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Oral Answers to Questions
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
The Government champion high ethical standards in local government. On 14 January, I supported the important Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford) to disqualify sex offenders from local office and, before Christmas, I met the Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life to reaffirm that we will shortly be responding to the Committee’s report on this important issue and will set out further steps to improve the system.
Mark Garnier
I am sure that you of all people, Mr Speaker, would agree that standards of politicians at every level are not always observed. On Wyre Forest District Council, a local councillor has been sanctioned for not the first, but the fourth time, for standards breaches. In this case, it was the leader of the Liberal Democrat group, but I think that we would all agree that frequent offenders who see sanctions as an occupational hazard of being a controversial councillor come from every political party. It is three years since the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life on local government ethical standards were published. Can the Minister confirm if and when the Government will legislate to implement their recommendations and that any legislation will equip councils with more robust sanctions for serious or repeated breaches of the code of conduct, an example of which could be a ban for six months?
Kemi Badenoch
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue and for his recent letter on the matter, which I shall respond to shortly. I am actively considering the recommendations set out in the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and will respond shortly. It is of the utmost importance that local authorities have the right tools to make the system work.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
Last summer, the senior Conservative councillor in my Angus constituency was unmasked as being behind an anonymous anti-SNP Twitter troll account, and for peddling misogynistic commentary on the appearance of female politicians, with flagrant attacks also on local councillors and parliamentarians. Conservative bosses in Scotland have mandated that he goes on a social media course, thereby paving the way for him to stand again in the May Scottish council elections. Does the Minister think that this is an acceptable way for Scottish Conservative councillors to behave?
Kemi Badenoch
I am afraid that I do not know the details of that case specifically. Although I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is raising a very important issue, what I would say is that he looks at the recommendations in the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. I think that he will find some things there that will address the situation to which he refers.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Standards, such as openness and honesty, are indeed important, and I do hope that the Prime Minister will soon agree to that. Despite the language and rhetoric of levelling up, the reality is somewhat different in our communities. How can we have local authority funding in the north of £413 per person over 10 years and spending of just £32 per person and it be classed as levelling up? The Secretary of State is quickly getting a reputation for himself in the Wirral as the Minister for closing down, laying off, and hollowing out, with libraries, leisure centres and public sector workers facing the chop? At what stage does he intend to get a grip and level up local government finances?
Kemi Badenoch
I am not sure whether that is a question specifically on the Committee on Standards in Public Life. The hon. Gentleman will know that the provisional local government settlement was published and that he and I have had discussions about that, which show that there is a significant increase in core spending power.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
I start by agreeing with the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) about openness and transparency. Last week, the energy company in which Warrington Borough Council bought a 50% stake collapsed. My constituents are rightly concerned that £50 million of public money was invested in a loss-making company. Will the Minister meet me to look at what steps we can take to protect local services and what lessons we can learn from governance in local authorities.
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)
Since affordable housing delivery is a devolved matter, I can speak only to the figures in England. The Government are determined to deliver social housing to help vulnerable families and tackle homelessness. Since 2010, we have delivered over 154,600 homes for social rent across England.
Beth Winter
In Wales, the Welsh Government are delivering new social housing at an accelerated rate, year on year, with an 18% increase in the last year. There were 20,000 new affordable houses built in the last five years, 65% of which were social rented, and another 20,000 will be built in the next five years, all of which will be social rented and at a low carbon specification. Unfortunately, in England the opposite is the case, with affordable house delivery falling, so will the Minister say what conversations he has had with the Welsh Government Minister, and what lessons he can learn on delivering the much needed increase in the affordable and low carbon social housing required?
Eddie Hughes
It is a fine invite for more conversation, but I do not think we need to learn any lessons from other devolved Assemblies. We are doing a fine job in England—not just building more houses for social rent but building more affordable homes, with £11.5 billion invested, and also making a significant amount of progress when it comes to decarbonising new homes.
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
Reviving our high streets and town centres is an absolutely essential part of levelling up. Our £3.6 billion towns fund includes support for 101 town deals and 72 future high streets fund projects. We are also providing support to local leaders through the high street taskforce and by introducing new planning flexibilities.
Jonathan Gullis
History, heritage and high streets—these things mean so much to the people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. Tears were flowing in the mother town this weekend after a fire ripped through the Leopard in Burslem. The Leopard pub has been standing since the 18th century and is where Josiah Wedgwood and James Brindley met to discuss building the Trent and Mersey canal.
In Tunstall we have empty high street shops, which are in a desperate state of neglect, with landlords all too happy to let them sit empty and uncared for. Will my hon. Friend outline to the people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke how the levelling-up White Paper can empower local councils and people to hold absent or rogue owners accountable for damaging the hearts of our community?
Neil O'Brien
I know that many of my hon. Friend’s constituents will be desperately sad about the fire at the Leopard; I was also sad to see the footage of it burning.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his leadership and hard work on regeneration. His ten-minute rule Bill on rogue owners is being closely studied in the Department; Kidsgrove is benefiting from a town deal; Tunstall library and baths are being regenerated through the levelling-up fund, and the local council is refurbishing the town hall. However, there is a lot more to do, and I am keen to continue my conversations with him on this important issue as we look to future legislation.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has not really proved very successful so far. Since the Secretary of State took office, the Chancellor has blocked any new money for levelling up, the Transport Secretary has halved bus funding and scrapped our trains, and while the Secretary of State is moving 500 civil servants into smaller cities and towns, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is taking 65,000 of them away. In April our nations and regions stand to lose billions unless he does his job. South Yorkshire alone will be short-changed by £900 million if money that once reached us via Europe is now blocked in Whitehall. That is money for skills, new infrastructure, apprenticeships and science.
“It could be deployed in our NHS, schools and social care”—
those are not my words but those used by the right hon. Gentleman in the referendum. Will he keep his promise that no part of this country will be worse off? Or should I ask the Chancellor?
Neil O’Brien
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for drawing attention to the fact that we are moving DLUHC staff to the great city of Wolverhampton. As I walk to my office in the morning, I walk past previous Labour Ministers looking radiant and John Prescott looking something, and I remember that they could have done this, but we are the party that is actually doing it and getting on with moving civil servants out of London. As for the hon. Lady’s wider points, she will have to wait for the contents of the White Paper. As well as the UK shared prosperity fund, matching those funds from Europe for each nation, we have the levelling-up fund, the community ownership fund and the high streets fund. Other than that, we are barely doing anything.
Lisa Nandy
Thanks for that—I will ask the Chancellor.
That is not actually what I asked. I asked the Minister to guarantee that no part of this country will see its funding collapse in just 10 weeks’ time. It is absolutely great to see investment going into Newark, but what use is that for someone living in Barnsley or Bolton? Can he not see the problem? Money has been flowing to Cabinet Ministers’ constituencies and to key marginals, and still he refuses to come clean on how those decisions are being made. This weekend it became clear that the only way to get money out of his Department is to be at the beck and call of the Chief Whip. How can any community have confidence that they have a fair shot at getting some of their money back from his Department if he will not release, in full, the information he holds about how these decisions are being made?
Neil O’Brien
It is true that levelling-up funds have been going to the constituencies of Cabinet Ministers—[Interruption.] I am sorry; I mean shadow Cabinet Ministers. Levelling-up funds have been flowing to—[Interruption.] I will admit at this Dispatch Box that money is going to the shadow Leader of the House, the shadow Education Secretary, the shadow Health Secretary, the shadow Culture Secretary: guilty as charged of levelling up those places, and on that we do agree.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I have been urging Bradford Council to prepare a levelling-up fund bid for the town of Bingley in my constituency which I very much hope will be looked on favourably by the Government. When will the deadline for the next round of bids for the levelling-up fund be, and what will the criteria be?
Neil O’Brien
The next round of bidding for levelling-up funding will open in spring and we will set out the conditions for funding in due course.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The towns fund is a limited beauty contest. All town centres, such as Crownpoint in Denton and Houldsworth Square in Reddish, matter. Twelve years ago, those town centres had hanging baskets and planters, the street furniture was beautifully painted, and our main town centre park, Victoria park, had bedding plants. All those things have gone as the councils have faced 60% cuts. How are we going to get some civic pride back in communities such as Denton and Reddish?
