavioural issues such as obesity, are costing us a fortune. Only by putting tackling inequality on the face of the Bill can we really give it the priority it deserves.
I also say to the Minister that there is a sense of political jeopardy about this as well. We went into the last election committed to levelling up on health. We have gone backwards in the last two years through no fault of the Government, but if the Government do not step up to their responsibilities in this area, and if the NHS and the healthcare system do not change their priorities, the voters will judge us extremely harshly. For that reason, I urge the Minister to listen to this debate and look very carefully at ways of amending the Bill.
Baroness Neuberger (CB)
My Lords, I want to pay tribute, as other noble Lords have, to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for her very thoughtful introduction. It is remarkable and absolutely wonderful to see consensus breaking out across the Committee. I will speak specifically to Amendments 152, 156 and 157 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, whose words on the need to make this really serious by stating it on the face of the Bill I echo.
I am a former chief executive of the King’s Fund and am currently chair of University College London Hospitals and Whittington Health. These issues are very dear to my heart and the hearts of those institutions. I also want to say thank you to Crisis for its briefing and add to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, in praise of Pathway, which has done the most extraordinary work in this area over very many years.
I want to talk particularly about the NHS-funded Find & Treat service, which was set up 13 years ago and is run by UCLH, which I chair. This service was set up in response to a TB outbreak in London and aimed to provide care for people experiencing homelessness and people facing other forms of social exclusion. The service did exactly what it says on the tin: it went out and found people—and still does—who were at risk of contracting TB, wherever they were sleeping, and offered them diagnosis and treatment. Back in 2011, a study concluded that this service had been not only effective in helping to treat people with TB who were experiencing homelessness but cost effective in doing so, both in terms of costs saved to the health service and improved quality and length of life for the people receiving care. Fast-forward a decade and the evolution of this service meant it could be similarly mobilised at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. It provided urgent and necessary care to people who continue to experience the poorest health outcomes.
The King’s Fund published a report in 2020 on delivering health and care for people sleeping rough. It supported the need for inclusion health services to be provided much more broadly than at present. Importantly, it also concluded that local leadership is absolutely vital in crafting that approach and said that local leaders should model effective partnership working across a range of different organisations.
Embedding inclusion health—I cannot say I really like the term, but everybody knows what it means—at the level of integrated care partnerships will help ensure that our healthcare system can no longer ignore, forget or overlook people who are all too often considered “hard to treat”, despite proven interventions showing the opposite. It will ensure that integrated care partnerships and systems take that vital first step towards closing the gap of the most significant health inequalities in our society by having to recognise and consider people facing extreme social exclusion and poor health outcomes in their local areas.
We all know that there will be considerable discussion during the course of this Bill on the need not to be overly prescriptive and burdensome to ICSs and ICPs by way of legal duties. But ICSs and ICPs know all too well the realities of failing to support people with complex and overlapping needs. I know that the chair of my own North Central London ICS, Mike Cooke, is sympathetic to the spirit of these amendments and believes it is important that extra steps are taken to meet the health needs of the most excluded, such as street homeless people. The chief executive of UCLH, David Probert, and the chief executive of Whittington Health, Siobhan Harrington, concur in thinking that if we extend the aspiration to reach out to excluded groups to something that all ICSs, ICPs and systems must focus on, it would be hugely beneficial for planning and joining up systems to avoid inappropriate or unnecessary admissions and poor care planning. Plenty of people want to do this within our health system.
I support Amendments 152, 156 and 157 and look forward to working with the Government and colleagues across the House and within the NHS to ensure their success in achieving a critical and long-needed systemic change to our health and care system. Addressing the needs of the most excluded has to be on the face of the Bill.
Lord Crisp (CB)
My Lords, I will make three very practical points about the impact of some of these amendments. First, on tobacco, we have heard from at least two noble Lords that half the difference in life expectancy between the rich and the poor in society is due to tobacco. It seems a no-brainer that work on this has to be continued. I also make the point that it took something like 50 years after the evidence was first available for the control of tobacco to be put into legislation, despite the efforts of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham. It is not a quick win; we need to persevere, keep the pressure on and keep this very firmly in NHS plans at all levels.
Secondly, I want to pick up on the vital point that housing needs to be much more integrated with health and care. Let me take us back in history to 1919 and the first Ministry of Health, which had responsibilities covering health, housing and planning for many years, understanding the very important links there. Covid has shown that a house and home is an absolute foundation for health and well-being in all kinds of ways. I will not labour that point at this stage in proceedings, but will pick up another that has not come up, which is how important housing is to the provision of NHS services.
Seven years ago, the Royal College of Psychiatrists asked me to look at the reasons for the pressure on admissions to mental health acute wards. I did so; I think it expected me to say that those wards needed more beds, but I came out saying that we needed more housing. I found that something like one-third of the patients in mental health acute wards in adult hospitals either had been admitted because there was nowhere else for them to go or were staying there because there was nowhere for them to live to be discharged to. Housing was the biggest issue. Of the 25 NHS trusts around the country, only about three had specific, strong links with their local housing associations. There is a really big pressure for integration there.
Thirdly and finally, I come to Amendments 152 and 157 about the so-called inclusion health services. I agree with my noble friend on the nomenclature and that the naming is rather awkward, but these are extraordinary vital. We have heard examples of services that work; the issue here is how we can make sure that those services are spread and used elsewhere. I remind the House that, when we talk about inequalities, we all, including me, talk in fairly general terms. If you have a quantum of money and invest it in the health of the well-educated middle classes, you will get a small gain. If you invested that same quantum of money in the needs of this group, you would have a massive gain. That should inspire us to keep the pressure on the Government to make sure that we put tackling inequalities absolutely at the heart of the Bill.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak more briefly than I had intended, because this has been a very long debate, absolutely full of expertise, about a suite of amendments all of which have considerable merit. I know that both Ministers on the Front Bench have been listening very carefully and have noted the consensus across the Committee that this Bill will not succeed unless it addresses very clearly the disgraceful health inequalities in this country at the moment.
Health inequality affects quality of life, life expectancy and, in particular, healthy life expectancy, which has now stalled across certain demographic groups. As we have heard, it has been analysed brilliantly by Professor Sir Michael Marmot. It affects the well-being of the patient and their family. The really sad thing is that much of it is preventable. These things are particularly rife in the poorer parts of the country, because that is where the social determinants of health such as housing, referred to by my noble friend Lord Shipley and others, have most effect. We have heard a number of statistics about health inequalities, but I shall give your Lordships just one. People living in the most deprived areas of the UK spend almost a third of their lives in poor health, compared to only about a sixth of those living in the least deprived areas. That says it all.
Unfortunately, inequalities were not at the forefront of the Government’s response to the pandemic. They suspended equality impact assessments for legislation, resisted publication of evidence of the impact of the virus on BAME individuals—as pointed out to them eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Lawrence—and failed to provide adequate isolation support for those on low incomes, forcing them to go to work. The Covid pandemic has therefore seen the biggest shift in life expectancy in the UK since World War 2: a fall of 1.2 years in males and 0.9 years in females. It is therefore essential to heed Sir Michael Marmot’s words and “build back fairer” and not just “better”.
The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, kindly mentioned the report of the Science and Technology Committee on healthy ageing. I was a member of that committee under the capable chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Patel. It became very clear from our witnesses that unhealthy ageing happens years before the person is old and depends enormously on their demographic and their lifestyle. For their sake and for the sake of the future of the NHS, for which no Government will ever be able to provide enough funding unless something is done on prevention, we must do something to level up the health outcomes of the nation. This Bill is a very good place to start all over again on that agenda.
I have added my name to Amendment 11, so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, whom I must congratulate on the way she analysed these issues at the beginning of this debate. I thank her for that. Also crucial is Amendment 14, so ably promoted by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and my noble friend Lady Tyler. Amendment 11 is an attempt to ensure that NHS England produces guidance about the collection, analysis, reporting and publication of the data which makes transparent the performance of various NHS bodies on health inequalities. Without collecting that, we cannot judge the performance of those organisations. If it is not done consistently, we cannot assess an organisation’s performance in comparison to other similar bodies. That is why such guidance must come from the top. I know that the Government want each ICS to do its own thing in a way which it considers most appropriate for its area. However, for the important objective of levelling up health outcomes across the population, judgment of performance can be made only if the data is comparable between one ICS and another or one trust and another, so we cannot leave it to them to collect the data in any way they like.
Of course, there are big issues about the resources available for the collection and analysis of data, but such information is essential if improvements are to be made. Therefore, a duty to “have regard” to guidance published by NHSE would put pressure on the organisations to so arrange their finances as to ensure adequate resources for this, and, of course, it would be cost-effective.
I also have Amendments 61 and 63 in this group. They would insert “assess and” into new Section 14Z35 inserted by Clause 20, which covers the duty of an integrated care board to reduce inequalities in access to health services across its population and in the health outcomes achieved. Although it is well known that, in general, the lower the demographic the greater the health inequalities, this is by no means uniform, even across a single local authority, let alone across a large ICS area. Indeed, even within a single local government ward, which may be fairly affluent in general, there are often pockets of deprivation. Every local councillor knows where they are. In order to devise policies and deploy services geographically in a way that improves access and outcomes for those deprived communities, the ICS needs to drill down and do the detailed work to identify where they are and what factors are damaging health. It may be poor or overcrowded housing. It may be lack of access to shops selling healthy food. It may be lack of access to leisure and sports facilities in which to take exercise. It may be poorly performing schools or overstretched primary care services. It may simply be poverty, preventing people heating their homes adequately or buying nutritious food. In rural areas, it may be lack of access to pretty well everything, as the right reverend Prelate reminded us. Whatever it is, you cannot fix it until you know what and where it is.
That is one of the reasons why we reject the new power of the Secretary of State to meddle in the reconfiguration of health services locally, but that is a debate for another time. In cases such as this, an overview will not do, and local knowledge is key. That is why we believe it is essential to mandate an ICB to do the detailed research on which to base its commissioning decisions, so that it can fulfil the duty to reduce health inequality put on it by this Bill—once it has been amended by a lot of these amendments.
Lord Kamall (Con)
You have not heard what I am going to say yet.
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate; it has been fascinating. It has touched on a number of things that I feel strongly about personally. Before we go further, and given my background and that of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, I want to assure noble Lords that we both feel very strongly about inequalities. I say that as someone who grew up in a working-class immigrant community. I was born at Whittington Hospital; I also accessed North Middlesex hospital and Chase Farm Hospital, with which I know the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, is associated, though I am not sure I will get any more points for that, to be honest.
One thing I feel strongly about, and saw in many areas when I was an MEP for London, is where the state has failed, whichever Government was in power. I have worked with non-state, local community, bottom-up projects which understood the issues in their communities far better than any national or local politician—there was sometimes even a distance between them and their local ward councillor, as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, and I were discussing the other day.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, not only for the thoughtful way in which she opened the debate and introduced the amendments but for pointing out some of the people who are often forgotten; for example, the homeless. I have worked with a number of local community homeless projects, such as the Hope Foundation in Acton and Vision Care for Homeless People. Perhaps I may also do a quick advert for the Take One, Leave One project, which is based outside Vauxhall station on Fridays, between 12 pm and 3 pm —people can leave excess clothes and homeless people can pick them up. I urge any noble Lords passing through Vauxhall station on a Friday to support this.
Sex workers, the Traveller community and drug users have been mentioned. Sometimes we think that these issues are remote from us and will not affect us—but everyone is only one of two steps away from homelessness. A broken family, mental health issues, your friends saying, after a while, “Actually, you can’t stay on my sofa any more”—where do you go? When I have met homeless people, they have quite often come from a very different place, not the stereotype that we often hear. They have come from quite a stable family, a good relationship, a good job: but two or three things have gone wrong in their life and suddenly they are homeless. It happens to many people who resort to such desperate measures.
Another thing I am slightly concerned about, if I am honest, is that when I was a young child growing up in immigrant communities, there was a distrust of authority. We see the difficulty, for example with the vaccine schemes, in trying to reach some of those communities. It was not only authority that we were quite suspicious of and concerned about but—I hope noble Lords will forgive me for using this phrase—white, middle-class do-gooders who thought they knew best what was best for us as working-class immigrant people and could tell us what was best for us, rather than listening to us and our real concerns. Quite often we felt that they had captured the agenda, and that was why the money and resources which were supposed to be helping us did not reach the people who needed help: it got captured by the white, middle-class do-gooders.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Greengross and Lady McIntosh of Hudnall, for the emphasis on the arts and creative industries. Sometimes, music and the arts are a way of overcoming this distrust, learning about the culture of those communities and also aligning the culture and the issues with some of the very real problems and tensions we face. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, talked about prevention being better than cure. It is an issue we talk about constantly in the department, and the NHS also talks about it. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, as an economist, will acknowledge that economics is often simply about the allocation of scarce resources and finding the most efficient way of achieving that.
My late father once told me, “Never forget where you came from and what you were”, and this is one of the reasons I feel very strongly, as do many noble Lords across the Committee, about the issue of inequalities. How do we tackle this, what is the best way to do it? Will putting it in the Bill solve all the problems? Actually, it will not, but we can discuss how we can make it more effective, and not just feel, “Great, we’ve got it in the Bill, job done”. It has to be more than that. As the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, it cannot just be an institutionalised Gladys; it has to be more than that. So, I am deeply grateful that we gave this issue the time it deserves. It is really important for me personally. We want to tackle health inequalities and ensure that everyone has the same opportunity to enjoy a long and healthy life, whoever they are, wherever they live and whatever their background or social circumstances.
I hope I can assure the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, with whom I have had a number of conversations about music and dementia. I have volunteered, perhaps rather rashly, to organise a fundraiser with my band and other bands for that. I hope that does not give me an excuse to lay the YouTube link to my band in the Library: I shall try to avoid that temptation.
However, to deliver on the commitment on 1 October, we launched the Office of Health Improvement and Disparities within the Department of Health and Social Care—the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, anticipated that I would say this—and we also set up a cross-government ministerial group to identify and tackle the wider determinants of poor health and health disparities. It is important that this cannot be top-down; we have to go to some of the social enterprises and local communities, but also we must not prejudge, prevent or duplicate the work of the integrated care systems in this. NHS England is already tackling health disparities through the NHS long-term plan. That sets out a clear intention to set measurable goals and to make differential allocations targeted at reducing health inequalities and disparities. This has resulted in funding increases to some of the most deprived parts of the country.
As we know, making sure that these deprived areas get the most funding does not mean it will trickle down to those who really need it; it could well be captured by some of the do-gooders I mentioned earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, talked about those targeted interventions. NHS England and NHS Improvement is also taking forward the Core20PLUS5 initiative as an approach to addressing health inequalities. This will focus on improving outcomes in the poorest 20% of the population, along with inclusion health groups and five priority clinical focus areas.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very able response, but I have to say that I am very disappointed by it. He appears to be sticking to his brief and resisting all of our amendments. I suppose this is not surprising because his brief was written before this very powerful debate. Now that he has heard the debate, I hope he will go back to the department, discuss with his colleagues, and reflect on the need to put something in the Bill to ensure that the new world of integrated care systems really addresses health inequalities.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
Hear, hear to that. As I stand in your Lordships’ House, I know that I am between noble Lords and their lunch, so I will do my best to be as quick as I can. I also feel that I need to declare an interest, as I am a non-executive director of the Whittington Trust, so my boss—the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger—is in the corner over there.
Taking Control of Goods (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2021
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Meacher
That this House regrets that the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/1288), laid before the House on 18 November 2021, fail to deal with the injustice to debtors from 2014 to the date guidance on the new Regulations took effect.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I rise to move my Motion to Regret Statutory Instrument 1288—enforced in England and Wales—on taking control of goods. Today’s debate provides an opportunity to highlight the fact that since 2014, debtors have been wrongly charged VAT on the enforcement of debt repayments, when the tax should have been charged, of course, to the creditors involved. Enforcement officers are providing a service to creditors and—believe me—not to debtors.
The VAT chargeable is upon the service to creditors, and it is those creditors who should have paid. This issue and the inaction over seven years by both government and industry to clarify the situation was drawn to my attention by the organisation Just and the debt advice services. They focused on the impact of the incorrect charges on the most vulnerable in society and the injustice involved.