Neil O’Brien
That is a serious point, so let me address it in the consensual and serious way that it deserves. The rise of online shopping is posing major challenges to our town centres. That is why we are bringing forward the future high streets fund and the billions of pounds of funding that I mentioned. I also draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to things such as the community ownership fund, which helps to save these vital local assets. But of course we recognise that there is more to do, and more to think about in terms of how we change these town centres to help them adjust to a new world in which people will continue to spend more money online. We need to make them places where people work and live as well as just shop.
Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)
As a Government we are determined to level up opportunities across our country, and that starts with building the homes that our people need. That is why we are helping millions of people into home ownership. Since 2010, Government-backed schemes have helped over 756,000 households to purchase their own dream home. Last June, we launched our new flagship First Homes scheme, providing homes discounted by at least 30% for first-time buyers, with a priority for local residents and key workers.
Kevin Hollinrake
First Homes is an excellent initiative that could deliver homes in my constituency for local first-time buyers at even below half price. Will the Minister accelerate their delivery through section 106 agreements, pilot their delivery on public sector land in my constituency, and rename the policy from First Homes to “Half-Price Homes”, because then people would understand it much more clearly?
Christopher Pincher
My hon. Friend, who is a doughty campaigner for home ownership, teases me. He wishes me to call First Homes “Half-Price Homes”. Perhaps that will become the shorthand name for this project. Perhaps even, in time, they will be known as Hollinrake homes. As to his other questions, we are already commissioning First Homes properties on both public and private sector land through our two early delivery programmes. We are aiming to deliver 1,500 of them before April 2023, and we certainly want to accelerate the programme so that more people are able to achieve the dream home that they want and deserve.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
The whole nation breathed a sigh of relief when the Government’s planning-by-algorithm so-called reforms were ditched, so when will the son of planning-by-algorithm come out? My constituent Heidi has kept a small hairdressing business going throughout the pandemic, but she is not eligible for Help to Buy, so will the Minister look at introducing more schemes that would help people like her? We also want things that will preserve suburban character, because all the build-to-let things going up locally, up to 60 storeys high, are destroying everything that people liked about Ealing and Acton.
Christopher Pincher
We certainly want people such as Heidi to achieve the home that they want. Through Help to Buy, right to buy, right to acquire, help to build and a variety of mechanisms, including our 95% fixed-term mortgage guarantee, there is a multiplicity of ways in which we can get people on to the housing ladder. The hon. Lady also asks about our planning reforms, and I can tell her that she will be hearing more about those in due course.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I am sure that the Minister would agree that by far the best people to decide how many homes we want and where they should be are local people. Would he therefore agree with me and the town of Malmesbury in my constituency, which raised the point that the neighbourhood plan, which this Conservative Government brought in, is currently being trumped by the so-called five-year housing land supply figures, which are handed down by central Government? Will he give me a hint as to whether greater importance will be given in the forthcoming housing White Paper to neighbourhood planning, thereby allowing local people to decide how many houses they want and where?
Christopher Pincher
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, because it gives me the opportunity to make it clear that it is for local communities to determine how many homes they want and need in their vicinity. Local housing need numbers are not an end point; they are a starting point. It is for local authorities to determine what constraints they may face to determine the numbers of homes that they need in their area. They then agree those numbers with the Planning Inspectorate to set a sound plan, and that is then the number that the local authorities build toward. Local authorities that fail to set an up-to-date plan leave their constituents at risk of speculative development, so it is for local authorities to set the numbers and make their plans.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) for the brief, tantalising preview of what is to come. The levelling-up fund is allocated according to objective criteria, including value for money, strategic fit, deliverability and the characteristics of place. I am therefore delighted that places such as Rotherham, Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne have already secured funding through our levelling-up funds, which include the towns fund, the levelling-up fund itself and the previous local growth fund.
Peter Dowd
A bit more tantalisation here: how can the Government’s levelling-up allocations possibly be equitable and transparent when the Government’s own index of multiple deprivation indicates that the constituencies of the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care—numbers 254 and 268 of the 310 on the index—received £27 million and £14.5 million respectively, while an area in the top 0.5% of the index, which includes my constituency, where my constituency office is based, received nothing? The question is: is that equitable, transparent and fair? Will the Secretary of State or a Minister meet me and my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), to discuss our concerns?
Michael Gove
It is certainly equitable, transparent and fair, and should the hon. Member wish, there is an explanatory memorandum on gov.uk, which would take him, as it would any hon. Member, through the process by which funds have been allocated. I should say that the whole Liverpool city region received £37.5 million through the levelling-up fund, but I would be delighted to talk to him and the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) to ensure that future bids can land carefully, safely and successfully.
Chi Onwurah
In Newcastle, we have been waiting seven years—seven years—for real-time integrated bus information of the type that Londoners take for granted. Now we hear that the £3 billion bus improvement funding is less than half that, and much of that is going on zero-emission buses, meaning even less money for our bus improvement plan, which includes real-time information. Will the Secretary of State commit to levelling up bus transport in the north so that we are no longer under-served, overcharged and underinformed?
Michael Gove
Having spent some of the happiest months of my twenties on buses in Newcastle, I can absolutely sympathise with the hon. Member. It is the case that her constituency received £20 million from the levelling-up fund, but I look forward to working with her, the North of Tyne Mayor and Newcastle City Council to see what more we can do to improve public transport.
Alexander Stafford (Rother Valley) (Con)
I welcome the £11 million from the levelling-up fund that has already gone to Rother Valley, including £4.5 million to transform Maltby, and I am glad that Rotherham Council is again putting in another bid for Rother Valley to get another £9 million for Dinnington High Street. Can the Secretary of State tell me what future funding pots will be available for other parts of Rother Valley, so that the whole of the constituency can be levelled up, especially the likes of Thurcroft, Swallownest and Kiveton Park?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is right that there has already been significant investment in Rotherham. Of course, one of the beneficiaries of that is the shadow Defence Secretary, whose impassioned advocacy on behalf of his constituents has not gone unheard; however, there are a number of communities in Rother Valley. The community ownership fund, which we will be expanding, is just one route, and I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to take it with me to ensure that the villages and communities that he serves get the services they deserve.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend share my concern that smaller and rural local authorities often do not have the capacity to deal with complex application processes? What steps will he take to address that concern?
Michael Gove
My right hon. Friend is right. He represents, I think, the largest, and certainly the second-most attractive constituency in Scotland, which covers three excellent local authority areas. There are excellent local councillors in all of them but, essentially because they lack the economies of scale, we need to work with those local authorities to ensure that, from Lockerbie to Moffat, the communities that deserve investment secure it.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that the success of levelling up will depend in large part on how much money is available and how it is distributed. I do not know whether he has had a chance to look at the recent research by Teesside University, which shows that over the past seven years the amount of money coming through EU funding and the local growth fund has been £2.1 billion a year, while the amount for the next few years from the shared prosperity and levelling-up funds is projected to be only £1.5 billion a year—a significant cut. In addition, the cuts in his own Department’s funding have hit the poorest local authorities the hardest, so when he produces his levelling-up White Paper, will he produce a comprehensive list of spending per head by region for each Department and show how the policies he is advocating will change those funding levels for the benefit of the poorest areas, which have suffered most in the past 10 years?
Michael Gove
I would gently contest the argument that the poorest areas have suffered most in the past 10 years, but the Chairman of the Select Committee makes an important point about transparency in the allocation of funding, and I look forward to working with him to ensure just that.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Given current media speculation about the allocation of levelling-up funding, and given that I am a Member of this House who has unfortunately had to vote against the Government on several occasions recently, will the Secretary of State reassure me on whether there is any point in North West Leicestershire reapplying for levelling-up funding? Does he agree that, were Coalville to be successful in the next round of bidding, it would demonstrate that the Government are not engaging in pork barrel politics?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend, like me, abjures the whole idea of pork barrels. What we both believe in is allocating funding on the basis of merit and need. I can assure him that he has been in the same Division Lobby as me more often, I believe—although I stand to be corrected by the Whips—than the deputy leader of the Labour party, the shadow Defence Secretary, the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, the shadow Culture Secretary or the shadow Social Care Secretary, all of whom have benefited from levelling-up funds. If a requirement for Government funding were voting with the Government, I fear that the deputy leader of the Labour party, my dear friend, would have lost out. However, I am delighted that her constituents in Ashton-under-Lyne have benefited from our funding, because we are committed to levelling up and uniting the country, irrespective of political colour.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Analysis of levelling-up funding published recently by NPC—New Philanthropy Capital—found that, despite strong public support, homelessness is not being properly addressed. It found that communities with the highest concentrations of black, African and Caribbean communities fared poorly, and that four of the most deprived communities missed out entirely. Both the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O'Brien) have sought to make a supposed joke of this, but I do not think it is laughing matter that while poorer communities have missed out, the constituencies of at least three Cabinet Ministers, which are considerably more affluent, were successful in their bids. Beyond the jokes and the spin, does the Secretary of State honestly expect the House to believe that the Government have acted equitably rather than defaulting to the usual approach of pursuing narrow self-interest?
Michael Gove
I cannot see how it would be in the narrow self-interest of the Government, if operating on partisan lines, to have given the hon. Gentleman’s constituency £18 million for transport improvements from the levelling-up fund. These are not jokes; these are serious matters. We work with people across this House, including and especially in the Labour party, to ensure that funding goes where it is required. Lying behind the allegations made by him and others is a suggestion that somehow civil servants would conspire with Ministers deliberately to favour constituencies on the basis of political colouration.
My new opposite number, the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy)—I offer her my congratulations on her elevation—recently wrote to me to ask whether we would make transparent the basis on which we allocate that funding. We have: it is published on a website called gov.uk. Google can sometimes be helpful to all of us.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Notwithstanding the Secretary of State’s earlier comments, I am sure that he would never accuse a fellow Tory MP of misleading the House. Will he therefore comment on the veracity of the specific remarks made by the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) about threats made to Tory MPs to withdraw investment from their constituencies and release negative press stories as punishment for supporting a no-confidence vote in the Prime Minister? Will he outline what investigations he intends to undertake to look into the abuse, or possible abuse, of levelling-up funds?
Michael Gove
There is no evidence of any abuse of levelling-up funding. If anyone has it, I hope that they will bring it to the House’s attention. As for any suggestion that someone may be on the receiving end of lots of negative press stories for voting against the Government, as someone who is solid, 100%, totally behind the Prime Minister and yet also on the receiving end of a plethora of negative press stories, I can tell the hon. Member that there is no correlation between the two.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
On every single criterion, my Gosport constituency should qualify for levelling-up funding, but our recent bid for funds was unsuccessful. Quite simply, we have a small council that lacks the resources to compete with the big guys for the funding, and there is also a strong feeling that our south coast location could disadvantage us. If, as the Secretary of State said, impassioned advocacy is a recipe for attracting funding, can he please give me a glimmer of hope for the future? Will he tell me that the levelling-up White Paper will also offer us hope, and when it will be published?
Michael Gove
Few people put more passion into their advocacy than my hon. Friend. While in levelling up we must have a proper focus on the midlands and the north, other parts of the United Kingdom, including the area around the Solent—Gosport, Portsmouth and Southampton—also require investment. I will work with her to ensure that that investment is forthcoming.
Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
The Government are committed to ensuring that devolution works across the United Kingdom. We hope to deepen and extend devolution within England.
Dr Whitford
Unfortunately, the levelling-up fund is already being used to bypass the devolved Governments, and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 could enable UK Ministers to overrule the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments’ policy decisions. Does the Secretary of State not recognise that riding roughshod over devolution will force the people of Scotland and Wales to choose between a return to direct rule by Westminster and controlling their own future through independence?
Michael Gove
I appreciate the point and the way in which the hon. Lady makes it, but it is the case that a number of constituencies in Scotland received money from the levelling-up fund, and that money was allocated on the basis of bids supported by Scottish National party MPs and championed by Scottish National party-led councils. I enjoy working with the Scottish Government to ensure that we can work collectively together. Whatever our views on constitutional questions, the fact that we can work together on such issues is a credit to those Ministers in the Scottish Government who want to take that pragmatic approach and to her parliamentary colleagues who champion funding for their constituencies.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
Freeports are one of the ways this Government are levelling up across the devolved Administrations, and I am delighted that there is to be at least one freeport in Wales. Can the Secretary of State update the House about ongoing discussions with the Welsh Government and when we can expect the Welsh freeport bidding prospectus to be published?
Michael Gove
I can confirm that we have had very fruitful negotiations not just with the Scottish Government, but with the Welsh Government. I want to place on record my thanks to Vaughan Gething and other Ministers in the Welsh Government, and I hope that we will be able to make an announcement shortly about the process by which we will allocate freeports in Wales. At the moment the proposal is for one freeport in Wales, but I recognise that both south Wales and north Wales have significant potential for freeports in the future, and there are few better advocates, in particular for Anglesey, than my great hon. Friend.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
The current Tory leader in Scotland and two former Tory leaders in Scotland, alongside every single Tory MSP, are calling for the Prime Minister to resign after their Scottish branch office leader was sneered at by the Secretary of State as just a man “in Elgin” and the Leader of the House decried him as a “lightweight”. In view of this, can the Secretary of State clarify how the self-declared Prime Minister of the Union will increase devolution while Scots calling for his resignation believe he is actively harming the Union?
Michael Gove
I am terribly sorry but I did not realise or appreciate that saying someone came from Elgin was an insult as far as the SNP is concerned; in my view, it is a compliment.
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)
As I said in a previous answer, building homes is key to levelling up, and that is why we announced an additional £1.8 billion for housing supply at the last spending review, delivering £10 billion-worth of investment since the start of this Parliament and unlocking over 1 million new homes. However, it is important that local communities have input to the planning process, and we recognise that as part of our planning reforms the planning system must be more engaging and much more democratic.
Mr Holden
Many people in social housing have been able to exercise the voluntary right to buy scheme for tenants of social landlords. However, in so-called rural locations, many are excluded, including many thousands of my own constituents. Would the Minister or the Secretary of State meet me and other MPs with constituents in similar situations to find a way forward that both enables people to own their own homes and ensures that the level of housing stock for rent from social landlords is maintained?
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to my hon. Friend. We are committed to enabling tenants in social housing to acquire their own home through right to buy or right to acquire, and we have helped nearly 2 million tenants to become homeowners—dream-home owners. I am aware that there are some particular issues in some particular rural areas, and I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend and his colleagues to discuss how we can ensure that those people have the opportunity of home ownership, too.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will know—and you will know, Mr Speaker—that I am a fan of One Direction, and Harry Styles in particular. If it is true that Harry Styles is looking to buy a £10 million property in the west country, he will join the thousands of people who have been hoovering up our homes to make them second homes. The pandemic has turbocharged the housing crisis in the west country, so will the Minister look seriously at ensuring every west country family can have a first home, not just have a region full of second homes for those who can afford one?
Christopher Pincher
We are determined to make sure that there are homes available to buy for the people who want them around our United Kingdom, including in holiday hotspots such as the west country. That is why we have brought forward new policies such as First Homes, why we are closing the loophole which allows some people to abuse their second home and holiday let properties, and why we want to build more homes in those places to ensure people have the opportunity to own and enjoy them.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)
The Government support local authorities through both central funding and developer contributions to deliver the infrastructure that new development demands. In 2020-21, Swale Borough Council secured over £3.7 million of developer contributions and we are providing Kent County Council with £38 million from the housing infrastructure fund to support road improvements, which will unlock 8,500 homes in Swale.
Gordon Henderson
I am always grateful for any money that Swale Borough Council gets, but of course those particular funds are designed to ensure even more homes can be built, and that would do nothing to reduce congestion on roads in Sittingbourne and Sheppey, or to increase the number of secondary school places available to local people, or to make it easier for those people to get an appointment with a GP. What Swale needs is fewer houses, not more; so would my right hon. Friend consider placing a moratorium on housing targets for Swale Borough Council and local authorities in Kent generally until the problems I have highlighted are resolved?