I emphasise at the start that the failure to sort out this injustice over the years was principally the responsibility of previous Ministers and industry. We are grateful that the Government are finally issuing this SI, which will ensure that the injustice does not continue into the future. The reason for this Motion to Regret is the failure of this SI to deal with seven years of injustice from 2014 to 2021, which has resulted in millions of pounds of incorrect charging. This debate provides an opportunity for the Minister to clarify steps that will be taken to resolve the VAT payment injustice once and for all and to ensure that debtors are repaid where they were incorrectly charged.
Before setting out why we believe the Government must take action on these misdirected demands, I want to explain why this injustice is so serious. Of course, the link between debt problems and mental health is well established. The Money and Mental Health Policy Institute estimates that people with money problems are three times more likely to commit suicide than those without debts. The stress associated with debt is a major contributor to depression and other mental health symptoms. Additionally, money issues often affect entire households, so parents, children, family members and friends are impacted by the damaging effects of debt, not just one individual.
Given that this Government have made protecting the vulnerable one of their primary objectives and so much work has been done by our society over the past few years to make mental health a more mainstream issue that people should take seriously, helping those with money issues should be an absolute priority. Given the cost-of-living crisis in the UK at the moment, it has arguably never been a more important time to discuss these issues.
Let me outline what has been going on. In the High Court enforcement sector, judgment debts for things such as unpaid utility bills are charged to debtors: the person in debt. The creditor—the company owed money —will employ a High Court enforcement officer to recover this money. This officer will ensure that the debtor pays the money owed and will charge the debtor fees for the enforcement action taken. That is not unreasonable, you would think. On top of these fees, High Court enforcement officers will charge VAT. This in itself is not an issue, as in 90% to 95% of cases the officers act on behalf of VAT-registered debt enforcement companies. But, as I have said, this VAT should be charged to the creditor, who can recover the VAT incurred from HMRC if the company is VAT registered.
However, since 2014, the regulations have been misinterpreted by industry and, if I may say so, have been unclear. Instead of charging the VAT or a VAT-equivalent fee to the creditors, this money has been charged to the debtors, as I have said. This means that the debtors, who are already financially vulnerable and face hefty fees—often unreasonably hefty fees, I should say—on top of their debts have also wrongly been charged hundreds of additional pounds. Industry estimates that about £120 million may have been taken incorrectly from vulnerable debtors. That is over £1 million a month—a lot of money from very vulnerable people.
This practice is clearly absolutely unacceptable; how has it been going on for seven years? It is clear from documents publicly available online that the High Court Enforcement Officers Association—the membership body that represents these officers and is authorised by the Ministry of Justice—raised this issue with the ministry as early as 2015, yet no action was taken either by industry or by government. Of course, that is the fault not of current Ministers but certainly of previous ones. I want to make clear that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, wrote to me and indicated that somehow the ministry had only just heard about this in 2019. In responding, the Minister might accept that 2015 is actually the date when the ministry knew about it.
The High Court Enforcement Officers Association, authorised by the MoJ, sought legal advice from Christopher Wilson QC to clarify the issue. Wilson, in his advice, said, “HMRC recognised in 2000 that debt enforcement was a service to creditors and they should issue VAT invoices only to creditors.” Nevertheless, Wilson’s findings were inconclusive, but his most important recommendation was that the High Court Enforcement Officers Association should take the advice of leading counsel on tax matters on the issue. Again, no further action was taken after this.
Four years went by without anything changing. The issue was never addressed and was kept quiet by both government and industry. For the Government, this was a problem they themselves had created by not providing clear guidance in the regulations. Perhaps Ministers at the time felt that any action was an admission of guilt and to do nothing was probably the safest option. The industry had a strong incentive to let sleeping dogs lie: debt enforcement companies appeared cheaper to creditors because they were not charging VAT on their fees. This made them comparable to a creditor using the Government’s own bailiff services, whereby VAT is not charged. They were benefiting from collecting the extra cash from debtors.
In 2019, a new entrant to the industry, an organisation called Just, sought advice from Melanie Hall QC, a tax specialist. It did this after reviewing the previous advice issued to the High Court Enforcement Officers Association by Christopher Wilson QC—something the association and the MoJ should have done four years earlier. This kick-started the process to resolve the issue. Hall’s guidance was clear that debtors should not be charged VAT or a fee equivalent to it. This guidance provided the opportunity for Just to engage the MoJ and for the Government to provide clarity and thereby correct the situation. After six months of campaigning from Just, parliamentarians and the debt advice sector, the MoJ published draft guidance privately—I emphasise “privately”—to key stakeholders in March 2020, clarifying that debtors should not be charged VAT or an equivalent fee where creditors are not VAT-registered. Although this guidance was not perfect, it resolved 90% to 95% of debt enforcement cases going forward where debtors would otherwise have been charged VAT incorrectly.
This was a momentous step in the right direction, though the guidance was issued only privately. Sadly, this was not the end of the story. It took the MoJ a further 19 months to publish this guidance. Covid-19 undoubtedly had an impact on MoJ resources, but the delay in publishing the guidance meant that more debtors overpaid on their debts, reducing their already depleted and no doubt minimal disposable income and potentially costing them an additional £19 million over those months.
After months of silence from the MoJ, Just decided that action needed to be taken and sought an application for direction from the Royal Courts of Justice. This meant taking the Government to court and allowing the court to clarify whether this practice should continue. The prospect of losing in court galvanised the Government. I want to emphasise this point: just four minutes before the judgment hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice, the MoJ published its guidance and promised to lay a statutory instrument to clarify the existing regulations. I will leave it to noble Lords to consider whether we would be having this SI had there not been the court case.
That brings us to today. Statutory Instrument 1288 makes clear in Regulation 18(1) that
“where a creditor is VAT registered the enforcement agent may not recover from the debtor VAT or the sum equivalent to VAT on the fees or disbursements.”
I want to clarify that I warmly welcome the clarity provided by this statutory instrument. As I said, my reason for tabling a Motion to Regret to this SI concerns the failure of this crucial document to address the injustices of the past seven years. It is silent on the need for those who have been wrongly charged VAT on the activities of enforcement officers to be repaid. Surely, they should be.
This is especially important because the statute of limitations outlines that there is only a six-year window in which debtors could rightfully claim for this money to be returned to them. This inaction means that, sadly, for some debtors, it is already too late to get their money back. I want these vulnerable people to know that parliamentarians are aware of the injustice they have suffered. Even more importantly, I want to make sure that Ministers have considered what action they should take to ensure repayment of the money wrongly paid by debtors over the past seven years. I have already emphasised the importance of this money to the most vulnerable indebted families. A few hundred pounds could make the difference for someone’s children to eat three meals a day for the rest of the month or for a family to heat their home over the winter months. The sort of sums we are talking about can be really crucial for them. It may not be crucial to any of us, but for these families it really is.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, in her very clear and lengthy exposition of the position. I applaud her efforts and seek to follow in her footsteps.
In his Written Statement on 18 November, the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, James Cartlidge, said:
“While we take the view that the taking control of goods legislation when considered … with the common law position permits the recovery of VAT costs from debtors in this way, we have accepted … that this is an area where it would be beneficial to set out the position in regulations to put the matter beyond doubt.”—[Official Report, Commons, 18/11/21; col. 34WS.]
Well, they have done that, but some questions remain.
In enforcing a debt there are three parties: the judgment creditor, the judgment debtor and the enforcement agent. What this instrument does is permit the enforcement agent to recover from the judgment debtor a sum of money equivalent to VAT on his costs and expenses, even though the judgment creditor is not registered and therefore not liable to collect or account for VAT to the Treasury.
A number of questions arise. First, what if the enforcement agent is himself not registered for VAT? How does he account to the Treasury for a sum equivalent to VAT? Would he not just pocket it? What happens to that money? Secondly, when did the common law take cognisance of VAT? Perhaps the Minister will explain the meaning of Mr Cartlidge’s reference to the “common law position”? I find it difficult to comprehend why, if the judgment debtor would not have to pay VAT to the judgment creditor, the common law would force him to pay it to the tipstaff on behalf of the bailiff.
Section 90 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 gives power to the Lord Chancellor if he “considers it necessary or expedient” to make
“supplementary, incidental or consequential provision”
or
“transitory, transitional or saving provision”
by regulations. In Schedule 12—on which this instrument also depends—paragraph 13(3) deals with taking control of goods, paragraph 42 with the sale of goods, and paragraphs 50(4) and 50(7) with the application of the proceeds. How is there power to make this instrument, which, in effect, imposes taxation upon the judgment debtor which he would not have to pay if the judgment creditor were registered for VAT? It is arbitrary; it is luck, a matter of chance.
The Minister will appreciate that if you have worked, as I have, as a solicitor in a close mining community in north Wales—not dissimilar to Tredegar, I may say—there is always concern about the activities of bailiffs and their tactics. I include in that claiming fees for visits to the debtor which were never made, or where the knock on the door was particularly soft and a second visit follows. Clients are not aware or made aware of their ability to go to court to tax the bills for their expenses, and these are not inconsiderable sums. If it is council tax, parking fines, or a debt under £1,500, for example, it is £75 for a letter, a £235 fixed fee for a visit to your home and a £110 fixed fee for taking and selling your possessions. Over £1,500, there is an extra fee of 7.5% on each of the latter two stages. A High Court judgment of under £1,500 attracts fixed fees of £190 for a visit, £495 for failing to keep to an enforcement agreement and £525 for taking and selling your belongings. If it is over £1,500, 7.5% is added to the enforcement and sale fees.
We are about to face a period of inflation, high interest rates and a rise in the cost of living. This will be familiar to those of us who are old enough but not to the youngsters raising their families. I hope somebody judicially reviews this instrument because I do not think it is properly made and I very much hope it will come back to haunt what is left of this Government.
Lord Best (CB)
My Lords, I support this Motion to Regret in the name of my noble friend Lady Meacher. The last thing needed by those trying to deal with a problem debt is an extra 20% charge on top of the collection costs in tax that should clearly have been levied on the creditors, not the debtors. It is surely a great injustice for debtors to have been charged VAT when they should not have been and to have to go to considerable lengths to recover money they have been falsely charged. It is certainly a matter of deep regret and the remedies proposed by my noble friend seem entirely justified.
Perhaps I could take this opportunity, on the subject of bailiffs, to note that there is considerable political and practitioner interest in bailiff reform. Will the Minister reaffirm the Government’s support for the enforcement conduct authority as organised by the Centre for Social Justice in partnership with both the bailiff sector and the debt advice sector? Impressive work has been done by the CSJ in securing agreement between those representing bailiffs and those providing debt advice, such as the charity StepChange. This now needs government to take matters forward and grant statutory powers to this new body to give it real teeth. Perhaps the Minister could comment.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest. A close family member was supported by StepChange, and to say that its engagement and support were life-changing is an understatement.
This is an issue which has united parliamentarians from across both Houses and both sides of the House, as well as the advice sector. It is right that the matter is before us, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for giving us the opportunity to consider it today. I also join her in thanking Just for its briefing and, probably more importantly, for its campaigning on this issue. As she rightly said, I am not sure we would be here today if Just had not taken it as far as it had.
As we have heard, enforcement officers have been incorrectly charging VAT to debtors since 2014. The Government, I think, agree that debtors should not be paying the VAT and Ministers have confirmed this at the Dispatch Box previously. When the matter was raised in Parliament by my noble friend Lord Stevenson of Balmacara in 2019, the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, said on behalf of the Treasury that
“any VAT due is payable by the creditor who receives the service. The debtor is not required to pay the VAT.”
As Parliamentary Answers go, that is quite unequivocal. That should have instigated an immediate reset of VAT charging at that point. It would have been nice if the MoJ had listened to the Treasury then.
The SI deals with the charging of VAT and ensures that, going forward, High Court enforcement officers—HCEOs—do not charge debtors. That is to be welcomed. The move should be to the creditors. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, we are concerned that the Government are not tackling the historic overcharging that has been taking place for at least the last seven years. The Government accept that debtors have been unfairly taxed, so can the Minister please explain why the Government are not committing to providing—as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has outlined—tax refunds or other systems to resolve this mischarge to debtors? There is an established principle when someone has been financially wronged: we saw it regarding PPI and heard it in the news this morning in a recommendation from the ombudsman about incorrect benefits payments. Why are the Government taking this position?
There may well be another simple solution. I look for a response from the Minister to this. It could possibly be dealt with as an administration task. The MoJ could order debt enforcement companies to return the VAT to the debtors who had overpaid it. The debt enforcement companies which are VAT registered would then reinvoice the creditors to return this money to them. The creditors could submit this VAT as a cost to HMRC. This means it would not cost the debt enforcement companies or the creditors any money. It would be a return through the VAT system directly from HMRC. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, what we have here is a very serious issue. We already know that, since 2014, debtors have been incorrectly charged VAT when it has been ruled that this should instead be charged to the creditor. Although the Ministry of Justice clarified in its March 2020 and November 2021 guidance that if the creditor is VAT-registered, debtors should not be charged VAT, it did not clarify the actions it would take to look into giving the money back. For this reason alone, I am supportive of the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to regret the taking control of goods statutory instrument.
Also, to put it simply, time is running out. Some noble Lords may be aware, but many will not, that there is only a six-year window in which debtors can rightfully claim for this money to be repaid. This means that many debtors, many of whom will not even be aware that this money belongs to them, have unjustly missed out on their opportunity to reclaim VAT. Therefore, the time for action is now. With every passing day of delay, more and more debtors will continue to miss out.
We have come out of a busy Christmas period, the time when many families’ budgets become overly stretched and more financially challenging. The truth is that it is expensive to be poor in this country at the moment. For the average poor family, the poverty premium—a horrible expression—means £490 extra to pay because of meters, being unable to buy in bulk and paying individually for things that other people could pay for in excess. For one in 10 people, that poverty premium is £780 a year. Will the Government ensure that the debt enforcement sector notifies all debtors who may have overpaid VAT? Will they conduct an impact assessment to understand exactly how much has been overpaid? Finally, will they ensure that the debt enforcement sector sets up a scheme to refund this money?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Wolfson of Tredegar) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate, in particular the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, whose Motion gave rise to it. The Motion highlights concern about whether debtors have been overcharged in respect of the VAT that attaches to the fees charged by High Court enforcement officers.
The statutory instrument before the House sets out how the VAT that attaches to enforcement agent fees should be collected. The burden of the noble Baroness’s Motion is to criticise the Government for not going further by applying that retrospectively. A number of noble Lords asked what we propose to do to provide compensation to debtors who were charged VAT wrongly prior to the date on which the instrument took effect. I will seek to explain why the use of “wrongly” is itself subject to question.
Let me set out the purpose of the SI and why we have decided that it is necessary to provide clarity and explain why it would not be possible or fair to legislate retrospectively in this area. We decided that it was necessary to legislate because in the summer of 2019—I accept that the issue was floating around earlier—we were made aware that there were dramatically diverging views and practices within the High Court enforcement industry about who the VAT on its fees should be collected from. We initially sought to provide clarity by working with HMRC to draft guidance about the correct approach.
With apologies to the House, I would point out gently to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, that we must be careful when we talk about collecting VAT. There are two different issues here. The first is who is responsible for paying the VAT. The second is can you, as the creditor, recover through the enforcement agent a sum equivalent to the VAT. When the debtor pays that sum, the debtor is are not paying VAT; the debtor is paying a sum equivalent to VAT. That sounds like a legal technicality, but it is not; it is a fundamental distinction that it at the heart of this issue.
An important point to make is that neither the guidance nor the SI seeks to change underlying VAT law. In all circumstances, the creditor is liable for the VAT. That is because the creditor is the recipient of the service of the High Court enforcement officer. The guidance and the SI set out the circumstances in which a sum equivalent to the VAT charged to the creditor can be recovered from the judgment debtor as an enforcement cost. We designed that guidance to ensure careful and fair operation of the law so that creditors would not be out of pocket as a result of enforcement costs, while also ensuring that an amount equivalent to VAT was collected from debtors only in cases where the VAT represented a real cost to the creditor. In other words, an amount equivalent to VAT would be collected from the debtor only in cases where the creditor was not able to recover the VAT from HMRC as an input tax. If the creditor was able to recover the VAT from HMRC, the VAT would not be a real cost to the creditor and therefore a sum equivalent to the VAT should not be collected from the debtor.
In March 2020, we consulted interested parties about the draft guidance. Views remained mixed about whether VAT should ever be recovered from the debtor because the debtor was not the recipient of the service. We considered then, as we do now, that it is fair for the creditor to be able to recover the VAT as an enforcement cost in cases where it will represent a real cost to the creditor. That approach is in keeping with the overarching principle that the debtor is responsible for the costs of enforcement. Some consultees questioned the legal basis for our draft guidance. They noted that the regulations setting out the fees that High Court enforcement agents can recover from debtors do not refer to VAT, so we have accepted that it would be helpful to set out the position in legislation to put the matter beyond doubt. That is what this SI seeks to do.
We have listened to the feedback that we received about the draft guidance and taken on board the dangers that a system that is too complicated or nuanced will make it even more difficult for a debtor to understand whether they were paying the correct enforcement costs and, as a consequence, to know whether to challenge an account of the charges they are presented with. The feedback also highlighted how, in a very complicated system to address this issue, more mistakes are likely to be made.
We do not want that to happen. We want to try to have a simple and comprehensible but fair system. We therefore decided that this SI should allow an amount equivalent to the VAT to be recovered from the judgment debtor only in cases where the creditor is not VAT-registered and cannot therefore recover the VAT from HMRC. We think that approach is simple and properly supportable in principle. We think that it is right to allow creditors in those circumstances, although only those who are not VAT-registered, to recover an amount equivalent to the VAT from debtors as it would represent to them a cost of enforcement. We must remember that the creditors may themselves be suffering from financial vulnerability. For example, the creditor may be an individual who has lost their job, sued their employer and got an award of damages for wages. If we do not have this regulation, it is the creditor who will be out of pocket because they will have to pay the costs of enforcement. So I say with great respect that we cannot approach this matter a little simplistically by assuming that the debtor is always the small person, so to speak, and the creditor is always the grasping outfit. That is not the case.
We must also remember that under this SI an amount equivalent to VAT will not be recovered from the debtor in the vast majority of cases as most creditors will be VAT-registered. I should acknowledge that, as we set out in the Explanatory Memorandum, some VAT-registered creditors may make both taxable and exempt supplies. They will be able to recover only a proportion of the total VAT from HMRC. However, we think that putting them together with VAT-registered creditors is the appropriate policy option. We therefore think that this SI strikes the right balance to ensure that an amount equivalent to VAT is recovered from debtors only where it represents a real cost to the creditor.
I accept that we could have acted faster to clarify this matter. We consulted on draft guidance in March 2020. The work to finalise that guidance was delayed as a result of the department’s response to the pandemic. For example, in this area, we diverted resources and introduced legislative bans on enforcement action by enforcement agents in order to protect public health, so the coronavirus pandemic had an impact on this area as well.
I certainly do not want disagreements about what should have happened in the past to delay any further clarification of future practice, so I am grateful to the noble Baroness for amending the Motion to one of regret.
I understand the concerns expressed about whether in the past debtors have paid more than they should have done. I have great sympathy for the wish, expressed by a number of speakers, to ensure that debtors can have their concerns addressed in legislation. However, limits on retrospective legislation are an important safeguard in a just society as well as being a principle of the rule of law. There must be strong reasons to test those limits even where there is the power to do so. This issue is not one of those exceptional cases.
The issues raised in the Motion are largely matters of private law as between debtors, enforcement agents and creditors, and the interpretation of the legal position between those private parties is a matter for the courts. As we have heard, the issue is currently before the High Court in litigation. It is tempting but slightly inaccurate to say that the Government were taken to court, with all that implies. That case is in fact about a declaration being sought from the court as to what the law is. It is fair to say that there are widely divergent opinions on what the correct legal position prior to this SI in fact was.
To pick up the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, the common law position is simply this. My friend in the other place was not saying that the common law imposes VAT but that it is a basic principle of the common law that when you enforce a debt, you can recover the debt and the costs of enforcement of the debt. If VAT is to you a real cost of enforcement, an amount equivalent to that VAT is recoverable from the debtor. That ties in with basic principles of enforcement of debts, whether it is VAT or indeed your solicitor’s costs in bringing the matter to court and enforcement. To pick up another point, if the enforcement agent is not registered for VAT, they cannot charge VAT on their fees, so the point does not arise in the first place.
We do not think it would be appropriate to legislate for the past. I respectfully disagree with the noble Baroness when she assumes that debtors who paid VAT or a sum equivalent to VAT in the past were wrongly overcharged. That is a point of law which is in dispute. However, we think that debtors must pay the costs of enforcement of a judgment debt. At the same time, we want to ensure that debtors are fairly treated, not just in relation to the process of enforcement but to the costs of the process.
I do not want to give the House a history lesson, but if one goes back to the high sheriff and undersheriffs of days gone by, the predecessors of the High Court enforcement officers, there is an interesting analysis of whether VAT would or might have applied to their fees. Were they acting on behalf of the creditor or on behalf of the court? It is not always very easy to analyse.
VAT itself is not an uncomplex system, so it is easy to understand why successive Governments were perhaps less prescriptive than they might have been as to how it would impact on the fee rates. None the less, where VAT imposes an additional sum and that sum cannot be recovered by the creditor as an input tax, it is an enforcement cost and should be recoverable from the debtor. That said, given that the matter is seized by the High Court, obviously we will keep a close eye on that litigation. We will look at any findings of the court extremely carefully and will consider whether any further action in this area is necessary.
Before I sit down, I should pick up an important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Best, about the enforcement conduct authority. We are strongly supportive of the work that is being done by the Centre for Social Justice, in partnership with the enforcement and debt advice sectors, to set up an enforcement conduct authority to provide independent oversight of firms and to consider complaints. We believe that the proposed authority will make a real difference by raising standards in the industry to protect vulnerable debtors while improving the effectiveness of enforcement. We remain committed to reviewing the new body within two years of its operation and then deciding whether it is necessary to put it on a statutory footing.
The noble Lord, Lord McNicol, referred to PPI. With respect, I am not persuaded that this is a like-for-like issue. The point with PPI is that people were paying sums which they should not have paid and which went into the pockets of the insurance companies. What has happened here is that VAT has been paid, but there is no suggestion that the enforcement officers have not been remitting the VAT which they collected to HMRC. We should look at each issue on its own merits.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, even before I thank the Minister, I owe the noble Lord, Lord Low, an apology. The Minister shot up rather quickly after the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Low, was planning to speak. I should have stood up and said something, and I apologise that I failed to do that.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
I thank the noble Lord.
I thank the Minister for his response. I will make just a few tiny points. The Minister made quite a play on how not all debtors have overpaid the VAT sum or equivalent. In fact, 95% of debtors have been in this position and have been improperly overcharged, so we have to bear in mind that the vast majority of debtors are in this position.
The Minister indicated that of course creditors can be in great poverty. I point out to the Minister and your Lordships that we know that the vast majority of these cases involve utility companies and local authorities, not your little man with thruppence ha’penny in his pocket. So I do not think we can buy that one.
I am glad that the Minister accepted—I think—that the ministry should have acted earlier. Most importantly, I thank him for saying that the Government will be keeping an eye on the legislative process. That is our one bit of assurance. I, like others, thank Just very much indeed for pursuing this issue on behalf of these very vulnerable people. We have to rely on the courts to make a sensible decision; let us see how they go.
I thank the Minister but also very much thank noble Lords who have stayed around for an inordinately long time, waiting for this debate. I beg leave to withdraw my regret Motion.
Health and Care Bill
Thursday 13th January 2022
(2 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Health and Care Act 2022 View all Health and Care Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 71-II(b) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Second Marshalled List) - (13 Jan 2022)
Baroness Hayman
“(d) how the decision is likely to contribute to—(i) compliance with the duty imposed by section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008 (UK net zero emissions target),(ii) adaptation to climate change, and(iii) meeting other environmental goals (such as restoration or enhancement of the natural environment).”Member’s explanatory statement
The purpose of this amendment is to include, as part of NHS England’s duties, a requirement that when making a decision about the exercise of its functions, it must have regard to how any decision is likely to contribute to the UK’s climate change and environmental goals.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 15 I will speak also to Amendments 43, 101 and 153 in my name. I also support Amendments 201 and 210 in the name of my noble friend Lord Stevens of Birmingham. I am grateful to him, the noble Lord, Lord Prior of Brampton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, for adding their names to my amendments. I should declare my interest as co-chair of Peers for the Planet, and my regret that I was not able to be present at Second Reading of the Bill.
I doubt that this debate will mirror the length and enthusiasm of so many participants around the Committee in the outstanding earlier debate. However, I should say that the issues that prompt these amendments are equally serious. The Government spent much of last year in preparation for the COP 26 climate meeting and all year, before and since, they stressed the gravity of the climate crisis that the country and the world face, the importance of making progress internationally and on our own domestic targets, which are statutory, and the importance of taking action across all departments and all sectors of the economy and the country’s activities.
The aim of these amendments is to embed consideration of the UK’s climate change and environmental goals throughout the Bill, in much the same way in which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, described how earlier amendments attempted to integrate throughout the Bill the issue of inequalities. I am disturbed, despite the Government’s commitments and despite the experience with other Bills—I look at the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who knows well that we have had similar debates on the Financial Services Bill. Those ended happily, and I hope that we can do the same on this Bill. But it is disturbing that we are still getting legislation through the House as if we were not in the midst of a climate crisis and as if we did not have the most challenging targets on net zero, biodiversity and environmental change.
We turn to the NHS. I suggest to the Committee that the NHS has a vital role to play if the Government are to achieve their key strategic priority of net zero by 2050. The NHS is responsible for approximately 5% of the UK’s carbon emissions and around 40% of all public sector emissions. Recognising that, and with the outstanding leadership of my noble friend Lord Stevens of Birmingham, the NHS has committed to an ambitious net-zero plan. It was the first national health service to make net-zero commitments, and at COP 26 last year 14 other countries followed the NHS’s lead and set net-zero emissions targets for their own health services, illustrating how important domestic action can be on the global stage.
My amendments seek to integrate that overarching NHS plan into the new structures set up in this Bill and to join the dots between high-level policy and the new integrated care boards and care partnerships. They seek to embed climate and environmental considerations into the responsibilities and activities of NHS England, ICBs and ICPs, so that, throughout the NHS, climate action, environmental goals and climate adaptation are taken into account.
I should make clear that contributing to the achievement of net zero is important for the NHS not only in contributing to national targets for reducing the volume of emissions; it is also an important element in improving public and individual health. Rising global temperatures and air pollution, for example, directly contribute to rates of major diseases, including asthma, heart disease and cancer. Again, the link to the earlier debate about inequalities is very clear.
The Government themselves have recognised the link between reducing emissions and improving health, talking in their own net-zero strategy of the
“physical and mental health benefits”
of that strategy. The Climate Change Committee, in its progress report to Parliament last year, spoke of
“significant, tangible improvements to public health”
from reaching net zero. These views were echoed in the report from the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society, A Healthy Future: Tackling Climate Change Mitigation and Human Health Together, which was published last year. It is in the interests of the health of the country, as well as of the Government achieving their targets, to ensure that the NHS plays its part.
As I said earlier, the NHS itself has recognised the importance of this issue on both those counts and is committed to taking action, but we need to embed that commitment throughout the structures of the service. If my amendments are agreed to, this Bill can contribute by providing strategic direction and a clear policy framework at all levels of the NHS.
Amendment 15 adds to the list of the wider effects that NHS England has a duty to have regard to when making a decision about the exercise of its functions. Having heard the Minister respond to the earlier debate, I know that this will not necessarily be an attractive proposition to him, but I think it is important. If Amendment 15 is agreed, in addition to the matters set out in Clause 5, NHS England would have a duty to have regard to how its decisions are likely to contribute to the UK’s climate change and environmental targets.
Noble Lords will recognise that the wording is broader than simply the achievement of our statutory net-zero commitments, but it may reassure noble Lords, and Ministers in particular, to know that it mirrors the terms of an amendment the Government introduced after a similar debate on the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill. Importantly, the wording includes the “adaptation to climate change” necessary to build resilience within the healthcare sector and protect the health of our current and future populations. This reflects the recognition in the NHS’s own net-zero strategy and adaptation report that climate breakdown may affect the healthcare system with increasingly adverse environmental conditions. It is sobering to note that, over the last 15 years, at least 15 hospitals have experienced major flooding incidents, causing disruption to patient services or hospital support services. Attention to vulnerability in this area needs to be an important focus for NHS England.
Amendment 101 would impose a similar new duty on integrated care boards to contribute to the same three objectives set out in Amendment 15, ensuring that trickle-down of policy objectives through the system.
Amendment 43 also deals with integrated care boards, mandating that their constitutions must provide for a member to be designated—not appointed, I should make clear, but for an appointed member to be designated—as having responsibility for climate change and the environment. This would reflect the NHS’s net-zero plan, which highlights the importance of
“ensuring that every NHS organisation has a board-level net-zero lead”.
This amendment implements that part of the plan in relation to the new framework of ICBs, created in the Bill, and having a board-level lead is an approach which has proved successful in other sectors.
Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and support all the amendments in this group in her name. I speak particularly to Amendments 201 and 210 which, as she said, refer specifically to using the purchasing power of the NHS to drive this agenda. Given how brilliantly she has set out the case, I shall be extremely concise.
There are two evidence-based reasons why these amendments are important. The first, as the noble Baroness said, is because the health consequences of the environmental crisis are increasingly clear. The Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences laid all of those out. Whether on heat-related deaths, the disruption to care through climate emergencies, the increased risk of vector-borne infectious diseases, or the fact that up to a third of preventable asthma cases may be linked to the consequences of air pollution, the health case for action is clear. The second evidence-based reason, again as we have just heard, is that unfortunately healthcare itself is not blameless. It is part of the problem as well as part of a solution. By one estimate, if all the health systems in the world were their own country, they would be the fifth-largest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet. Therefore, the NHS must get its act together, given that it contributes 4% to 5% of our country’s emissions.
Those are the two evidence-based reasons. The NHS has stepped up in the way that the noble Baroness has set out. An expert panel led by the brilliant Dr Nick Watts made it the first health service in the world to charter a practical blueprint to net zero, but to do that, we must recognise that only about 28% of the carbon footprint of the NHS arises directly from care being provided. Another 10 percentage points are associated with travel on the part of patients, staff and visitors, but 62% of the carbon footprint arises from the supply chain—the medicines, the devices, the anaesthetic gases, the asthma inhalers, that the NHS uses, which it procures from 80,000-plus suppliers.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Prior of Brampton, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Young of Old Scone and Lady Hayman, for their support of my Amendments 201 and 210. Their purpose is simply to harness the £150 billion of purchasing power that will flow through either the new NHS payment system or the procurement rules to achieve the two evidence-based rationales that we have been discussing.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, this is my first foray into this Bill. I have a sense of déjà vu, having deputised for the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on the 2012 Bill. Despite our absolute confidence at the time, it seems that some things need to be tweaked and rectified, though I now find myself on this side and the noble Earl on the other.
From these Benches, I support these amendments. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, put it very effectively. Climate change needs to run through to the very foundations of the Bill, as does addressing the health inequalities which were the subject of the previous debate. We have had such a long-standing debate about them over the years.
As the noble Baroness has said, at the moment, the UK is taking the lead internationally on combatting climate change through COP 26 and in the year after. We have been urging the world to take urgent, deep-rooted action if the enormously damaging effects of climate change are to be tackled and reversed. We know that the poorest will be hardest hit and can already see that effect, but no part of the globe will be spared. We can already see this as well.
As the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, said, we also know the effects on human health worldwide. We can see them already in developed countries: we saw the effect of that heat dome in Canada and the deaths that resulted from it. We know that climate change might have played a part in seeding the pandemic from which we have suffered during the last two years. We know all that. We also know that we cannot lead internationally without addressing climate change nationally. I pay tribute to the staff supporting Peers for the Planet, a group of which I am a member, for making sure that we address climate change at every stage, in every Bill.
We are rightly proud of the NHS. It is the major employer in the United Kingdom. The health and social care of our ageing population will play an ever more important role in our lives. It is therefore right that, in the Bill, as in every other area of life, tackling climate change must run as a thread through all we do. The Climate Change Committee makes this clear. It is not something for only Defra or the COP team. It requires fundamental change in everything we do and the scrutiny of every area of life.