Christopher Pincher
As I said in a previous answer, it is for local authorities to determine the number of homes they need and to set those numbers accordingly. We want to make sure that where development takes place infrastructure is available to support it. That is why we have the HIF—housing infrastructure fund—to which I have referred and the new home building fund, with a significant amount of money for infrastructure. It is also why we want through our planning reforms to look carefully at how infrastructure funding can be provided, so that it is provided up front and new developments benefit from the schools and clinics and kids’ playgrounds that they need, and new communities get bang for their buck.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
We commend the West Midlands Combined Authority under the leadership of Andy Street for its ambition to secure further powers for the region and will be saying more about our plans to strengthen local leadership in the forthcoming White Paper.
Liam Byrne
The Mayor of the West Midlands and I disagree on much, but I think he buys into my argument that we should be the green workshop of the world, and I agree with him that delivering on that requires radical devolution of resources and powers in at least 12 different areas, from skills to energy regulation. Has the Minister read the submission from the combined authorities—the Mayor and the seven mighty authorities of the west midlands—and, crucially, when the levelling-up White Paper is delivered, will he deliver on it?
Neil O'Brien
I am glad to see this wonderful outbreak of consensus. I have read the exciting proposals put forward to us but I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman will have to wait until the White Paper; however, I will say that Andy Street has continued to bring forward very exciting and interesting ideas.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
We welcome and encourage the steps the Church is taking to make more of its land available for affordable housing. Since the Archbishops’ debate in March 2021 and the publication of the report from the Archbishops’ Commission on Housing, Church and Community, my officials have engaged with representatives to consider how we can provide support for that, and that is expected to continue.
Richard Graham
The Secretary of State will know that the Diocese of Gloucester has been doing a lot to help implement the important report from the Archbishops, “Coming Home”. I particularly want to thank Bishop Rachel and all involved for their work in funding the national housing executive and delivering projects such as St Aldate’s and Hardwicke. The Secretary of State will however also know that housing is a complicated issue for the Church and the draft legal reforms on ownership are stuck with the Church Commissioners and the Archbishops’ Council, so what more can my right hon. Friend do, perhaps in conjunction with the Second Church Estates Commissioner, to make sure that the Church of England lives up to its leaders’ social mission and helps provide more space for homes for some of those most in need?
Michael Gove
I am tempted to quote from the Gospel, John 14:2:
“In my Father’s house are many mansions”,
and it is certainly the case that we want to work with the Church of England to unlock more land and support its drive to secure greater access to affordable housing. I have recently been in touch in particular with the Bishop of Kensington, Graham Tomlin, and I know he will be taking forward further conversations in order to achieve the goals he and I and the Second Church Estates Commissioner share.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
Active travel is central to levelling up the nation’s health, air quality, social connectedness and prosperity. The Government committed £710 million of new active travel funding at the spending review and are establishing active travelling to support places. The White Paper will discuss transport’s contributions to levelling up, including of course active travel.
Wera Hobhouse
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. He knows of course that travel accounts for nearly a third of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions, with the majority coming from petrol and diesel vehicles. In my constituency of Bath the council is working very hard to get to net zero by 2030, and active travel is a key part of that. So in the upcoming planning reforms will the Secretary of State include the 20-minute neighbourhood principle, which ensures that people can access services and goods within a 20-minute return walk?
Michael Gove
That is a very good principle—I completely agree with it. For those who do not follow our proceedings with the same intensity as top political commentators and all the rest of it, active travel refers to walking and cycling. I completely agree with hon. Lady. What we want to do is create communities where people can walk or cycle to all the facilities and amenities that they need. That is one reason why I am such a great fan of the work of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and the developments for which he has been responsible, as they embody that principle more effectively than the work of almost anyone I know.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
Grassroots sports clubs and facilities are crucial to levelling up in some of the most deprived parts of Ipswich, whether it is a BMX club in Gainsborough, a boxing club in Nacton or Ipswich Vale Exiles FC: Maidenhall and Chantry. Will the Secretary of State confirm today that that is something that will be acknowledged in the White Paper and that when it comes to the second tranche of the levelling-up fund there is a possibility for it to be a grassroots clubs and facilities fund to back levelling up in such an important way?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is the case that the levelling-up fund and the community ownership fund are oriented towards ensuring that cultural and sporting activities can be supported. I should remark that just over a week ago I had the pleasure of visiting Bury where, through the community ownership fund, we could give the fan-led consortium the resources needed to take Gigg Lane back into its ownership. Only a few days later, the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford) defected to the Labour party. Once a Shaker, always a Shaker, I was told in Bury, but there are some people who are steady on parade and there are some people who shake it all about. I think in Bury we prefer those who are steady on parade, rather than those who wobble under pressure.
Mr Speaker
And Gigg Lane has the finest playing surface. We now go to topicals, with Paul Blomfield.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations (Michael Gove)
On Thursday this week, it is, as the House knows, Holocaust Memorial Day. My hon. Friend the Minister for Levelling Up Communities will lead a debate on that day. It is important that we all recognise that the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust are absolutely invaluable, not just in challenging the unique evil of the holocaust and the poison of antisemitism but in reminding us that we need to be vigilant against prejudice of all kinds: anti-Muslim hatred, the persecution of Christians and any prejudice that is based on religion, ethnicity or any of our protected characteristics.
Paul Blomfield
I certainly endorse the comments by the Secretary of State in relation to Holocaust Memorial Day.
The latest figures for Sheffield from February 2020 to April 2021 show a 46% increase in the number of private renters claiming housing benefit, because wages are simply not keeping up with rising rents. Some 28% of private rentals in the city contain category 1 hazards, which involve serious risk of harm, compared with just 4% of social housing. As the cost of living crisis deepens and energy bills rise, what are the Government doing to alleviate pressure on private renters and when this year will the Secretary of State publish the rental reform White Paper?
Michael Gove
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. It is the case that there are a number of people in the private rented sector who are not getting the deal that they deserve, both regarding the level of rent and the decency of their homes. I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman on that.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)
The building regulations set out the minimum energy performance standards. They do not prescribe the technology that is required—they just set the goal—which allows builders and homeowners the flexibility to innovate and select the most practical and cost-effective solutions appropriate to any development. Obviously, our intention is to go further. We have had the part L uplift, and building regs will move towards the future homes standard for 2025.
Matthew Pennycook (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)
Would the Secretary of State give the House a clear and categorical assurance that if he cannot ultimately extract enough money from industry finally to fix the building safety crisis he will not allow the Chancellor to raid his Department’s budgets, including funding already allocated for new affordable homes, to make up the shortfall?
Michael Gove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me an opportunity to update the House on the conversations we had with developers last Thursday. Those conversations were cordial and constructive, but we were also clear about the obligation developers have. I am confident that they will meet it.
Marco Longhi (Dudley North) (Con)
The Minister for Housing (Christopher Pincher)
I am obliged to my hon. Friend. As he will know, protecting the green belt is a firm manifesto commitment. Certificates of lawful use are intended to confirm that an existing use of land is lawful from a planning perspective. If there is any doubt about the lawfulness of the existing use, local authorities should reject the application and consider other ways of ensuring that progress is made. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the issue further.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
The latest figures from Shelter show that women are 36% more likely than men to be in a constant struggle to afford housing costs or be in arrears and that under this Government nearly two-thirds of people in temporary accommodation are women. Can the Secretary of State not see that the Conservative cost of living crisis, the damaging cuts to universal credit, and the failure to give renters security in their homes are forcing even more women into homelessness?
Eddie Hughes
What we do see is that Government funding during the covid pandemic has meant that, as the English Housing Survey tells us, 93% of people are up to date with their rent. With regard to helping people, our renters White Paper is coming forward. We will be doing things like banning no-fault evictions and they will help renters regardless of gender.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
Michael Gove
We absolutely will consider that. I know there are innovators in my hon. Friend’s constituency who are leading work in that precise area, so I look forward to working with him and those in his constituency to achieve just that goal.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
Christopher Pincher
Again, I am obliged to my hon. Friend for his question. I will certainly consider the specific points he makes, but that is exactly what we want to do. Through the planning reforms we envisage, we want to ensure that developer contributions are made much more quickly in the process so that the sort of infrastructure he talks about is provided, and to ensure that greater land capture value is collected to ensure that those services can be provided to a greater extent.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Michael Gove
I absolutely will do that. Although the White Paper will include a number of proposals to help to reduce health inequalities, as Professor Michael Marmot’s report and work—alongside the all-party group’s work—have demonstrated, significant work is required to be done on everything from obesity to cramped housing in order to deal with those issues.
Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)
Almost a year ago, the Minister for Housing, who has responsibility for planning, wrote to Liberal Democrat-run Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council to say that it does not have an up-to-date local plan and to ask it to do more to get it updated. In his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for North Wiltshire (James Gray), the Minister said that part of the problem is that areas become open to speculative developments. One way to strengthen the position is by having a neighbourhood plan, as in vanguard places such as Market Bosworth. The problem is that they are being ridden roughshod over. Will he look to strengthen the role of neighbourhood plans in future, and failing that, in the meantime, will he encourage Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council to get its plan sorted and up to date?
Christopher Pincher
I am obliged to my hon. Friend. We certainly want to extend and expand the use of neighbourhood plans in constituencies such as his—in Hinckley and Bosworth—and he is right that I have written to the council to encourage it to get on and update its local plan. It is nice to see that there are a couple of Lib Dems on duty here, because they ought to hear that there is nothing liberal or democratic about exposing a local community to speculative development. That is what the people in Hinckley and Bosworth face and I am very keen to make sure that my officials work with Hinckley and Bosworth to get that plan in place.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Under the Conservatives, home insulation rates have plummeted, emissions from homes are higher now than they were in 2015 and UK homes are the least energy-efficient in the whole of Europe. To help struggling families with the spiralling cost of energy bills, will the Minister finally copy and paste Labour’s plan to retrofit every single home with a special scheme to help low-income households?
Eddie Hughes
The Government have a number of plans to help with the decarbonisation of homes for people with low incomes. A good example would be our social housing decarbonisation fund, which already has £1 billion committed to it from this year.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State take steps to make sure that when we build very large new housing developments, it is easy for new residents to get into their local surgery or new health centre?
Michael Gove
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. We absolutely need to make sure that easy access to infrastructure and public services is part of significant housing developments, and I look forward to working with him to ensure that that is true in South West Bedfordshire and elsewhere.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
In my city of Norwich, we have had less levelling up and more vital services simply levelled. Will the Secretary of State stop fobbing us off with insufficient, ad hoc pots of money and ensure that sustainable, long-term funding is given to my city and county councils, the real engines of any levelling-up agenda?
The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
We do provide sustainable funding. The hon. Gentleman will know that the provisional local government finance settlement made available an additional £3.5 billion to councils. Norwich City Council had an increase in cash terms of up to 4.8% compared with last year, giving it a total core spending power of up to £18.6 million. Norfolk County Council got an increase of up to £55.5 million and the core spending power of South Norfolk District Council was at £15.7 million. If there are further conversations that he would like to have, I am very happy for him to write to me.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
Compared with communities across the country, Basingstoke has built 50% more new homes over the past two decades. Local residents want to make sure that we have homes for our children and grandchildren, but we believe that Basingstoke has been doing far more than that. What advice can my right hon. Friend give my local council on how we can make sure that future projected house-building levels reflect the very special circumstances in my constituency?
Christopher Pincher
I commend my right hon. Friend and her council for all the sterling work they have done to build the homes in Basingstoke that people need. The important thing is for people to make sure that their local plan is up to date and that they agree a sound plan with the Planning Inspectorate, based on the constraints that there are, to get the number of houses they need. I am very happy to work with her to make sure that that is so.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
The Secretary of State cannot fail to have noticed the number of questions in this session that have centred on the White Paper. Councils around the UK want to know what the timetable is, what the criteria are and when it will be published. Inverclyde wants to apply for this levelling-up funding. Will he help me? Does he want to visit Greenock, so I can show him the projects?
Michael Gove
I have spent many happy hours in Greenock and am looking forward to many more. I imagine that time there can only be enhanced, whether in Cappielow or anywhere else, with the hon. Gentleman. The key thing about the levelling-up fund is that constituencies across the United Kingdom, including in Scotland, have benefited. I look forward to working with him and others to ensure that—[Interruption.] As a Morton fan, he will appreciate that patience is a virtue.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
The forthcoming levelling-up White Paper is an opportunity to undo the imbalance in investment in active travel networks between towns and urban areas, which get the lot, and villages, which get very little to connect them. Will my right hon. Friend arrange for a meeting between me and one of his Ministers, together with members of Potton Town Council and Sandy Town Council, to talk about their active travel network?
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be aware that Warwickshire County Council is keen to have some sort of county unitary deal, but he will also be aware that Warwick District Council and Stratford-on-Avon District Council recently voted for a combined council—probably with the intent of a unitary one as well. Should it not be down to not the councillors or the Secretary of State, but the public to decide the future of local government across our country?
Michael Gove
I welcome the moves across Warwickshire to consider how services can be delivered even more efficiently as part of the economic success story that is the greater west midlands. In particular, I commend the leadership of Izzi Seccombe, the leader of Warwickshire County Council. The fact that she and her group continue to be re-elected with ever greater levels of support indicates that she is in a strong position to help bring people together across the constituency.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
Volunteers who serve on our parish councils do an amazing job. In rural communities such as mine, there are significant challenges to attending meetings, such as transport, adverse weather, work and caring responsibilities. In the pandemic, we have seen that the virtual or hybrid format works well. Moving forward, will the Secretary of State look to allow parish councils to sit in virtual or hybrid format to increase and widen access and to help them work to the best of their ability?
Michael Gove
If during the pandemic we had not allowed councils to meet virtually, not only would we have impaired the effective working of local government, but we would never have known about Jackie Weaver and the country would have been the poorer for it. I commend the work of parish councils and others. I am strongly in sympathy with the view that hybrid meetings should continue in order to ensure the maximum amount of efficiency. There is a case for saying that certain significant local authority meetings should occur with all councillors present, but I want to proceed with the maximum amount of consensus to reflect the maximum level of efficiency and in particular of sensitivity to those who serve in constituencies such as my hon. Friend’s, where the rurality and dispersed nature of representation are important.
Tonga: Volcano Eruption and Tsunami
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if she will make a statement on the eruption of Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha‘apai volcano and subsequent tsunami in Tonga.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
I am saddened and shocked by the situation in Tonga, and my thoughts are with all those caught up in the appalling devastation caused by the volcanic eruption and tsunami. My thoughts are also with the family of the British woman, Angela Glover, who died following the tsunami. We are supporting her family and are in contact with the local authorities.
On 15 January, a series of eruptions from the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha‘apai underwater volcano were heard and felt across Tonga. Shortly afterwards, a tsunami hit the islands, including the main island of Tongatapu and the capital Nuku‘alofa. There were reports of waves between 5 metres and 10 metres high, and the eruption caused waves as far away as Peru. The explosions have left Tonga covered in a layer of thick volcanic ash. New Zealand and Australian defence forces conducted surveillance flights, which reported catastrophic damage on Atata island, Mango island and Niniva island. Full details of the humanitarian impact are still unknown, but there are estimates that up to 80,000 people will have been affected.
The UK is providing vital humanitarian support: working closely with our Australian and New Zealand partners, we have provided 17 pallets of supplies, including 90 family tents, eight community tents and wheelbarrows, specifically requested by the Tongan Government. That support is en route to Tonga on Australia’s HMAS Adelaide and is expected to arrive the day after tomorrow. The Royal Navy ship HMS Spey should arrive in Tonga on 25 January. Supplies to be delivered by HMS Spey will include bottled water, sets of personal protective equipment and first aid kits, and we are looking at further support.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies disaster relief emergency fund has released £345,000 to the Red Cross Society of Tonga to support its response in assisting the affected communities. The UK is a significant donor to the DREF. More generally, since 2015 Tonga has received more than £25 million of UK aid through our core funding to multilateral institutions. The UN is deploying a crisis expert to co-ordinate the response, and the UK is funding that deployment.
Layla Moran
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question. The Tongan Government have called the eruption an “unprecedented disaster”. A volcanic blast visible from space, more powerful than an atomic bomb, it has affected 85% of Tongans through not just the eruption itself, but ash, which now poses a threat to drinking supplies and public health, and the tsunami that swept away their homes and washed Lisala Folau out to sea. He said:
“When I was in the water I remember going under eight times. My legs are disabled and don’t function as well”.
He clung to a log for 27 hours and, miraculously, survived.
Tonga may be a long way away, but it is a Commonwealth partner and ally and a long-standing friend. The Tongan high commissioner has asked me to convey their thanks to the British people for their support. I hear what the Minister says, but she will know that none of the money going to Tonga is new. Why have we not promised any new bilateral aid, since we have not given them a penny this year? Does she regret the decision to cut aid to our Commonwealth partners more generally by £500 million, and does she accept that the aid cut leaves us responding to disasters such as this with one hand tied behind our back? Under our presidency of COP26, attention was rightly given to the vulnerability of small island developing states such as Tonga. Does she agree that unless we help Tonga to recover fully from this crisis, it will struggle to put in place the necessary mitigations for the even greater climate crisis?
Will the Minister also answer the following questions? What conversations has she personally had with Tongan counterparts? She mentioned supporting one family, but are there other UK nationals needing support in Tonga? Can she clarify the role of HMS Spey in further operations, especially given Tonga’s zero-covid approach? Finally, I note the drift and delay in the Government’s response to the crisis. It took nearly a week for any kind of an announcement—an announcement made by press release. I tabled named day questions that were due last Friday, but I have yet to hear back. Is that indicative of what happens when development is relegated from its seat at the Cabinet table?
Vicky Ford
Tonga and the UK have deep historical ties and are both Commonwealth members. Tonga is a low-lying state, extremely vulnerable to climate change impacts, as the hon. Lady points out, and to natural disasters. We are working with other Commonwealth members, including Fiji, New Zealand and Australia, to support Tonga as it recovers from this damage. It is absolutely right that we should work hand in hand with our partners.
The hon. Lady asked about communications. As she knows, connectivity has been affected throughout Tonga, including the undersea cable. Repairs to that cable are due to start towards the end of this week, but I am told it will take up to two weeks to restore it. In the meantime, the satellite telecommunications have been invaluable. As the hon. Lady will know, our high commission in Tonga reopened just last year, and our high commissioner has been using her satellite phone not only to communicate with the crisis centre in Wellington but to give support to British nationals. As for our ongoing support, the 17 pallets requested by the Tongan Government have been sent, and, as I have said, HMS Spey is on its way and due to arrive shortly with, for example, water and urgently needed health supplies.
I cannot comment any further, because we are continuing to monitor the situation and work with partners to assess the full need—which is also why the United Nations crisis management is so important, and that is what we are funding.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
No one could fail to be moved by the pictures of the devastation in Tonga that has followed the tsunami, but there are good links between Tonga and our country, not least through some of the fantastic Tongan rugby players who are playing here—including Malakai Fekitoa, who has set up a relief fund that has already raised £50,000. Malakai plays for the Wasps in Warwickshire, and the club has said that it will donate 20% of its ticket revenues from the match that will take place this weekend. Will the Minister join me in applauding the rugby community for coming together and supporting Tonga in the way that it always would?
Vicky Ford
I absolutely do pay tribute to those rugby players for all they are doing to raise funds for this urgent situation, and wish the Warwickshire Wasps well in all their matches. I do not know how they intend the money they are raising to be distributed, but I should be more than happy to make contact with my hon. Friend and perhaps put him in touch with the DREF so it can ensure that the money reaches those who need it on the ground.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Like many others, Opposition Members have been shocked by the scenes and personal stories coming from Tonga, and, with communications difficult, I fear that there is still bad news to come. I know the whole House will join me in expressing our complete solidarity with the people of Tonga, and passing our condolences to those who have lost loved ones in the tsunami and the volcanic eruption.
Tonga and the United Kingdom have deep and abiding relationships, not just in respect of education, culture and the armed forces, but across both codes of rugby—including rugby league, which I know you will appreciate, Mr Speaker; it is not just rugby union that has the civic society reach. I understand that it is at Coventry that the Wasps play, but let us leave that one there. It is fantastic to hear that clubs are joining together across civic society to help out with the crowd funding for this terrible disaster.
It is right that the UK is stepping up to the plate to offer support. I commend the high commission for the work that it has already undertaken to support the people of Tonga, working closely with the Australian and New Zealand defence forces to deliver aid speedily. It is so important for things to be done speedily in the Pacific. That support will clearly need to be maintained to ensure that Tonga can rebuild and recover in the short to medium term, and, given our close links, we should continue to do that. Our support should not be just a knee-jerk reaction now; it should be sustained.
I have four asks of the Minister. First, which additional assets, if any, are being deployed to Tonga or are under consideration for deployment once the Spey effort has concluded? Secondly, may I press the Minister on the point made earlier by the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) about the need for rebuilding in the context of the cuts in development aid? Thirdly, what is the medium to long-term strategy for the region? What conversations has the Minister had with regional partners to ensure that there is a co-ordinated and sustained approach? Finally, what specific assessment has been made of the impact that the eruption and tsunami will have on the covid effort specifically, and of how the UK can assist in health protection?
These are difficult days for the people of Tonga, and our response in the House has the potential to be of great relief and comfort to them in their hour of need.
Vicky Ford
I absolutely recognise the rugby league contribution in Tonga. In fact, I have fond memories of attending an international rugby league tournament in Hawaii in the 1990s, when I first saw the Tongans play—but let us return to more serious matters.
HMS Spey will arrive in Tonga tomorrow, 25 January, but we are considering further support. The deployment of the UN crisis expert will help to co-ordinate that response, which is why we are funding it.
On official development assistance budgets, we maintained our rapid response capabilities in close coordination with the Australian Government, and that means that the support we are providing is tailored to the needs of those affected. Since 2015, Tonga has received more than £26.9 million of aid, as I mentioned, through multilateral organisations. That includes the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and others. Indeed, more than £300 million in aid has been provided to other, similar Pacific island states.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
With reference to the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), can we go one step further and consider whether Six Nations rugby games could hold a special collection for Tonga that could then be match-funded by the British Government, so that everyone would have the chance to contribute in a sport to which Tonga has contributed so much itself, and the Government can play their part too?
Vicky Ford
I would be more than happy to discuss with my hon. Friend how rugby fans can help the people of Tonga.
Mr Speaker
And this year we have the rugby league world cup, which Tonga is meant to be playing in, so we need to give it what support we can.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) on asking the urgent question. The House is united in our sadness for the people of Tonga, and we want to see what we can do to assist the efforts that have been outlined today. I am very struck by the suggestion that the Six Nations could make a contribution or hold some sort of fundraiser. I told the Scottish Rugby Union that we would be very strongly behind that to help the Tongans in their time of need.
I acknowledge what the Minister has outlined about the aid that has been requested and is on its way to Tonga, but we really must reassess the cuts that have been made, particularly to the emergency disaster relief fund—from £500 million to £35.4 million. We cannot do more with less, and under this Administration we have seen a deliberate and wilful cutting of capacity to deal with climate change, international development and emergency responses. I urge that we continue our long-term engagement with Tonga and the wider world, and get those budgets back up to the levels they need to be at for the challenges ahead.
Vicky Ford
We remain a world leader in international development. In 2020, we were the world’s third largest donor. We have rightly been looking at how that aid is best used, which is why during the conference of the parties and in the run up to it, we announced that more funding from the UK would go towards international climate change. That is particularly important for supporting small island developing states in their adaptation and resilience programmes. It is also why it is so important that we work towards delivery of the $100 billion climate finance goal. In Glasgow we also announced the global goal on adaptation and the Glasgow dialogue on loss and damage, and that will help better coordinate financial support when there are extreme impacts such as this. We are leading in our work on climate change through COP and through our ODA.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
I am reassured by what the Government are doing in sending aid to Tonga. It is one of the longest-serving members of the Commonwealth and a real friend of the UK. The islands are largely covid-free and there are some concerns that aid workers are isolating on arrival and food is being quarantined, and that is delaying the relief operation somewhat. What discussions has my hon. Friend had on urgently speeding up the process so that the people of Tonga can be helped as fast as possible?