The NHS has already made strides forward. Here, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, in making sure that that was the case. At COP 26, the NHS made a commitment to net zero. As we have heard, 14 other countries followed the NHS’s lead. More than 50 countries, representing more than a third of global healthcare emissions, have committed to developing sustainable, low-carbon health systems. This is incredibly encouraging. It is also encouraging that, at COP 26, a new international platform was set up—to be hosted in partnership with NHS England and the WHO—to bring together those in the healthcare systems, so that people can learn from each other.
Why does this matter? As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has said, the healthcare sector is responsible for almost 5% of global emissions. Of course, public health is assisted by tackling climate change. Although we pay tribute to what the NHS has managed to do so far—and it is ahead of its requirements under the Climate Change Act—we need to make sure that this is built in and sustained for the future. This is what these amendments are about. Progress is being made, but we need to ensure that it is locked in and does not necessarily depend simply on who is leading these organisations at any particular time.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, has explained how her first amendment affects the overarching structure within NHS England. The other amendments put in place the necessary pragmatic steps to make sure that this is addressed. Thus, we have identified individuals for these particular responsibilities. This is obviously of key importance.
It is fundamental that, in addressing climate change, we do not just see this as hosting a major meeting or siloed in one department—whether Defra or BEIS. I am a member of the Select Committee on the Environment and Climate Change. When our committee asked the different departments to report on what they were doing in advance of COP what came back to us, in many regards, was a kind of surprise that they were relevant to it. They felt that it was something for Defra, for BEIS in particular, or for the COP unit. They did not see it as their responsibility. Some of the responses were superficial in the extreme. That is why it is important to make sure that we mainstream this issue, and this is another opportunity to do so. I strongly support the amendments that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and others have tabled.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it may not surprise your Lordships’ House that as a Green Peer, I rise to offer my full support to all these amendments. I also declare my involvement with Peers for the Planet.
In introducing this group so comprehensively and, I would say, brilliantly, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said it was just important as the group that we were discussing previously, which addressed inequalities in issues such as smoking and alcohol and their impacts on health. I would actually go further and say that the two groups are intimately related, in that when someone arrives at the NHS needing treatment for an illness or a disease, at a point where their environment and society, often, has failed and has created or amplified that disease, the NHS then has to deal with the problems created by society and that environment. We need a systems-thinking approach to health—not just “Here’s a disease” or “Here’s a limb or an organ with a problem” —that considers the whole person. I say in passing that I regret that I was not able to take part in that earlier group due to my being unable to be here at the start.
I am not going to run through all the amendments, which have been very well covered, but they go all the way from the duty of the NHS to have regard to climate and the environment, right down to the detail of procurement. I particularly commend the noble Lord, Lord Stevens. We would like to see the Government take control of procurement more broadly to improve our society. The Preston model comes to mind here.
I want to address the climate side of this issue, and then I am mostly going to talk about the environmental side, which has not been discussed much yet; I want to add something different rather than repeat. However, I have to highlight the fact that we are talking about 5% of UK climate emissions and 40% of public service emissions.
We really have to think about the interrelationship of environment and health. We know that heatwaves have huge impacts, particularly on the health of older people. They can be a significant cause of death among older people, and as long as the NHS contributes to climate change, there is a disastrous cycle there. Also, some 10% of London hospitals are at risk of river flooding. I have not been able to find figures for the country as a whole, but I am sure that will be true for many other hospitals too.
While preparing for today’s debate, I looked at the Medicines and Medical Devices Act, which we debated last year. It is a little unfortunate that, as I look around the Chamber today, practically no one is present who attended those debates. That Act was a huge missed opportunity. It requires that when the appropriate authorities are approving veterinary medicines, they must have regard to their environmental impacts. I moved an amendment—but lost the vote—that would have applied the same judgment to human medicines. This point applies particularly to antibiotic resistance. I am not going to repeat everything I said in Committee on 26 October, but it is all there. The management of antibiotic resistance is a huge issue that the NHS needs to do a great deal more on, as do all global health systems.
I want to focus on some other aspects of the environmental impacts of the NHS today, particularly in light of the report by the Environmental Audit Committee in the other place on the state of our rivers. The Bloomberg Green newsletter going around the world today has the following headline:
“English Rivers Join Europe’s Most Noxious with Chemical Cocktail”.
That report notes, as have many others, that:
“No river … received a clean bill of health for chemical contamination.”
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
I support these amendments and in particular the words of my noble friend Lady Northover. I too am a member of Peers for the Planet and, as a biologist, I have been devoted to trying to address climate change ever since I knew anything at all about it. I particularly support the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in her determination to mainstream the issue. It is not the responsibility of just Defra but every department of government and every single individual in this country.
From my work on the Science and Technology Committee, I was aware of the health service’s 5% contribution to our emissions, but also of what the NHS has already done and pledged to do under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens. I confess I was a little surprised when I saw these amendments; I thought, given all that, “Why does the noble Lord think more needs to be done?” The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, knows more than I or any of us do about the health service, so if he thinks more needs to be done, I am with him. We absolutely should support these amendments.
I would like to ask the Minister one particular question. The NHS has a very large portfolio of property and the Prime Minister has promised 40 new hospitals in a certain period of time. Leaving aside the fact that some of the buildings promised are not hospitals and are not new, if we are building new buildings, I would like to be assured that all of them will be zero-carbon. That can be done and there is no excuse not to do it.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the four noble Lords who have produced this excellent suite of amendments across the Bill to ensure that ICBs procuring or commissioning goods and services on behalf of the NHS are firmly focused on their responsibility for NHS England’s commitment to reaching net zero by 2040. It has been an excellent and informed debate, and one with much enthusiasm to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman.
We fully support the amendments and have little to add from these Benches following the expert contributions of those proposing the amendments and the other noble Lords who have spoken. I am sorry my noble friend Lady Young, who put her name to the amendments, cannot be here. She was a key member of our team during the recent passage of the Environment Bill, and her expertise and wisdom always guides and reflects our approach. The House is clearly interested in this vital matter, as we saw this week in an important Oral Question on the Prime Minister’s promise for a new, overarching net-zero test for new policies. Assuming the Government fully support the key commitment from NHS England, I hope that, in his response, the Minister will accept the need for the amendments and will not argue that the proposed new clause is unnecessary as NHS England already has a commitment that will percolate down to ICBs.
As we have heard, the power of public sector procurement is a massive issue and there is no bigger part of the public sector than the NHS. The NHS has such an important impact on other environment issues, such as waste, pollution and resource consumption, especially for plastics, paper and water. We should ensure we are on the front foot in using that impact to deliver the net-zero commitment.
The NHS has made a start, but there is much more to do. These amendments would reinforce the importance of action in these areas for the new bodies and processes that the Bill creates. The NHS is a big player and, as noble Lords have stressed, it can play a big role in tackling all of these climate change and environmental challenges. Procurement is a strong lever that the NHS can utilise in key markets, particularly in those areas where it is the sole purchaser. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, was very eloquent on this issue and I look forward to the Minister’s response in the light of his contribution.
Like other speakers today, my noble friend Lady Young wanted to stress that action so far is only the beginning. In the light of the importance of climate change and other environmental challenges, we strongly support such a duty being in place for all the public and private bodies with significant impacts when future legislation comes through Parliament. We did that when inserting a sustainable development duty into the remit of every possible public body from the late 1990s onwards, but this time it has to be not only enacted but managed, delivered, tracked and reported.
As the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, told the House this week, every sector of government needs to do its bit, and we need to hold them to that. These amendments are vital, since every public body will have to take further action this decade if we are to restrain temperature rises to two degrees—far less, 1.5 degrees.
Finally, I too thank Peers for the Planet both for its work and, especially for me, its excellent briefing. As noble Lords have stressed, the NHS has committed to net zero and aims to be the world’s first net-zero national health service. It is responsible for around 5% of the UK’s carbon emissions. That is why the NHS’s role and contribution to net-zero targets should be fully integrated into the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response and his detailing of how the NHS is to achieve its ambitions. I hope that he will acknowledge that its commitment must be in the Bill. These amendments present a vital opportunity to enshrine in law a commitment that I think most, if not all, would want to see delivered.
The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, for the amendments and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, for her opening remarks. I also thank the noble Baroness for her suggestion yesterday that it might make my life a lot easier if I just accepted amendments. I understand that advice, having just gone through a two-hour debate on the previous group.
A number of noble Lords referred to how these amendments relate to our previous debate on inequalities. I point out that that is sometimes not quite in the way that we would expect. We might think there is a direct connection, but sometimes the green agenda can be seen to be for those who can afford it—as I explained before, for the white, middle-class, patronising people who tell immigrant working-class communities what to do and push up their costs. Anti-car policies push up costs for those in rural areas, and there are higher fuel costs as we replace gas boilers with potentially more expensive heat pumps. We have to be aware of those issues. In the long term, I am optimistic. I look forward to the day when we have solar power and wind power, with storage capacity, which will reduce costs.
Baroness Northover (LD)
Will the Minister look at this globally and recognise that the poorest are affected the worst? When he talks about those in poverty, he should think globally.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I accept that point, but I also accept that, sometimes, one can be patronised, and I do not accept being patronised as I was in the earlier debate. One day, there will be cheaper fuel, and we can look forward to it, but we have to make sure that the transition along the way is not seen to push up costs for working people, because we all feel passionately about this green agenda.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
The Minister was talking about the impact of policies on the poor. Does he agree that many of the products—the fabrics, the chemicals—are manufactured in the poorest areas of the world, producing pollution that has disastrous impacts on some of the poorest people?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I was going to come to the noble Baroness’s points, and I am grateful to her for raising these issues directly with me previously.
Turning to the amendments, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Young of Old Scone, and the noble Lords, Lord Stevens and Lord Prior, for bringing this debate before the Committee. There is no doubt that the NHS has a significant carbon footprint. There is no doubt that a poor environment has direct and immediate consequence for our patients, the public and the NHS. There is no doubt that it has an impact on the health of the nation. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, pointed out, the NHS accounts for around 4% to 5% of UK emissions. If we go further, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, that is 40% of public service emissions. Noble Lords are right to highlight the critical role that the NHS has to play in achieving net zero.
To support that work, NHS England—thanks in part to work already started by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, who I know has had conversations with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—is leading the way through a dedicated programme of work, as many noble Lords acknowledged. This includes ambitious targets for achieving net zero for the NHS carbon footprint by 2045 and for its direct emissions by 2040. This is ahead of the target set by Section 1 of the Climate Change Act 2008; we welcome that ambition and will continue to support the NHS in that.
Lord Mawson (CB)
I thank the Minister. Can I just give an illustration about the local on this issue? I am certainly not an expert on climate change, but I am a practical person who worries a lot about granularity and the gap between a lot of talk I have heard over many years on all sides of this Chamber—with very large amounts of money cited, et cetera—and the realities in this building.
I am trying to buy an electric car at the moment, as a responsible citizen. When I went to have a look at the multi-storey car park below this building—the local—and wondered where I am going to plug it in when it arrives here, I ended up talking to one of the facilities managers, who was a very nice man. I asked him how many plug-in points there were underneath this building—again, the local. He said, “I don’t know, Lord Mawson, but I will look into this”.
He was diligent and came back to me. We started to have a conversation about it, and he began to suggest that I need to carry a cable in my car with a three-pin plug. I pointed out that my office is across St Margaret Street, in Old Palace Yard, on the third floor, so maybe I should run it across there with a carpet over it and up to the third floor to plug it in there. We had this amusing conversation. I said, “Well, go on then, tell me: how many are there in this building, where all this chatter and talk is taking place?” His answer was that there are two. I suggest that the gap between reality and rhetoric is very large indeed. If we are really going to deal with these issues—as we must—we must now become intensely interested in the NHS and in all the systems of government about practicality and the procurement machinery, which I suggest is not working.
I talked to one of the facilities people yesterday about my office, which has a light switch with a notice over the top of it telling you how to use it. It is completely ludicrous. She told me that that system is going to be different to all the systems here in the Palace of Westminster; none of it is joined up.
I think the Minister is right. The clue is in the local, but all our systems and our civil servants must now become interested in practicality and the local if we are really going to get serious about these matters. It is absolutely crucial to get procurement right, because without that, we will never deliver this.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, for that intervention, and I completely agree. There are some incredibly inspirational projects going on in our local communities, tackling and addressing the green agenda, and sometimes, top-down, we may feel good about it in this place, but it really affects working people and those who face higher costs and we have to be very careful.
On the specific question of procurement, the NHS is already publicly committed to purchasing only from suppliers which are aligned with its net-zero ambitions by 2030, and last year, NHS England set out its roadmap giving further details to suppliers to 2030. This is supported by a broad range of further action on NHS net zero and we hope that by pushing this through at NHS England level, but also with ICSs, we can see some of that local innovation as local trusts and local care systems and even health and well-being boards respond to those local challenges—others could learn nationally. To respond to the question of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, NHS England will publish the world’s first net-zero healthcare building standard; this will apply to all projects being taken forward through the Government’s new hospital programme, which will see 48 new hospital facilities built across England by 2030.
There is political consensus on green issues. and we should pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and the Green Party for making sure, over the years, that the green agenda has been put at the centre of British politics. We find green policies in all the election manifestos of the mainstream parties: that is in no small part due to the noble Baroness’s party and to the noble Baroness herself. So, even while we may disagree on how to achieve some of these things, there is no doubt that we are not going to reverse on our commitment. Whatever Governments are elected in future, all are committed to a carbon net-zero strategy and a cleaner environment. So, I must gently disagree with her that these amendments are necessary.
I would like to have further conversations with the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, given his experience, on why he feels that, despite all the great work that the NHS has been doing, these amendments are still necessary. I would like to have further conversations with him and others, but at this stage, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment. Across the political spectrum, we must make sure that we are pushing the NHS to deliver, not only at the national level but at the ICS level and even lower, at the place level that the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, speaks so eloquently about.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
Before the noble Lord sits down, will he respond to the question, of which I gave him prior notice, about the document?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I apologise to the noble Baroness—I am so sorry, but I am trying to juggle 300 devices. That is a slight exaggeration, if I am honest. We recognise the importance of ensuring that all chemicals in the NHS supply chain are appropriate and properly managed as part of the net-zero strategy. I think the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, even touched upon some of the chemicals that were used and some of the issues he looked at during his time at the NHS when it comes to chemicals. The NHS must also comply fully with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations, the CoSHH regulations.
More broadly, although Defra is the lead department for harmful chemicals, the UK Health Security Agency feeds in its expertise in relation to restricting and banning chemicals, and we are grateful to it for that work. The UKHSA is also looking at each of those chemicals, which we hope in future can be replaced by less harmful materials and chemicals. I undertake to write to the noble Baroness in more detail than the short answer I have given her at this stage.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to all Members who contributed to this debate, which got slightly more feisty than I expected it to do in some areas. I am sure that the Committee will be grateful if I do not respond on the issue of electric charging points in your Lordships’ House, which has concerned me for four years, but there are one or two important things to be said here. There are two dangers. One danger—I fear the Minister nearly got there—is to suggest that those who are concerned about climate are not concerned about fairness or inequality and do not realise the dangers, on everything from heating to electric vehicles or whatever. However, there is not that layer of people who are concerned only with the climate in theory. Most of us who are active in this area are extremely concerned about a fair transition and the implications of individual policies.
The other false dichotomy is that either you work on the absolutely granular local stuff or you make highfalutin legislation that is not relevant to anyone. We need both. We need to go throughout the system. We are legislators. Legislation matters and words matter. Sometimes legislation matters because Governments and policies change but legislation is there in statute—the words are on the page.
Of course I will seek to withdraw my amendment and of course I will have conversations with the Minister, but it is essential that we tackle this, the most serious of issues facing the world. Covid is the crisis of our time but the climate is the crisis of our age and we absolutely need to address it at all the levels that we can—and there are many. As I say, we are legislators and we can start some of that trickle-down. We have a responsibility to monitor and ensure that we end up with exactly the level of granularity that we need—and that we learn from the local. I am happy to delay conversations with the Minister for a later date. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Morgan of Cotes
“Duty to consider residents of other parts of UK
For section 13O of the National Health Service Act 2006 substitute—“13O Duty to consider residents of other parts of UK(1) In making a decision about the exercise of its functions, NHS England must have regard to any likely impact of the decision on—(a) the provision of health services to people who reside in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, or(b) services provided in England for the purposes of—(i) the health service in Wales,(ii) the system of health care mentioned in section 2(1)(a) of the Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (Northern Ireland) 2009 (c. 1 (N.I.)), or(iii) the health service established under section 1 of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978. (2) The Secretary of State must publish guidance for NHS England on the discharge of the duty under subsection (1).(3) NHS England must have regard to guidance published under subsection (2).””Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause places a duty on NHS England to consider the likely impact of their decisions on the residents of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and to consider the impact of services provided in England on patient care in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)
My Lords, in moving my amendment I will speak also to Amendments 205 and 301. I thank my noble friends Lord Moylan and Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie for their support for these amendments.