Vicky Ford
That is an excellent question. Covid-19 has had little effect on Tonga directly, because strict border controls have meant no cases in the community, although there was one case in quarantine on 27 October, which was contained. However, the border closures have deeply affected the tourism industry and impacted the economy. That will be something for ongoing discussions between Tonga and those who are seeking to provide support with humanitarian aid.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
It is all well and good to talk about how much money is being given to Tonga, whether in aid or through climate adaptation finance, but the fact is that Tonga is expected to pay more than $18.5 million in debt repayments this year, with a lot of it going to China, and the International Monetary Fund lists Tonga as being at high risk of debt distress. In my capacity as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on small island developing states, I met the Jubilee Debt Campaign earlier today to talk about how SIDS struggle to access comprehensive debt relief. The existing G20 schemes fall well short of helping SIDS. What can the Minister do to ensure that we do not give to Tonga with one hand and take away with the other?
Vicky Ford
The hon. Lady rightly raises the impact of Chinese debt. China increasingly seeks long-term strategic influence in Pacific island countries. As the Foreign Secretary stated last week, Russia and China are working together more and more to assert their dominance over the western Pacific. It is estimated that no fewer than 44 low to middle-income countries have debts to Beijing that represent in excess of 10% of their GDP. The UK is working and will continue to work with international partners, including to help countries avoid loading their balance sheets with debt that they cannot afford.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
I thank the Minister for her statement and echo the words from throughout the Chamber about our solidarity and support for the people of Tonga. I welcome the fact that we are working closely with our close allies in Australia and New Zealand to support the people of Tonga and very much welcome the Minister’s statement that the UK is redeploying military assets to provide humanitarian support for Tonga. Does my hon. Friend agree that this situation shows the importance and strength of the Commonwealth? We pull together and really help out when partners are in need.
Vicky Ford
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Commonwealth is an incredibly important partnership. In fact, the Foreign Secretary was in Australia only last week. In this instance, there has been great support from Australia and New Zealand and from the Fijian authorities, who intend to send a cargo vessel with items requested by the Tongan authorities, which is expected to arrive on the 28th of this month.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
How can the Minister possibly claim that the UK is leading in this kind of response when the severity and frequency of natural and climate disasters is only increasing yet the UK budget for response is falling significantly and dramatically? Will she confirm whether the costs of the HMS Spey will also be counted—we might say double-counted—towards NATO’s 2% target for military spending?
Vicky Ford
We should be praising our Royal Navy for its very swift action. It is remarkable that HMS Spey is due to arrive the day after tomorrow. We should be deeply grateful to members of the Royal Navy for all they do to support people in trouble around the globe.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Tonga is a long-standing friend and partner to the UK, not least through its membership of the Commonwealth, and the UK has a long and proud tradition in respect of disaster relief. Will my hon. Friend confirm that those involved in the delivery of relief, including our excellent Royal Navy, are working to deliver it as quickly as possible?
Vicky Ford
My hon. Friend asks a good question. We are endeavouring not only to deliver relief as quickly as possible but to deliver the supplies that the Tongans themselves have identified that they need. That is what will happen with the first pallets, which are due to arrive the day after tomorrow, and then with HMS Spey when she arrives.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
My heart goes out to the Tongan people. Many of us were saddened by the shocking scenes and the devastation brought about by the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha‘apai volcano and the ensuing tsunami. Our international development budget cuts and the cuts to emergency and disaster relief are widely documented, and the poorest communities around the world lament them. Will the Minister ensure that we give the maximum possible support to our friends in Tonga and that that support is sustained into the medium to long term and does not cease immediately after the current crisis has ended?
Vicky Ford
As I have said, we remain one of the largest donors—in fact, the third largest donor—of international development aid in the world. We are giving the support to the Tongan people that they are requesting at the moment, and it is right that, right now, we focus on the emergent needs. Sadly, we know that full recovery from incidents such as this can take some time, but that is why we are working with the UN, and with our friends in Australia and New Zealand and others in the region.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The tsunami and the effects of the volcano eruption brought back painful memories for many of us who lost friends and relatives in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, so we know the pain that many are suffering. We wish Commander Proudman and his crew on HMS Spey the very best for their mission there, but will the Minister look seriously at the long-term consequences of this? The UN estimates that 60% to 70% of livestock-owning households have seen animals perish on the islands. The agricultural sector in Tonga accounts for 65% of the country’s exports. When the Minister is looking at what medium and long-term support we can offer, can we also include ensuring that some of the poorest farmers in the world—the poorest farmers in Tonga—are getting the support that they need to get back on their feet?
Vicky Ford
As I have said, in addition to the immediate needs, we are also looking at further support. However, we do already give significant funding to Tonga and other Pacific island countries. We tend to do that through our core funding to multilateral organisations, including the World Bank, the Green Climate Fund and the Asian Development Bank. Indeed, we estimate that, since 2015, the Pacific island countries have received more than £357 million of UK funding through those organisations. It is often best to work with partners through that type of organisation to make sure that the best long-term support is given.
Covid-19: International Travel
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Grant Shapps)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a statement on international travel.
It is less than two months since the first cases of omicron—the most infectious variant to emerge since the start of the pandemic—were confirmed in the UK. Thanks once again to the nationwide army of medical staff and volunteers and the huge public response to our booster programme, today, with more than 137 million jabs administered, including nearly 37 million boosters, Britain is one of the most vaccinated countries in the world, and omicron is in retreat. Thanks also to the decisions taken by the Prime Minister, we have managed to turn the tide on the virus in remarkable time, while keeping our domestic society one of the most open in the world. Today, I can confirm to the House that our international travel regime will also now be liberalised, as part of our efforts to ensure that 2022 is the year in which restrictions on travel, lockdowns and limits on people’s lives are firmly placed firmly in the past.
From 4am on 11 February, and in time for the half-term break, eligible, fully vaccinated passengers arriving in the UK will no longer have to take a post-arrival lateral flow test. That means that, after months of pre-departure testing, post-arrival testing, self-isolation and additional expense, all that fully vaccinated people will now have to do when they travel to the UK is to verify their status via a passenger locator form.
We promised that we would not keep these measures in place a day longer than was necessary. It is obvious to me now that border testing for vaccinated travellers has outlived its usefulness, and we are therefore scrapping all travel tests for vaccinated people, not only making travel much easier, but saving around £100 per family on visits abroad, providing certainty to passengers, carriers and our vital tourism sectors for the spring and summer seasons.
Let me explain to the House how this will work in practice. For now, we will maintain our current definition of “fully vaccinated” for the purpose of inbound travel to the UK. That means two doses of an approved vaccine, or one dose of a Janssen vaccine. We will go further. The measures for those arriving in the UK who do not qualify as fully vaccinated have not changed since last March, so the time has come to review that position, too. Today, I can announce that passengers who do not qualify as fully vaccinated will no longer be required to do a day 8 test after arrival or to self-isolate. They will still need to fill out a passenger locator form to demonstrate proof of a negative covid test taken two days before they travel, and they must still take a post-arrival PCR test. This is a proportionate system that moves us a step closer to normality while maintaining vital public health protections.
For kids travelling to the UK, under-18s will continue to be treated as eligible fully vaccinated passengers, which means that they will not face any tests at the UK border. Today I am pleased to confirm that from 3 February, 12 to 15-year-olds in England will be able to prove their vaccination status via the digital NHS pass for international outbound travel. Again, this should help families to plan holidays for February half-term.
Reconnecting with key markets not only boosts the UK economy but will help the hard-hit aviation sector to take back to the skies, so I can also confirm that from 4 am on 11 February we will recognise, at the UK border, vaccine certificates from 16 further nations, including countries such as China and Mexico, bringing the vaccine recognition total to more than 180 countries and territories worldwide.
One consequence of covid and of rapidly changing infection patterns across the world has been a border regime that, while necessary, has at times been complex, confusing and very difficult to navigate. That has been a challenge for many people who have been travelling over the past two years, so we will also simplify the passenger locator form, making it quicker and easier to complete, and from the end of February we will also make it more convenient by giving people an extra day to fill it out before they travel. Although the option for a red list of countries will remain in place to provide a first line of defence against future covid variants of concern arriving from other countries, we are looking to replace the managed quarantine system with other contingency measures, including home isolation, provided that we can develop new ways to ensure high levels of compliance. In the meantime, our contingency measures remain available. As the House knows, there are currently no countries on the red list. However, I must make it clear that those contingency measures will be applied only if we are particularly concerned about a variant of concern that poses a substantial risk—one that is even greater than omicron.