It is a pleasure to follow two excellent debates. I suspect—although, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said, we are never quite sure how feisty the debates on these groups will get—that we may spend an even shorter time on this group to enable the Committee to make progress. These amendments are relatively simple, designed to improve transparency, quality and access to healthcare for residents in all parts of the United Kingdom. I thank Ministers for their engagement so far on the amendments. In particular, Amendments 205 and 301 were tabled in the House of Commons by Robin Millar MP and others.
The NHS is a UK institution. It could not have been developed without the combined economic strength of our United Kingdom and has developed from unifying United Kingdom values—you might even say that the NHS embodies them. It includes a promise that, wherever in the United Kingdom you are from and whatever your situation, you are entitled to the same protection and treatment. That is why the first two amendments, Amendments 17 and 205, are about access by patients to a consistent national standard of healthcare.
The unfortunate reality, of course, is that many UK residents do not have equal access to healthcare. Referral-to-treatment waiting times for England, Scotland and Wales are, respectively, 11 days, 32 or 42 days—depending on whether you are talking about in-patients or out-patients in Scotland—and 21.5 days. These headline figures are concerning enough. However, they obscure even more stark differences when treatments are considered separately.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, I am very keen to speak to these amendments. This is the first time I have been able to contribute to this Bill, and I apologise for not being here for Second Reading. I was actually talking to Members of the Scottish Parliament about NICE and SIGN guidelines on the day of Second Reading, so I am delighted to have an opportunity to contribute now. I will speak to Amendments 17, 205 and 301. I thank my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes for tabling them; I would have added my name to all three if I had got in quick enough.
We all appreciate that health and care are devolved matters. As my noble friend outlined, the Scottish Administration have taken a very different path on health and care over recent years, which perhaps could be characterised as worrying less about long-term funding and pursuing a more centralised approach. The Bill is therefore predominantly and rightly focused on matters relating to England, but a number of clauses addressed by these amendments relate to devolved areas. I note that the Scottish Government and the Cabinet Secretary for Health in Scotland have yet to grant the Bill legislative consent, believing that some clauses do not reflect the devolution agreement. I beg to put that these amendments are slightly different, in that they do not cover a specific area of delivery within devolved nations.
Amendment 17 simply covers how NHS England should consider the impact of any decisions it might make on patient outcomes in the devolved Administrations. Amendment 205 protects the right of access to treatment and services for all citizens throughout the UK. Amendment 301 seems to be simple common sense, in that it ensures the interoperability of data and collection of comparable healthcare statistics across the UK.
I support these amendments on a number of counts. First, the pandemic has highlighted the huge importance of good data, and close collaboration and working, throughout all health and care services in all parts of the UK—whether that is knowledge gathering, information sharing, vaccine development and rollout, or anything else. The pandemic has demonstrated yet again that we are “better together”. In the realm of healthcare, I support any measure that ensures that we do not work in silos and that barriers are not created in the provision of healthcare that prevent seamless co-operation throughout the UK. This will become ever more important as roles change, technology advances and services develop.
We particularly need to ensure a UK approach to data gathering and healthcare statistics, as set out in Amendment 305. The disparities do not just present a barrier to consumers of healthcare—the public: voters, indeed—and their understanding and ability to evaluate standards of care in their area, as my noble friend Lady Morgan just illustrated. The lack of interoperability of data has real and detrimental consequences for health research, patient care, and ensuring and promoting continuous improvement in healthcare. This is before we even consider inconvenience and inefficiency.
My eldest daughter stands in danger of being caught out by the current unsatisfactory situation. As a student at the University of St Andrews, she had her first two Covid vaccinations in Scotland, recorded on the NHS Scotland app under her CHI number, which is the number that NHS Scotland uses to identify patients. By the time it came to her booster and third injection, she was working as a graduate trainee in London. She duly went along in December and queued at a drop-in centre for her booster. However, the two systems do not match, so nowhere can she now show her proof of having three doses of the vaccine—which might lead to some problems if she wants to go to the rugby, a nightclub or somewhere else where she has to show it; or if she wants to travel. The same situation has arisen for many students or others who regularly cross the borders of the United Kingdom for work, study or family reasons. For these reasons, I commend the Minister to look at initiatives such as patient-held records. After all, we should always remember that, importantly, this is the patient’s own data.
Another challenge we faced at the beginning of the pandemic was when consultants across the four nations sought to identify who should be in the shielding categories. Ensuring that the right people with the right conditions were identified and then notified was made far more challenging by the disparity of health data for different populations. It is bad enough that primary care, secondary care and social care data do not speak to each other, but healthcare is far too important to be allowed to become a political football within the UK.
The Prime Minister has put ensuring the viability and security of the union as one of his top priorities. We have heard the excellent recommendations of my noble friend Lord Dunlop, and many times in this Chamber we have been assured that the recommendations will be enacted by Ministers across government departments, so that decisions taken in Westminster and England that affect the devolved nations will be considered proactively, positively and constructively, and we can build mutual respect. This Bill and this moment are an ideal opportunity to put some of these principles into practice. What could be more positive and constructive than legislating for NHS England to ensure that this body considers the impact of its decisions on patient care in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
Like Amendment 301, where better data will lead to greater transparency, the new clause proposed by Amendment 17, which aims to ensure that the Secretary of State publishes guidance on these matters, also goes some way to ensuring transparency, which is so important in the building of mutual respect. These amendments would ensure that those with different approaches and political views across the UK cannot simply manipulate the delivery of healthcare and sacrifice patient outcomes on the altar of division.
Turning to Amendment 205, at the moment, if a treatment is available to patients in one of our bigger teaching hospitals—say, in London, Glasgow or Edinburgh—should that treatment not be available to anyone in the UK? I refer to my interests in the register, particularly as the chief executive of Cerebral Palsy Scotland. I recall that, when the procedure for children with cerebral palsy, known as selective dorsal rhizotomy, was first performed in the UK, it was available at first only in Bristol. However, NHS boards in Scotland were able to refer suitable patients on an ad hoc basis, with funding following the patient. This saved families having to raise around £80,000 to travel to the United States for the procedure—but it did not just help the families. The practice was able to ensure that good practice and learning were shared. Now, the procedure, pioneered in Bristol, is available in a number of areas across the UK.
Specialist, life-saving cancer services are another example. I think of a recent case where a patient from Glasgow—a good friend of mine—was able to benefit from treatment in Liverpool, which was his only option for treatment in the UK. However, it is not just for rare procedures or difficult cases that this is applicable. I have often seen families of children with cerebral palsy from Belfast, Carlisle or Northumberland who wish to travel to Glasgow or Edinburgh for relatively routine but condition-specific input instead of having to travel to London. At the moment, as I said, these arrangements are made largely on an ad hoc basis rather than being broadly available. This is what Amendment 205 seeks to correct. The NHS is a great British institution. The clue is in the name: it is a national health service. Therefore, should access not apply right across the UK?
I urge the Government to accept these amendments. I cannot see why they would not, as they will not only ensure better co-ordinated healthcare throughout our United Kingdom; they will ensure that patient care for all our citizens, wherever they live, is given due consideration, and they will clearly illustrate the importance that the UK Government place on the well- being of people right across the UK. I look forward to the response from the Minister.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for tabling these amendments and starting this debate, because these three amendments are very different.
I welcome Amendment 17. Of course we should consider the devolved Administrations because of all the cross-border flows. As we have just heard, people move around the UK. We have a lot of patients from Wales—I should declare my interests; I will not list them all in Hansard, but I have various roles in Wales and have done various things with IT in Wales as well—who routinely go into England from across north Wales; and in south and mid-Wales, they go across to Hereford and Shropshire. So I say to the Government, please make sure that you do always consider the impact.
We need patient-based clinical information that flows between different systems in a timely manner. The noble Baroness, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, referred to patient-held records. I hate to disappoint, but we did a quite extensive research project on them and found that there were all kinds of problems with them, one of the main ones being that, when the patient turned up in ED, they inevitably did not have their record with them—or they did not want things written in it in case somebody else in the family saw them, and so on and so on.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I will intervene briefly, if I may, to support my noble friend in her Amendment 17. I am glad to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff. I will not follow her in discussing the financial settlements between NHS England and NHS Wales; there is a lot to that. But I confess that I rather share her view that it would be a stretch too far for us to seek to legislate in this Bill for matters that are the subject of devolved powers for the parliaments in Wales and Scotland, even though the issues are very interesting and the points that were made, not least by my noble friend Lady Fraser, were perfectly sensible and rational objectives.
I will confine myself to Amendment 17 and say there are good reasons why my noble friend and the Government might adopt it. It seeks to amend what is presently Section 13O of the National Health Service Act. The differences are important. First, if one looks at Section 13O as it stands, it requires the board—NHS England for these purposes—to
“have regard to the likely impact of those decisions on the provision of health services to persons who reside in an area of Wales or Scotland that is close to the border with England.”
It is perfectly reasonable that it should do that, but that is not, as the debate has illustrated, the extent of the issue.
Speaking entirely personally, my late father-in-law was resident in Anglesey. He needed cancer services, so—perfectly sensibly—he went to Clatterbridge in the Wirral. My noble friend Lord Hunt is of course a former Secretary of State for Wales. He will be very familiar with the way in which services between north Wales and Cheshire, which he formerly represented, were provided. That is one straightforward example.
A number of noble Lords will recall the debate when I was Secretary of State about paediatric congenital heart services. In north Wales, they were provided in Liverpool, if I remember correctly. In south Wales, they were provided in Bristol. Those are one or two aspects of a necessary relationship for specialised services between different parts of the United Kingdom. At the border, there is a relationship in day-to-day healthcare services. There is an arrangement for that, and we do not need to interfere with it in this legislation. Shropshire CCG presently runs it on behalf of NHS England.
NHS England and NHS Wales have a statement of values and principles which, as far as I could see on looking it up, was last renewed in 2018. I think it is due for renewal. Basically, it relates to about 21,000 patients from England who are registered with Welsh GPs. About 15,000 patients resident in Wales are registered with English GPs. There is a transfer and a netting off of costs between them of about £6 million, and arrangements exist for referrals between the two countries. So we do not need to interfere with any of that, but the legislation needs to cover in particular this first point: that we are concerned not only with those who live in the areas bordering England and Wales; we are concerned with people in England and in Wales more generally, as well as with people elsewhere in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The second point is that the present drafting excludes Northern Ireland. Clearly, there should be a role for NHS England. It should be prepared to consider its functions in relation to the provision of services—obviously where required and requested—by the Administration in Northern Ireland.
Finally, the drafting of Amendment 17 rather sensibly says not only that one should consider the impact on people living in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland but that one should think about the provision and delivery of additional services for people living in those areas. Amendment 17 makes this clear in 1(b):
“(b) services provided in England for the purposes of”
the health services in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. In so far as any of those Administrations were to make a request or, under the concordat that exists, to look for support for services, that is something that NHS England would have the necessary legislative cover to support.
I appreciate drafting, if I may say so, and even at this stage my noble friend has drafted a very good amendment which I am rather hopeful that my noble friend on the Front Bench will also commend.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, in very clearly introducing these amendments, the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, said that this group might not get feisty. I hope that we can manage to be very civil and calm in tone. None the less, there is a degree of disagreement—to which I am going to contribute.
In concluding her remarks, the noble Baroness said that this is a UK institution, embodying UK values. That seems to deny the reality of devolution. It is entirely possible that at least one of these countries could be an entirely separate nation very soon. That is the practical reality.
Once again, I was struck by the similarity with the climate change debate we had earlier. Sometimes people say, “Well, the scientists will tell us what to do about climate change”. Of course, this cannot be true, because how you get to 1.5 degrees involves a huge number of political choices around the allocation of resources. Similarly with health, many different routes and choices are involved in the effort to produce as healthy as society as we can. Whose health are you talking about? These are all political choices.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, said that this was about data, not delivery. Of course, we know that very often what is delivered is what is measured, and if you choose to measure different things, maybe that is because you are seeking to deliver different things.
Like other speakers, I do not have any particular problem with Amendment 17, but I do with Amendment 205 and, in particular, Amendment 301, which says:
“The Secretary of State may … specify binding data interoperability”
and
“Scottish Ministers, Welsh Ministers and Northern Ireland Ministers must arrange for the information”.
I do not speak for the Scottish Government—albeit that they have some Green elements—but I would be surprised if they accepted that kind of wording. I do not wish to redraft on my feet but, if the Minister were looking to redraft, I suspect that something like a direction to the Secretary of State to “work with the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Ministers to agree” would definitely be preferable.
However, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, who gave us some very detailed and informed comment, that the best way to achieve this is by institutions at an operational level working together to find ways to link things up. If we take the example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, about her daughter’s situation, we can all be very annoyed that that apparently rather simple situation has not been sorted out. But I do not think drafting law in your Lordships’ Chamber is the way to sort that problem out. That needs to be at a very different level, and it needs to be sorted out as soon as possible.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I support Amendment 17 from the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. There are of course different waiting-list lengths in the different Administrations, but I take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, about fair funding. She makes a very good point about Wales.
I too have had experiences like those of the daughter of the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, over my Covid vaccination status, because I live in Wales and the NHS app in Wales did not seem to speak to the other one. But, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, that is something that needs sorting out at a different level.
As I said, I live very near the border in Wales, so I am acutely aware from personal experience that the nature, quality and resources of healthcare in England affect the people of the devolved Administrations. I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said: it is not just about people near the border—Anglesey is not at all near the border—but in day-to-day working it affects people near the border very frequently.
These are of course devolved matters, but in their practical, day-to-day operation the borders are what people call “leaky”—in other words, people travel both ways for work, school, shopping, leisure and indeed health services. So, particularly in the border areas, it makes a lot of sense to do what the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said happens all the time: for GPs to be able to refer patients for a particular service to or from the devolved nations. That is why anything that affects the provision and quality of services in England also affects Welsh and Scottish people in particular. I suspect it is slightly less the case for people in Northern Ireland, although waiting lists there are particularly concerning.
So this is particularly important in relation to the location of specialist hubs, because the border areas of both Wales and Scotland are very rural and the distances and transport difficulties to their own hospitals can be long and difficult—even more so if the patients have to cross the border. We need to ensure that anything done in the Bill makes cross-referral able to continue as easily as it does at the moment.
What discussions have taken place with the devolved Administrations about the Bill? Are there any aspects of it that are still waiting for the agreement of the Governments of Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland?
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, because she has helped me to clarify my thinking about this group of amendments. Basically, they have good intentions and they make good points about the things that need to happen, but I am not absolutely certain they need to be in the Bill. I am also particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for her very well-informed contribution about what actually goes on. There are of course problems in relationships between the devolved nations and NHS England, some of which are down to not being very well organised, some of which are down to arrogance on the part of the bigger ones, and some of which are down to the funding not actually being available—and some of them might be politically motivated too.
Amendment 17 opens some new thinking on the subject of integration, and accepts that devolution has given us different systems for care in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, but seeks to ensure that what is done in one part of the UK—that is, England—does not adversely impact on other parts. The intention to bring collaboration between the nations is, of course, commendable.
I note that Amendment 205 places some requirements such that
“Welsh Ministers, Scottish Ministers and a Northern Ireland department must make regulations providing that the choices available to patients in England by virtue of regulations under section 6E(1A) or (1B) of the National Health Service Act 2006 (inserted by section 69 of this Act) are available to patients for whom they have responsibility.”
Again, we can understand the need for consistency, but I am unclear about how that will play out against the devolved nature of healthcare—so I think the case will have to be made out for that and, indeed, why that would be included in the legislation.
In a similar fashion, Amendment 301 looks to establish interoperability around the use of data across the whole UK. Again, that is a wholly worthwhile intention, and one that I would hope that the various authorities could collectively work on and agree. Once more, what the role is for primary legislation to address this point is not entirely clear, and I welcome the discussion. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking my noble friend Lady Morgan for raising these important matters both via this Committee and by engaging—as I understand she has recently—with my honourable friend the Minister of State for Health. I am also grateful to all other noble Lords who have spoken so powerfully and knowledgably on these issues.
There is no escaping one overarching reality in this policy area, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, has just alluded. As a Government of the whole United Kingdom, Ministers are responsible for all people of the UK; that is a given. However, while the core principles of the NHS are shared across all parts of the United Kingdom, it is the devolved Governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who are responsible for developing their own health policies. Health is largely a devolved matter in the UK, and the commissioning and provision of health services for people in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland will continue to be a matter for the devolved Governments.
It will not surprise my noble friend to know that the UK Government continue to respect existing devolution settlements, so our aim is close collaboration with the devolved Administrations to deliver the best outcomes for the people across the four nations. This means that, while we are sympathetic to the spirit of these amendments, I am afraid that we cannot accept them.
I shall address the detailed issues. On Amendment 17, I agree with my noble friend that there is more we can do to align our healthcare for the good of patients across the United Kingdom. We are already exploring several projects to support the NHS to work more closely across the UK, and this includes refreshing the current memoranda of understanding between all four Governments and working with the Office for National Statistics to establish a number of UK-wide datasets. Steps like that will improve transparency and collaboration for the good of all patients across the UK. We do not believe that these steps require primary legislation, but we will keep that question under review. We will also continue to work with NHS England to ensure that a number of groups that it currently hosts, such as the rare diseases advisory group, and their specialised commissioning processes, also meet the relevant needs of the devolved Administrations.
Turning to Amendment 205, we know that choice of healthcare is an important right for patients across the UK. The NHS Constitution for England, for example, enshrines the patient’s right to informed choice. We will be preserving the important right for patients in England to choose their first elective outpatient appointment, GP and GP practice through regulations made under powers provided by the Bill. NHS England works closely with the devolved Governments, including on commissioning and ensuring access to specialised services. Requests for patients to have treatment in other nations are generally to secure continuity of care, to provide care close to patients’ support mechanisms, or because of specialist expertise.
The health services in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland already have the power to contract with any NHS provider in England. As my noble friend Lord Lansley rightly pointed out, they already have in place arrangements for commissioning specialised services from English providers, including cross-border agreements, referral schemes and service-level agreements. Taking further steps, as suggested in this amendment, would place a significant burden on a smaller number of providers, particularly those along borders, with consequences for the smooth running of those health systems. From a legal perspective, such a change would be a significant impingement on a devolved competence and would require the consent of the devolved legislatures. Of course, patients matter most, but such a change would also be unlikely to greatly benefit them, since they are already served by existing arrangements.
Amendment 301 deals with data interoperability. The UK Government are committed to working with officials across the devolved Administrations to explore the benefits that healthcare data can provide while working collaboratively to respect the devolved nature of this work. As in other areas, we are looking at ways to improve collaboration on data matters and address issues with data sharing. There are commitments within the data strategy for health and social care to work across central government and the devolved Administrations to improve appropriate data linkage, thus supporting people’s health care outcomes. This builds on the work of units such as the Joint Biosecurity Centre, and the newly established UK Health Security Agency.
That work will help us to collaborate to solve public health issues, improve disease surveillance and overcome any behavioural or structural obstacles to appropriate data sharing across our respective health and social care systems. In addition, we are speaking to the Office for National Statistics about collecting data on performance and outcomes across the UK. We are pursuing this with it, working in concert with the devolved Administrations. The ONS has assured us that it does not need additional powers to gather such data.
The problems encountered by the daughter of my noble friend Lady Fraser in proving her vaccination status are being actively addressed on both sides of the border. I must concede that the problems are not fully resolved yet, but understand that a Covid status pass from Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland will be recognised in England and vice versa.
Lord Bradley (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt, but I have been meaning to ask this question for a while. Will that also apply to students who currently study abroad and had their first vaccinations abroad, and who then come back to work in their home country? Will that be connected to the NHS app as well?
Earl Howe (Con)
Rather than give a wrong answer to the Committee, I had better take advice on that and write to the noble Lord, if he will allow it.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that if we look at this area in general, we are clear that we must and will continue to work closely with the devolved Administrations to ensure a fully interoperable, UK-wide approach to healthcare, including in relation to the provisions in this Bill.
It is worth adding that the devolved Administrations already have powers in legislation under Section 255 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 to request NHS Digital to collect and analyse data, so they have that ability if they wish to exercise it. I am very grateful for my noble friend’s interest in this important area. I assure her that we will continue to keep listening to ways in which we can make the NHS work for all four nations of our union. It is vital that we do so and implicit in the collaborative processes we are engaged in. However, for the reasons I have set out, I ask my noble friend to understand why I am unable to accept this amendment.
Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)
I thank my noble friend very much for his response. Although this has been a short debate, it has been a very good one. It has certainly been very helpful in noble Lords on all sides sharing their experiences and thoughts. It has raised some important issues and some comments on drafting. I am grateful to noble Lords for them. It has also enabled your Lordships to share some practical experiences, not least about the NHS Covid app. It sounds as if it is moving towards a resolution.
I was slightly amused that some of those who said that these issues do not need to be addressed in the Bill are often those who say that other issues need to be addressed in primary legislation so, when we are talking about consistency, we all need to think about that.
I am very grateful to my noble friend for saying that he agrees that more needs to be done and is being done to align healthcare across the United Kingdom and for stressing the importance of collaboration. I will, of course, withdraw this amendment, but the amendments in this group raise important issues and I hope that discussions can continue. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I think, said, this is about practical, positive treatment and outcomes for patients, which is what we all want to see regardless of where they live.
Baroness Thornton
“(5) Assistance or support provided under this section to a person or organisation which is not an NHS body or representative of an NHS body, may only be provided after consultation with the relevant integrated care board and integrated care partnership.”Member’s explanatory statement
This provides that the relevant ICB and ICP must be consulted before assistance is provided to bodies other than NHS bodies. It aims to ensure a transparent process where private providers are provided with assistance.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I will address the amendments in what is now group 4, commencing with Amendment 18 in my name, which address the various ways in which the board of an ICB should be constituted. I thank the noble Lords who have supported the amendments in my name and will speak also to Amendments 28 and 37.
Amendment 18 covers who should be on the board and, crucially, who should not. These amendments are about the governance of ICBs. They are going to be very powerful bodies—they are already operating in a shadow way, as it were—which will allocate hundreds of millions of pounds of public funds on our behalf. The question is about who should have a seat at the table where the decisions are taken. We should perhaps begin with who should not be on an ICB. There appears to be agreement that private sector interests should not be permitted, so I see no point in repeating the debates that took place in the Commons because that principle has already been settled. However, as ever, the devil is in the detail of how that translates into legislation and the ICB constitutions. It is my belief that what is in the Bill so far is not strong enough.
The objective is that private providers cannot have any part in decisions about how NHS resources are allocated or how contracts are placed. In my other amendments, I have extended the scope of this to ban GPs with APMS contracts, as they are definitely private sector interests. How someone from a social enterprise or the voluntary sector might be regarded is an issue to address sensibly, and I very much welcome that the Minister has said on several occasions that he believes that a margin of flexibility will be needed to make that happen. We all know that there is a single example of someone from Virgin Care being on a non-statutory non-decision-making ICS, one out of the 42 ICBs and one person on a body with 20-odd other members. That is still one too many. It is the principle that matters.
Private providers are bound essentially and legally to be addressing shareholder value, which is absolutely right and as it should be for their particular business interests, but they are not the values that underpin the NHS, which is absolutely not about striving for profit and shareholder value in any way. That is not to say that the NHS at every level should not strive for value for taxpayers’ money and effectiveness, but the best service for patients and communities is surely the underpinning objective of our NHS and it should be that for ICBs. Nor is it saying that the NHS should not be commissioning or working with a variety of providers, but we need to safeguard those values and the social value that underpin the NHS.
In the Commons this has been debated and Ministers are on the record about their intention not to have private providers represented. Sadly, some of us are still sceptical. This is particularly so when one looks at the easing of the 2012 commissioning and procurement regime. I await with interest the Minister’s reply on this matter. In making appointments to ICBs we are clear that there should be some kind of test so that if someone has something in their background which a reasonable person might think makes them unreasonably favourable or disposed to the use of private providers within the NHS, then they have no role on an ICB. I suspect that one might have to see, when the Bill finally takes effect as an Act, that those tests might be brought to bear on some of the ICS/ICB chairs and non-executive directors who may fail it.
The ICBs have similar duties to the CCGs they replace, at least on paper, but the board of an ICB will be very different from the CCG GPs and sometimes, it has to be said, the rather ad hoc arrangements that existed there. ICBs will be much closer to the unitary board model of trusts, FTs and the PCTs of recent memory. We agree with the intention of more effective commissioning of health services in the new era of co-operation and collaboration and with better integration with related services, so there should be a new kind of board made up of fewer NHS insiders and more who may have a wider perspective and fit better into the new model and the aspirations of the Bill.
We have had what feels like a dozen different ways of making commissioning work, and I have been directly involved in some. My observation is that as soon as they look like they are starting to work, they get reorganised. The trouble has always been the split between commissioners and providers, which some may say is essentially bogus. Both bits are still core NHS, and the big trusts have massive influence because they are massive. There is no democratic accountability, and the big providers had all the clout, not the commissioners. The NHS commissioning operation is often in splendid isolation from the rest of the public services, disconnected even from social care, to say nothing of where primary and community care and public health come in. This Bill aspires to be different, so we need to look at how it is served differently by the ICBs.
There has been some pretence that this will all change under the Bill, just as there has been for previous ones on commissioning. ICBs are given flexibilities and can build place-based sublevels, but the reality is that, as they are constructed at the moment, they are the same old NHS cartels. They have all the freedom they are allowed, but they may ultimately be powerless. The public will have as much idea about what ICBs do as they did about CCGs, and we all remember the marches to save our PCTs in the distant past. Just to make this clear, vested interests get a place in the ICB as of right but the public, patients and staff are not given that honour and responsibility. That is what part of these amendments does. Amendment 37, in my name and that of others, sets out our view about which voices are most important, and it breaks the mould of NHS appointing.
I divert briefly to say that elsewhere we will discuss more about how those appointments are made. Our view is that some independent appointments commission ought to make a comeback. I took great encouragement from the comments of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, on Tuesday, which helped in this regard. But there is still far too much control from the top and far too little say from the bottom on all the appointments that will be made under the Bill. Amendment 37 at least offers a way to have some diversity and possibility to challenge the interests that dominate the NHS.
Surely nobody who looks at what the amendments suggest would argue that these interests do not have a right to some voice. The public, patients, staff, social care, public health, mental health—which of these can be safely ignored and which has no part to play? We know the Minister in the Commons gave a minimalist defence in the interests of the new mantra of flexibility. He rightly said that boards should be of a manageable size and that ICBs should have some flexibility—as much as NHS England would allow—to add others to the board, beyond the minimum. The NHS actually has to do what it is told and, unless a more stringent requirement is put in the legislation, it will do what it has always been allowed to do. If we really want a better care system and some change to make organisational upheaval worthwhile, let us have a go at doing something different, with a wider group of voices to be heard and take decisions.
Our Amendment 37 deals with appointing key non-executive board members to represent interests, but within a unitary board. On Tuesday, colleagues pointed out that all board members share collective responsibility, which is a tried and tested model, but we need a discussion about this. I can see from the amendments in this group that other noble Lords have views—my noble friend Lord Bradley and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for example—but our amendments and others in the group, if we discuss them together, would make for a better balanced board, which does not necessarily have to be a larger board. I hope the Minister will consider these submissions carefully. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, is taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness to speak.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB) [V]
My Lords, I want to support the proposed new paragraph (h) in Amendment 37, which says,
“at least one member appointed to represent the voice of patients and carers in the integrated care board’s area.”
The patient’s voice should be heard throughout the Bill. What is the National Health Service for if not patients? Patients should be involved in planning, ensuring that patients’ and carers’ views continue to be represented. Their experience should be collected. They, with their carers, are the people who know what good, safe care is and what poor results are. I hope the patient’s voice will be involved. I am pleased that many Members already stated this in amendments last Tuesday. I hope the Government agree, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
Lord Bradley (Lab)
My Lords, I speak to my Amendment 38 and declare my health interests in the register, particularly as a trustee of the Centre for Mental Health and an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists.
This amendment is short and simple. As its explanatory statement makes clear, it merely adds to the list of requirements for membership of an integrated care board that must be included in the ICB constitution. I believe it is essential to have a representative of mental health trusts for each ICB area, and therefore on the ICB, as it is the key strategic body for, among other things, healthcare commissioning, planning priorities and resource allocation for a local area.
Baroness Hollins (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, and I support those amendments with respect to mental health. My Amendments 27 and 39 would provide for the addition of an expert in learning disability and autism on each integrated care board and ensure that the learning disability and autism lead was a person with knowledge and understanding of what good health and support look like for people with a learning disability and for autistic people.
As a starting point, this proposal has already been pledged by the Government in both the NHS long-term plan and the autism strategy, the latter stating:
“We also expect that all Integrated Care Boards, which will be established by the proposed Health and Care Bill, will focus on autism and learning disabilities at the highest level, for example by having a named executive lead for autism and learning disability.”
The reason for the Government’s firm commitment is that people with a learning disability and autistic people are among those who stand to benefit most from the integrated approach that the Bill seeks to implement. These are people whose needs frequently span health and social care systems. They are one of the largest recipient groups in terms of cost of health and social care provision and therefore a cohort with one of the greatest stakes in the effective integration of these two systems.
People with a learning disability experience huge health inequalities—very relevant to discussion on the first group of amendments today. On average, the life expectancy of men and women with a learning disability is 14 and 18 years shorter than for the general population respectively. Thirty-eight per cent of people with a learning disability die from an avoidable cause as against only 9% in the comparison population. These inequalities have been hugely exacerbated during the pandemic, with death rates of up to six times higher than among the general population, according to Public Health England. People with Down’s syndrome were identified as being at as high a risk as the over-80s. Yet they have had inappropriate DNACPRs put on their hospital records without their consent and had catastrophic reductions in care and support during the past two years, which will take years to recover from. There has been much greater reliance on family carers, who are too often dismissed as difficult by poorly trained health and social care decision-makers.
It is not learning disability and autism that are the cause; it is the situation that they are in as a result of ineffective plans and ineffective responses to their needs. Learning disability and autism, as well as foetal alcohol spectrum disorder—a much underdiagnosed and poorly understood condition but related to the groups I am speaking about—are lifelong states of being, but they are unequal states of being. Having a learning disability or being an autistic person is not like having cancer. People with learning disabilities and autistic people also get cancer; they also have a much higher prevalence of mental health problems.
The work I am overseeing for the Department of Health and Social Care places the major responsibility for inappropriate and lengthy detentions in long-term segregation under the Mental Health Act at the door of commissioners. It is a commissioning failure in the main. Some commissioners have relied on the availability of crisis admissions rather than collaborating to develop essential community services, including housing and skill support, social prescribing of meaningful activities and other innovative wellness approaches.
This is an urgent appeal to the Government to clearly signal a requirement for competent and accountable commissioning for people with a learning disability and autistic people. There is a lot of money being wasted at the moment through very poor commissioning. Please can we get it right this time?
Baroness Bakewell (Lab)
My Lords, before I address my Amendment 28, giving my support to my noble friend Lady Thornton, I wish to endorse the other amendments that are calling for representatives of particular groups—we just heard mention of two. I particularly endorse all those, especially as I am taking rather an oblique approach to this debate, which is not reflected in the other amendments.
Last year, there was a report in America that, increasingly, hospitals there were closing. The report said that hospitals were seen as businesses; a fifth of hospitals in America are run for profit, and globally, private equity investment in healthcare has tripled since 2015. In 2019, some $60 billion were spent on acquisitions. Globally, that includes—indeed, targets—us and the NHS. Where does that affect us? Increasing inroads are being made into the National Health Service by Centene and its subsidiary Operose, which now own 70 surgeries around this country. From Leeds to Luton, from Doncaster to Newport Pagnell, from Nottingham to Southend and many more, Centene now owns and runs for profit surgeries formerly owned and run by NHS doctors. It is now the biggest single provider of GP surgeries in this country. It has further designs on the existing fabric of the NHS, seeking to have its representatives sitting on the boards of CCGs, making decisions about the deployment of NHS funding. This is a direction of travel that needs to be monitored and checked. Safeguards must be written into the Bill against this takeover.
Why does it matter, just as long as patients have good and free treatment at the point of need? What is the reputation of Centene in America? It is not good. Indeed, it is regularly embroiled in lawsuits from either patients or shareholders, and the sums are not small. In June last year, Centene had to pay a fine of $88 million to the state of Ohio for overcharging on its Medicare department. This is one of many. Since 2000, there have been 174 recorded penalties for contract-related offences against Centene and its subsidiaries. That enterprise is now active in this country and targeting our NHS. It is not a fit company to be part of our health service. I therefore ask the Minister for safeguards to be written into the Bill against such people being represented on our boards. When I raised this at Second Reading, the Minister replied that there was no chance of us selling the NHS. We do not need to: they are buying us.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I will not detain the Committee in speaking to my Amendment 30. In truth, I am speaking in favour of my noble friend Lady Thornton’s Amendment 29. I could claim that my amendment has the virtue of being shorter but perhaps brevity is not always a virtue. Amendment 29 also makes the important point that it is the sub-committees and committees of the ICBs that will be crucial. The substantive point is that the Government have to accept that the amendment agreed in the Commons is totally inadequate. It depends on matters of judgment. We want a clear specification of who is appropriate to be a member of those bodies.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is my pleasure to support all the amendments in this group, so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. I thank her for tabling this amendment and Amendment 28, to which I was pleased to attach my name.
I agree with pretty well everything that has been said but want particularly to highlight the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins. As she was talking, I was thinking about testimony that I heard earlier this week at the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Art, Craft and Design in Education. A teacher was saying that if their educational provision caters to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged pupil in their school, that means that it is catering the best for everyone. It might be thought that having a representative for the interests of those with autism and learning difficulties will affect the care that they receive but it would actually greatly improve the care that everyone would receive. That is not often adequately understood.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said in her introduction, there are really two sub-groups here. Going from consideration of Amendment 18 to Amendment 30, we are essentially talking about, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, was saying, the need to avoid corporate capture of our NHS, although the corporate sector has already won many battles and taken over a great deal of the NHS. If the need for profit is the way in which things are being run, care must suffer. Care is the second priority and that is an unavoidable fact. When one considers privatisation—I have later amendments that will address the care sector in particular—we see where this has been allowed to extend to extremes, whereby the private equity sector has taken over our care system at enormous cost to the quality of care for public and private pockets. The system is in a state of near-continual collapse. We have to make sure that ICBs do not go down the route that our care sector has already gone down.
I am thinking about this matter for Report. There is also a further issue whereby although these amendments address people’s current employment and roles, we also need to think about the revolving door situation, about which, I see from social media, the public are increasingly concerned. We see people flipping between the private and public sectors and taking the interests, direction of travel and thinking of one to the other—and not for positive purposes.
I am aware of the hour but I am looking at the second sub-group of amendments, Amendments 37 to 41, and at who should be there. The issue relates to my comments on the previous group. We cannot just say, in terms of managing the NHS, “Just leave it to the doctors and the experts. They know about care.” Of course they do in terms of running services but in making choices and allocations and in ensuring that the ICB meets the needs of its community, it is the community that knows what the needs are and should tell the medical people what needs to be delivered, and the shape of that delivery. The technical details will come down to the medical people.
It is therefore crucial that we do not see the ICBs as technocratic places for people with MBAs and doctors but that we should include trade unionists, patients and carers. Carers are particularly important because our current system does so poorly in meeting their needs and supporting them. We need bodies that truly serve to represent the community.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, in declaring my interests as set out in the register, I want to press my noble friend the Minister on conflicts of interest.
Paragraph 8 of Schedule 2 to the Bill provides that local NHS trusts and GPs are to appoint members of the integrated care board. Organisations that provide the bulk of NHS services will therefore be co-opted into the work of commissioning. It is currently the work of commissioners to hold providers to account, objectively determining whether they are best placed to provide a service and assessing their performance. The new integrated care boards must continue to perform that role.
Clause 14 introduces into the 2006 Act new Section 14Z30, subsection (4) of which provides, rightly:
“Each integrated care board must make arrangements for managing conflicts and potential conflicts of interest in such a way as to ensure that they do not, and do not appear to, affect the integrity of the board’s decision-making processes.”
Reference has already been made to amendments that seek to exclude individuals involved with independent healthcare provision from joining the ICBs. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the membership of provider appointees on integrated care boards may at least risk creating a perception of a conflict of interest between the roles of those individuals on the board and any roles they may hold with provider organisations? How can the benefit of provider input into the work of an ICB be reconciled with the task of objectively assessing both the suitability and performance of providers? I believe that greater clarity from the very outset on the extent of the role that provider appointees will be expected to play will surely assist ICBs in developing robust governance arrangements, which would then enjoy public confidence.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendment 37. In so doing, I add my strong support to the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Bennett.
Of course, the ICBs will be central to ensuring adequate funding and support, not only for the powerful acute health trusts and primary care but for the services that are historically underfunded. It is for these services that this amendment is particularly important. Before discussing these specific gaps in the Government’s vision for the new system, I want to stress that I am very concerned that we should not lose vital clinical leadership along with patient representation, which were the hallmarks of the CCG system. Of course, we want worker and carer representation but, in my experience, top medics are actually rather good at deciding how money should be allocated across services.
In my view, the absence of a public health representative from the shortlist of necessary ICB members in the Bill is an extraordinary oversight. This amendment seeks to put that right. ICSs are already in the process of developing their draft constitutions, which, while dependent on the final content of the Bill, provide a clear indication of their intent regarding clinical membership. It is particularly concerning that several ICSs have failed to include any role on their ICB for public health experts in their draft constitutions, with some failing to make any reference to public health at all. As the BMA points out in its briefing, this poses a significant risk to the role and prominence of public health within the work of those ICBs.
In relation to the importance of public health representation on ICBs, noble Lords should be aware of the impact of this on the vexed issue of drug addiction. Police services up and down the country are recognising that criminalisation and imprisonment are entirely counterproductive in this field. These responses only limit the young person’s education and employment options and tie them into a life of drugs and crime, with appalling consequences for them but also for their communities. Police services are increasingly adopting diversion to treatment as a preferable response when an individual is found in possession of drugs, but drug treatment services have been cut over the past 10 years. ICBs will need to tackle this situation as a matter of urgency if the police are to be able to stem the tide of county lines and other highly damaging consequences of our counterproductive and, in my view, idiotic drug policies and failure to treat addiction as a mental health problem, which, of course, it is. These urgent issues will not be confronted unless public health is strongly represented on ICBs and other boards and committees in the new structure.
Another cri de coeur is for mental health, as others have said. Having chaired a mental health trust for many years, I am acutely conscious of the impact of bed shortages on very sick people and their families and of the very high threshold for child mental health services. There is no doubt that if we do not treat children with mental health problems, we will have adults with these kinds of problems throughout their lives. The country cannot afford to continue neglecting this important field. I support the other amendments in this group. The NHS has major long-term workforce shortages and other problems. If they are to be addressed adequately, the staff need representation, along with patients and carers.
I end with a plea to ensure, through membership of ICBs, ICSs and ICPs, that clinical leadership is retained within the NHS. On ICBs, this must include at least two primary care members, at least one clinical representative of secondary care, acute care and mental health and at least one qualified and registered public health consultant. I hope the Minister will tell the Committee whether he agrees with this approach to ICB membership.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lord, I rise very briefly to support Amendment 37 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, to which I have added my name. She and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, have identified in detail why this is a key amendment that identifies the core representation that is required for ICB boards to function satisfactorily and develop strategies for population health in their area, and I strongly support it.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak very briefly to Amendment 38 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Bradley. I have huge sympathy with the intention behind this amendment. Everything that we have talked about so far on mental health has pointed to the fact that unless there is a strong mental health voice on ICBs, the whole issue of mental health funding and the priority it has will not get as strong a voice as it should. I recognise that some argue that we should not overspecify the membership of new bodies but should allow each integrated care system the flexibility to develop based on its own set of local relationships, and I do not overlook that point. However, my natural sympathy is that it is only too possible for mental health concerns to be ignored when decisions are made about resource allocation and prioritisation without a strong mental health voice around the table.
However, I think I may have a way through this. We need to look back to the discussions we had on Tuesday about the overriding importance of mental health being explicitly mentioned in the triple aims. If such an aim were in place, I think we would be hard pushed to form an ICS or an ICB without mental health representation and we might be able to argue that it is not necessary, in those circumstances, to have it in the Bill. However, if that aim is not explicit, then the argument put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, is very strong indeed.
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, I rose on the first day of this Committee to speak to the membership of NHS boards. I rise today for a similar reason: I think it is very difficult to stipulate the membership of boards, just as the noble Baroness has said. However, as I said with NHS boards, I say with ICB boards that I think the voice of the patient is central. Along with my role as the Government’s Chief Nursing Officer, I was director of patient experience while I was in the Department of Health. As a nurse at that time, I believed I had a patient focus. However, I learned that my default was always as a professional and that the patient needs a voice and empowerment. While I recognise the clinical voice and would always want it on the NHS board and the ICB board, it does not replace the voice of the patient and the carer.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, like the noble Baronesses who have spoken before me, I recognise the difficulty of being too specific about board membership, but I think that paragraph (h) in Amendment 37 in the name of my noble friend, to which the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has added his name, is wide enough to enable patients and carers to be represented. Indeed, given the Government’s commitment to the voice of patients and carers, I find it difficult to understand how they could not accept such an amendment. I know the Minister is extremely committed to that patient and carer voice.
I want to extend that a bit to making sure that we do not forget the vital contribution that charities and community organisations make to health and social care services through their well-documented ability to be innovative and flexible. Your Lordships know that in the course of the pandemic, they immediately operated better delivery mechanisms than the statutory sector was able to because they were able to be flexible. One million volunteers were recruited, and many people had experiences similar to mine, with people saying that it was only through the services of voluntary organisations and charities that they had any kind of support at all, particularly during the first few weeks of the pandemic.
When the Public Services Committee of your Lordships’ House did its inquiry into how public services had reacted to the pandemic, time and again we received examples of where charities were ignored by public service providers. Even if they were consulted at a later stage in planning, it was not to take account of their experience and skills but to assume they would co-operate in whatever role was doled out to them. That is not the way to make the best use of the untold amount of good will, experience and skill that exists in charities, especially in the areas of health and social care. This is a waste of scarce resources and must be recognised in the new structures as they are set out. There are many examples of where these partnerships work well, recognising the different skills on offer, and of where charities are treated as partners, but they must be involved in planning at the earliest stages and be supported financially if appropriate. They will always give a good return on resources.
The other area where charities make a significant contribution is in representing the patient and carer voice. Voluntary sector organisations are often the services that have most contact, especially with vulnerable people. Your Lordships will have endless examples of that. Much is made of how important the voice of the user, patient and carer is when planning or delivering the services. Co-production, co-design and the other buzzwords we hear all the time absolutely depend on being in touch with users and patients. Almost inevitably, the easiest way to access users and patients is through local or national charities which make users their focus, both in the planning of services and the governance of the organisation.
Proper involvement of users, patients and carers often throws up surprises, even pleasant ones, about money. If you really take the views of users and patients, you will often find that what they want from health and social care services is not what is being provided. They will often ask for less provision than we expect, so long as it actually meets their needs, not the needs estimated by the providers. This is a valuable fact when resources are short. It is one more important reason to forge partnerships with the voluntary sector when the memberships of ICBs and ICSs are being set up. Organisations in their areas should be considered as partners which have a great deal to contribute and will do so willingly and productively.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
I have two amendments in this group, so I will try to address them very briefly because of time. I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, for the way that she introduced this and would like to return very briefly to the issue of public/private potential conflict when public money is being spent, because there is an issue of probity around that. Having shared corporate accountability for the delivery, functions and duties of the ICS could be in conflict with the legal duties of company directors, as has already been pointed out, and therefore creates problems.
I know that the Government recognised this in the other place, but their amendment seems to fall short in two respects. It leaves to the appointed chair of the board the decision on whether a person with interests in private healthcare is incorporated into an ICB. The difficulty is that it provides a condition that their interests in private healthcare could undermine the independence of the health service, but it is very unclear how that will actually be measured. I can see that it would be a fantastic area for legal argument that a precedent had been set in one area that was being worked against by the chair of another ICB. I think this needs to be clarified, because they will be dispensing public money and there are examples already where different decisions have been taken. I will not go into those now because of time.
I turn briefly to the reasons behind the amendments I have put down and declare that I am president of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, for co-signing my amendments. There is a role in recognising that the allied healthcare professionals are the third-largest part of the workforce—the workforce is not just doctors and nurses—and are critical to the long-term plan for the NHS. They work across the health and social care boundary and out into the community. They are integral—physiotherapists in particular—to primary care, and speech and language therapists are essential for children and young people, particularly those with communication difficulties, and that of course includes those with autism and learning difficulties.
I also recognise, though, the problem that you cannot have everybody listed on a board and everybody wants their own so-called representation on it. It will be important that the terms of reference and the metrics by which the function of the board is measured and compared are very clearly laid out, to make sure that there is appropriate consultation at all times with those who are on the receiving end of healthcare, and that people such as allied healthcare professionals are appropriately involved in decisions for the patient groups on which they can have a major impact. Quite often they have a much more major impact than medicine or nursing will do in terms of a patient’s long-term quality of life, and rehabilitation in particular.
So I hope that the Government have listened to this debate and in particular will heed the important warning from the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, in opening this debate and in the content of the amendments that she has tabled.
Lord Mawson (CB)
My Lords, I spoke on Tuesday about the structure that my colleague Paul Brickell, a Labour councillor in Newham at the time, and I, wrote for the then Government Minister Hazel Blears for the new company that would deliver the Olympic legacy in east London. I also described some of the key people who were invited to be directors of this company, with a clear vision and narrative, focused on delivery.
In east London live people from every nation on earth. Indeed, we did some research and we thought Greenland was not represented—but then we found a family in Newham that was from Greenland. Clearly, we could not have a representative from every nation on the Olympic Park Legacy Company, the OPLC—it was not possible.
At that time the noble Baroness, Lady Ford, was chosen as a Labour Peer by a Labour Prime Minister to be the chairman of the board. She was a very experienced player in the regeneration world from Scotland, not east London. I think that at the time she was a little embarrassed that I, an east Londoner, was not chairing it, given all the early work we had done on helping the east London Olympics happen. But I was not a Labour Party member and therefore could not carry the then Government with me, while she could. I was not concerned about this. My colleagues and I in east London were concerned about whether she had the knowledge and skill that could add real value to this important project and the public sector organisation that had been created. She was excellent and had an objectivity I could not possibly have.
We needed both things on the board: deep, local, practical experience and objectivity. I was asked to chair the Regeneration and Community Partnerships Committee, I think because she thought I knew quite a lot about these local issues and delivery, was trusted by local people and had a track record of delivering in place and in local neighbourhoods. Because my colleagues and I had delivered real projects with the local population, we did not know one thing about the place and neighbourhood: we knew, in depth, many things. It was all about finding the right experienced people, not those who said they represented something or somebody. The mayors of Newham and Hackney were there because they were impressive Labour leaders in east London who were turning around troubled local authorities.
I was asked to join the OPLC board as a person with deep, long-term roots in both a place—east London—and a neighbourhood, Bromley-by-Bow. I could speak and reflect back to the board not one thing—say, the environment—but also health: we were responsible for 43,000 patients. I had also been a Mental Health Act manager for quite some years locally. I think the noble Baroness chose me because I had deep and wide experience of the people, place and local neighbourhoods, and because of the practical work we had done in east London over quite some time—three decades, actually. It was about practical experience of place and neighbourhood and delivery. It was not about a person who thought he or she was representing one group or another, or a particular topic.
Experienced people bring many things to the board with them. I worry about the disabled person on a board who thinks they can talk only about disability issues—this is very condescending—or the young person who can talk only about young people’s issues. They can talk and have views on everything; it is about finding the right-quality person. However, they must have in-depth knowledge of what is actually going on locally and a deep understanding of the practical issues surrounding delivery. This is absolutely crucial.
There is a wider problem with some representatives on committees and structures, because they represent other agendas and they have mixed loyalties. They cannot focus on the task of the board because they have mixed loyalties elsewhere. They do not therefore prioritise the needs of the organisation they are sitting on. There is a lack of clarity about this, and I suspect we will all have experienced this on boards we have sat on. We need to get very clear about these democracy and delivery issues—what I call “the two Ds”. I have listened to a lack of clarity around these issues from successive Governments in recent years. We must get this clear if the new NHS structure is to really deliver the transformation we all now want to see and to deal with the health inequalities we rightly all discussed this morning.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, I too spoke on Tuesday about my concerns about listing the specific membership for the NHS England board. I have similar concerns to those that the right reverend Prelate and the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, have just set out. However, there is a slight difference with this issue, in that the core purpose of an integrated care board is to integrate. So I recognise the very real concerns that noble Lords across the Committee have mentioned about the importance of being able to hear the voices of all the different elements of our health and care system, to hear patients’ needs loud and clear and to make it a board that genuinely works, as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, has just set out.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, like the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I shall start with those who I think should not be on the board before I turn to those who I think should. To a great extent I support the noble Baroness’s Amendment 29, but with a small caveat that, if she wished to press it, might require a bit of redrafting. I will explain.
Additional provider medical services are very useful in many areas to fill gaps in primary care capacity. They may provide additional services from which other NHS primary care services have opted out, such as out-of-hours services or enhanced services beyond the capacity of local NHS GPs to deliver. In some areas they have taken over primary care services where NHS GP practices have become too small to be viable or all the partners have retired.
Some APMS services are commercial businesses with a responsibility to their shareholders to make a profit, and I do not think these should be on the board. However, some APMS contracts go to NHS entities, and I would not want to exclude those. Of course, we must remember that for many years GP practices have also been small businesses, sort of, operating within the umbrella and ethos of the NHS. They too need to clear their costs or they will close down.
That is all well and good. However, if the Government are serious that they want to exclude private sector interests from ICBs, they must surely agree to include in that ban non-NHS entities that hold APMS contracts. A failure to accept the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, must surely make us a little suspicious about the Government’s claim that their amendment inserted in another place would successfully exclude private interests from the board.
Amendment 29 would extend the range of those involved in commercial enterprises from being members of the board of an ICS beyond those that we have just discussed in relation to the noble Baroness’s Amendment 28. Amendment 29 would specifically exclude NHS GP practices and voluntary or not-for-profit organisations from the ban. There are many types of organisations that would be included in the ban, although they could be heard on the board of the integrated care partnerships. Those include: pharmaceutical companies; providers of medical devices, equipment or premises; people who own care homes; and many other essential services without which our NHS could not survive. However, their importance should not entitle them to influence the constitution, strategy or commissioning principles of the board of the ICS. They are important providers that will be appropriately involved in planning at other levels, but they should not be able to steer fundamental decisions without the suspicion that they might have a commercial interest in such decisions. Indeed, the ban proposed in the amendment would protect such companies from such a suspicion, so perhaps it would be welcomed by them.
Turning to those who should be on the board, I will not repeat what the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, said in introducing her amendments, because she has done it extremely well, particularly emphasising the impact of integrated services on people with learning difficulties and people with autism and how they could benefit from better integrated services if we got it right. So, I support her amendments.
I turn to Amendment 37, to which I have added my name to those of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for the following reasons. According to the Explanatory Notes, each ICB and its partner local authorities will be required to establish an integrated care partnership, bringing together health, social care and public health. The constitution of the ICB as it stands in the Bill specifies that the board must include only a minimum of three types of people who the Government clearly believe are essential to the effective operation of the board. They are someone from NHS health trusts or foundation trusts, someone from primary care, and someone from one of the local authorities in the area. If it is okay to prescribe these members, would it not also be wise to prescribe a few other key people with appropriate knowledge in order to achieve the ICB’s objectives of bringing together health, social care and public health? This amendment therefore suggests five other nominees—not 15, bearing in mind the Government’s wish to keep the ICB to a manageable size. But given the powers of the board, I would think it essential to have people nominated from mental health, public health, social care, health trade unions, patients and carers to bring their knowledge to strategic decisions.
If the board is to comply with the ambition of parity of esteem for physical and mental health—which we talked about two days ago—it will be important to have someone with the knowledge of how mental health services are working, as my noble friend Lady Tyler emphasised. Public health is a very particular discipline, the importance of which has been amply shown during the pandemic, which also has a vital role to play if we are to improve the health of local people and level up inequalities. Social care provision should never be separate from or subsidiary to health, as it is intrinsic to the functioning of health services in every area, so it is inconceivable that any ICB should ever be without someone from that sector.
The NHS is a people business, which is why those who deliver the services and the patients who are on the receiving end should have a voice at the top. Similarly, those thousands of unpaid carers, without whom vulnerable people would use up more of the NHS’s scarce resources than they currently do, should be represented at the very top of these new organisations. Their contribution to the efficient use of the board’s financial resources is crucial.
If the objective is to encourage more integration and collaboration, how could it be right not to have these additional five or six groups of people helping to make the strategic decisions? If that is not the case, as has been said by other noble Lords, the board could be dominated by the large acute hospitals and primary care, and the integration objective of the Government, which I endorse, would fail. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, this has been an excellent and wide-ranging debate, and I really am grateful to all noble Lords who tabled amendments today.
With your Lordships’ leave, I turn first to Amendment 18 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton. This amendment would mean that the relevant ICB and ICP would need to be consulted before NHS England is able to provide support and assistance to bodies other than NHS bodies. The NHS has, under successive Governments of all political colours—indeed, since its foundation in 1948—commissioned care from various sectors to help it be more responsive to patients’ needs, and particularly to help deliver the commitments set out in the NHS constitution.
The vast majority of NHS care has been—and will rightly continue to be—provided by taxpayer-funded public sector organisations. But experience before and during the pandemic has demonstrated how important it is for NHS England to have the power, as the Trust Development Authority currently does, to provide support and assistance to any providers of services on behalf of the NHS. This will ensure that independent providers can, if necessary, be commissioned to provide important additional capacity where needed.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I really rather hoped the Minister would not go into whether or not I was suggesting that we should or should not be using private services. This is about who commissions services; this is not about who provides services. In my opening remarks, I said that a variety of providers is exactly what we have and will continue to have.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for that clarification.
The amendment seeks to exclude individuals whose GP practices hold an alternative provider of medical services, or APMS, contract from being a member of an integrated care board. While APMS contracts may not be appropriate for all GPs, they offer the ICBs, as commissioners, greater flexibility than other general practice contract types. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, acknowledged, the APMS framework allows commissioners to contract specific primary medical care services to meet local needs. APMS contractors include some private and third sector social enterprises and GP partnerships, which provide outreach health services for homeless people, asylum seekers and others. It is quite clear that none of this diminishes the commitment to ensure that care is provided free at the point of use, paid for by taxpayers.
All contract holders providing NHS core primary medical services are subject to the same requirements, regulations and standards, regardless of the type of contract. The Care Quality Commission, as the independent regulator, ensures that all contracts meet these standards.
Some GP partnerships concurrently hold a general medical services contract for core medical provision, as well as an APMS contract. Some individual GPs provide services for a range of practices. The concern is that this amendment would exclude GPs working for one or multiple practices which operate under APMS contracts from being members of the ICB.
NHS England’s draft guidance states that nominated members of an ICB will be full members of the unitary board, bringing knowledge and a perspective from their sectors, but not acting as delegates of those sectors.
This amendment would prevent some individuals being on integrated care boards, based on what type of NHS GP contract their practice holds. This could limit the ability of primary medical service providers to appoint an ICB member who understands the health requirements of the local population. This could reduce the diversity of GPs who could be appointed, based on their contract type. If we think of the unintended consequences, this may inadvertently exclude representatives with much-needed expertise in serving specific local populations and addressing their health needs.
Earlier, we talked about tackling inequalities. I feel very strongly that there are sometimes unintended consequences, where people think that they know better what is best for their communities. It would be unfortunate to exclude APMS contracts, or anyone who had an APMS contract and who had the expertise needed for those communities that are not receiving an adequate service, or for poor, immigrant communities. This could go against the goal that we all want to see of tackling inequalities.
I now turn to Amendments 29 and 30. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for bringing this issue before the Committee. I understand the interest in the role of independent providers in the integrated care boards. I also understand the concern across the Committee to ensure that independent providers, including companies seeking to produce health and care products, should not be appointed to the board of ICBs. We agree. Integrated care boards will be NHS bodies whose board membership consists of a minimum of individuals nominated by NHS providers, GP services and local authorities whose areas coincide with that of the ICB.
Although, as has been acknowledged, service provision by the independent and voluntary sectors has been an important and valuable feature of the system under successive Governments, it has never been the intention for independent providers as corporate entities to sit on integrated care boards, nor for an individual appointed to be there as a representative of an individual provider, in any capacity. People must therefore be assured that the work of ICBs will be driven by health outcomes, not profit. However, we recognise that this is a matter of concern to many noble Lords, as well as to the other place. We have been keen to put this beyond doubt, which is why we brought forward the amendment on this very point at Report stage in the other place. This amendment makes clear that no one may be appointed to an ICB who would undermine the independence of the NHS as a result of their interests in the private healthcare sector, social enterprise or elsewhere, including the public sector.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but I want to ask him a question going back to Amendment 28 and the APMS contracts. If we were to bring forward an amendment that made it very clear that we had no objection to NHS entities or not-for-profit organisations with APMS contracts being on the ICB, would he take a more friendly approach? It would just eliminate those that take profit out of the NHS.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for that suggestion and for trying to narrow the gap that there clearly is. If an amendment were put forward, we would look at it very carefully and consider the unintended consequences from the way it is drafted. We will consider it but, as I am sure the noble Baroness appreciates, I can make no promises at this stage.
I turn to the point made by my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral about how provider input in the work of an ICB will be reconciled with assessing both the suitability and performance of providers. As my noble friend correctly noted, each ICB must make arrangements on managing the conflict of interest and potential conflicts of interest, such that they do not and do not appear to affect the integrity of the board’s decision-making processes. Furthermore, each appointee to the ICB is expected to act in the interests of the ICB. They are not delegates of their organisations, but are there to contribute their experience and expertise for the effective running of the ICB—a point made most eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, my noble friend Lady Harding and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London. It is important that this is about expertise, not the trust or organisation that they are taken from, or their skills and knowledge, as the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, said.
We are also keen to allow ICBs to develop their own governance arrangements, which best take their local circumstances into account. We want to give them the flexibility to learn and develop as their best practice evolves, so that other ICBs could learn from that best practice where there are concerns.
To support ICBs, NHS England is working with them to issue guidance and to develop and make clear our expectations of ICB leaders—expectations that have been reflected in the discussions and fantastic contributions from many noble Lords. For these reasons, I regret that the Government cannot accept these amendments at this stage. However, I hope I have given noble Lords such reassurance that they feel able to withdraw their amendments.
Turning to the membership of integrated care boards, I will begin with Amendments 27, 37, 38, 39, 40 and 41. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have brought forward these amendments today. I understand the interest from all sides in this membership. Schedule 2 sets out the minimum membership of the integrated care board; it will need to include members nominated by NHS trusts and NHS foundation trusts, by persons who provide primary medical services and by local authorities of areas that coincide with or include the whole or any part of the ICB’s area.
I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, about mental health. I am sure he recalls the debate on Tuesday, when noble Lords felt very strongly about this. I have offered to meet many noble Lords from across the Committee who indicated that they want to see this parity with mental health, which they do not believe is implicit at the moment, even if we believe that “health” refers to physical and mental health. Indeed, it refers to spiritual health in many ways. But we understand that we have to close that gap and I will make sure that the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, is invited to those meetings.
It is important for us that we are not overprescriptive, which is especially true of any membership requirement. Any extension beyond the proposed statutory minimum will risk undermining local flexibility to design a board, as my noble friends Lord Mawson and Lady Harding and others have said, in the most suitable way for each area’s unique needs, drawing on the best expertise, but not where they are from. It may also make the boards less nimble and less able to make important decisions rapidly if we overprescribe.
It is important to remind the Committee—I apologise if noble Lords do not appreciate the repetition—that we set a floor and not a ceiling. The ICB can appoint board members if it wishes. Local areas can, by agreement, go beyond the legislative minimum requirements. They will want to ensure they appoint individuals with the experience and expertise to address the needs and fulfil the functions. Areas are already doing this. For example, in south-east London the ICB is proposing to include three provider members—acute, community and mental health—and six place members, one for each borough. This approach is exactly how we want ICBs to use the flexibility available to them.
If, in time, some of the concerns expressed today by noble Lords become clear—such as issues being skated over, ignored or elbowed out by others with louder voices—we may need to add further requirements that relate to ICB membership, and there are regulation-making powers in place in Schedule 2 to allow the Secretary of State to do so. Furthermore, NHS England has the power to issue statutory guidance to ICBs. It could, for example, use this to recommend that each ICB should consider appointing a learning disability and autism senior responsible officer, as I know the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, has asked for and has spoken about most eloquently many times, most recently in a debate a few weeks ago.
Taken together, our approach reflects our view and, I reiterate, the view of the NHS that we should not attempt to overlegislate for the composition of ICBs and instead let them evolve as effective local entities to reflect local need. Let us get the right balance between the top-down and bottom-up approach, and make sure that they are relevant to their local areas. I am afraid that these amendments are seen to take a different approach, by adding more people to the minimum requirements for the ICB, making them larger but not necessarily better. They also add additional complexity by introducing a significant number of members who are responsible for activity outside the NHS. We think these would be better represented on the integrated care partnerships, which have a broader remit. I come back to the point that it is about expertise, not which trust.
I will consider the comments made by noble Lords very carefully if some of the concerns have not been met, and will have future conversations, between this stage and the next, if they feel that we have not addressed their concerns completely. I regret that the Government cannot accept these amendments. I hope that I have given your Lordships some, if not complete, reassurance and that noble Lords will feel able at this stage to withdraw and not press their amendments.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his detailed response. I was disappointed with the first remarks he made because he resorted to the mantra that the Government tend to go to when the question of private sector interests in delivering healthcare is raised by this side of the House. That is a shame, because the questions that we have raised are legitimate. In fact, his friends in the Commons accepted the conflicts of interest that could arise from private sector interests being represented on ICBs. We were seeking to make sure that that is watertight and there is no way of it changing. That is a legitimate question to ask.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Meacher, for supporting Amendment 37, which is the key amendment in this group as to who may or may not be members of the board.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, made a powerful case for the interests of people with learning disabilities and autism being represented. We know that where health systems make the health of people with learning disabilities a central priority, the whole health system benefits from it. That has happened in some places—for example, in Manchester—and it demonstrates how we improve the whole system. It is an important point.
My noble friend Lady Bakewell made the point about Centene and Operose, and that is partly why I put forward my amendment on APMS. The Minister may recall that we raised this matter in Questions a few weeks ago, when I asked him to write to me about what system had been used to give that contract to Centene, or Operose, in Camden, the area where I live. Having served on the CCG in Camden, I was aware of the importance of who runs primary care and of who the GPs in our surgeries are. Having right and proper people and organisations running our primary care was one of the criteria that you would use as a commissioner when you were looking at who was running, and who might wish to run, primary care and GP surgeries. I was involved in that process. As I learn about the history and background of this organisation now running primary care and GP surgeries in the UK, I do not think they are right and proper people to be doing that.
If this amendment does not serve the purpose of stopping that happening, I ask the Minister and the Bill team to reflect on what we might need to do to ensure that those from the private sector, social enterprises and charities whom we commission to run parts of our health service are right and proper people to do so. The remarks made in that regard by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, were very interesting and useful, as they often are.
The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, made the point about public health. That is the theme running through this Bill: the need for public health to be represented. She was also absolutely correct to bring us back to the idea that clinical leadership is very important. Of course it is. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London asked some pertinent questions.
My noble friend Lady Pitkeathley raised the issue of social enterprises, which is close to my heart. I am the honorary secretary of the All-Party Group for Social Enterprise, which I helped to found 20-odd years ago. The APPG has just completed an inquiry, chaired by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, about the impact of Covid on social enterprises, which absolutely illustrates the points made by my noble friend and which I will share with the Minister when it is available.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, made relevant points about Allied Healthcare. I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and I agree that the problem with APMS is that there is a lack of clarity and it is a bit of a loophole, and we need to look at it again. This may not be the Bill to do it in, but it might be.
With those remarks, and hopeful that the issue of who the members of the ICBs will be will run through our discussions for the next few weeks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.