The UK Health Security Agency will continue to monitor threats and will maintain a highly effective surveillance capacity, monitoring covid infections overseas. But I can announce that, over time, we intend to move away from blanket border measures to a more sophisticated and targeted global surveillance system. I also commit us to developing a full toolbox of contingency options to provide more certainty on how we will respond against future variants. The Government will set out our strategy, including how we will deal with any future new strains of the virus, next month. We will continue to work with international partners, including the World Health Organisation, to help all countries to achieve a level of genomic sequencing to monitor variants that is much closer to our own world-leading capacity.
We are moving into a new phase of the fight against covid. Instead of protecting the UK from a pandemic, our future depends on our living with endemic covid, just as we live with flu, for example. We will set out our strategy for that transition in the spring. But as we navigate our recovery, and as we return to more normal travel next month, our advice to all eligible adults who have not been vaccinated stays the same: please get jabbed as soon as possible, and if you have had two jabs, please get boosted. I have recently been speaking to many of my opposite numbers around the world, and they have made it clear to me that regardless of what we do, they are very likely, by this summer, to require that people have had the booster jab. So my advice to anyone who wishes to travel this year, including during the summer, is: do not leave it too late to get your booster as you are very likely to be required to have had it by the third country that you are flying to.
We already have one of the most open economies and societies in Europe, with the result that our GDP has outpaced that of other G7 countries. With the changes announced today, we have one of the most open travel sectors in the world. Of course we know that covid can spring surprises, but everybody should now feel confident about booking holidays, business trips, and visits to families and friends abroad. Be in no doubt: it is only because the Government got the big calls right—on vaccination, on boosters and on dealing with omicron—that we can now open up travel and declare that Britain is open for business. Today we are setting Britain free. I commend this statement to the House.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement. The aviation industry is a critical part of the economy, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs across the UK, but the Government’s haphazard approach and their refusal to grant it sector-specific support have caused it real damage. The UK’s aviation sector has experienced a slower recovery than any of our European counterparts and had more than 60,000 job losses by summer last year. It is baffling that the Government did not do more to support it as a strategic sector and potentially attach conditions for transition to net zero, as countries such as France and Germany did.
Too often, the Government’s indecisive and chaotic approach to each wave of covid infections has failed to keep the country safe while causing uncertainty for the travelling public and for business. Each time a new variant has emerged, the Government have taken a different approach to border controls and restrictions. We all want to see safe international travel and the protection of public health, and that is precisely why the public finally deserve to hear in full how Ministers intend to develop a comprehensive, easily understandable plan to ensure that that can happen in the months ahead. We must avoid the sheer absurdity of the Secretary of State announcing one set of restrictions before promptly scrapping it and announcing a completely different regime. Businesses and the public should have clarity about what changes the Government will likely make in the event of a new variant and not have to wait until 5 pm on a Saturday night for new measures required on a Monday morning. That is why it is welcome that the Government will finally produce a plan to allow the travel industry and the public the certainty that they need. Labour recently outlined its plan on the action needed to learn to live well with covid and protect lives and livelihoods and help avoid harsh restrictions in future waves. That is critical when it comes to the travel industry.
As the Secretary of State said, it is inevitable that another variant of concern will emerge. With omicron, the Government’s plan was upended, proving that it was simply not fit for purpose. They must learn lessons and outline a framework to guide future decision making and detect future variants. Therefore, when the Secretary of State publishes his plan, will he include the data that will guide the approach to future variants and detail the economic, wellbeing and equality impact of each scenario? Given that only last week the Health Secretary said that testing will remain part of our walls of surveillance, does he agree that we should build up the UK’s sovereign capability to ensure that we always have a supply of tests when we need them? Has he considered the merits of a surveillance system to detect possible future variants?
Last month, the Secretary of State confirmed to me that he would raise my concerns and those of the Competition and Markets Authority about the PCR market with the Health Secretary. Will he update the House on what progress he has made in cleaning up that market for future travellers? I would also be grateful for his confirmation of whether the passenger locator form will be available in other languages in the future.
The announcement is also a visible reminder of another stark truth: in an era of global international travel, no one is safe until everyone is safe. In the UK, we have learnt that lesson the hard way. If we are to break the endless cycle of new variants, we must vaccinate the world, yet Ministers simply have not met the commitments made last summer at the G7 to get the vaccine rolled out to other parts of the globe; instead they cut the overseas aid budget. Will the Secretary of State outline what steps the Government are taking to deliver on those measures committed to at the G7?
Living with covid cannot be just an empty slogan with no plan. That is why we need to properly prepare and protect our lives and livelihoods in the future. It is time that Ministers finally gave passengers, industry and communities the security and stability that they deserve.
Grant Shapps
I thank the hon. Lady very much for—I think—welcoming the statement. I understand that she has not been in post for very long, but she will be aware of how her predecessors simultaneously called for us to tighten up and close the borders while relaxing and opening them, often on the same day or a few days apart. I understand that she has recently come to the post, but, if she does not mind my suggestion, there is one thing that she can do current day. She may be able to speak to her Welsh Labour governmental counterparts, who are a constant drag on opening up aviation. I hear that she is very keen that we move ahead with today’s plan; I hope she will be able to assist by persuading them to move a little more promptly.
The hon. Member quite rightly says that we need a toolbox to respond, as I mentioned in the statement. She is absolutely right about that; we do need a toolbox going forward, which is a question not just for the UK. This morning I was talking to the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, who co-chairs a World Health Organisation body working exactly on the global response. One of the most important things to stress in my statement, which might have been missed, is that we believe the time is right to move from individuals being checked as they come over our border—as we know, whatever the variant, eventually it gets in, as every country has found—to a global system of surveillance that is every bit as good as what we have here. “World leading” is applied often in the UK, but we genuinely have a world-leading version of surveillance, through the amount of coronavirus testing we can do with genome sequencing, and we are helping other countries through practical applications to catch up.
The hon. Member also asked what the Government are doing to honour the bid we made at the G7 and elsewhere on coronavirus. I gently point out that the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed by Oxford, has been used in more arms than any other vaccine in the world—I think I am right in saying that about 2.5 billion people have been vaccinated with it. That is a huge contribution, in addition to COVAX and all the other donations that we have made and will continue to make.
I am pleased to hear, I think, that the whole House welcomes the plan to unlock and to set Britain free.
Huw Merriman (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Not only is today’s announcement another example of our living with covid; this is also a landmark day for international travel, a sector that has been absolutely decimated over the last couple of years. Today’s news is surely the evidence it needs to show that people should now feel confident to book with certainty. With that in mind, will the Secretary of State ensure a culture across Whitehall so that if there are bumps in the road, international travel will not be the sector that has to be made an example of, and so that we continue to support international travel and all the fantastic people who work in it?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we have learned more about the pandemic, as it becomes endemic, it is quite right that our response should be different—a moment ago I mentioned shifting from individual testing at the border to a global system of testing—so I do give him that commitment. We are now looking to work with a new toolbox that will help to set out a framework. We will of course always act quickly if we have to, but I believe that the days of having to go back to big lockdowns at the borders are past.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. Once again, though, we have an announcement on coronavirus restrictions being made to the press before Parliament. While the Government, and particularly this Secretary of State, are desperately trying to save the Prime Minister’s skin with announcements such as this or the removal of plan B restrictions generally, Parliament is repeatedly cut out of the loop, as the Government throw out policies to placate their base.
However, we have reached the omicron peak a little earlier than projected. Indeed, today in Scotland nightclubs can reopen, while the caps on indoor events, table service requirements for venues selling alcohol and social distancing have also been removed. However, as the Secretary of State acknowledged, the revised requirements that he has announced will apply to England only. What discussions has he had with colleagues in the devolved Administrations about the measures in his statement, and how did they factor into his decision? The devolved Administrations were consulted very late on previous changes to travel regulations and not given adequate time to look over the data and announce a decision simultaneously.
The Secretary of State proposes to remove the requirement to test on arrival, but he will surely accept that regular lateral flow testing is still imperative in identifying and tracing cases more generally, and allowing everyone to travel safely. What representations has he made to his colleagues to ensure that LFTs remain free on request for everyone, regardless of income? Can he also tell us a bit more—it has been asked about and I do not think he answered—about what mechanism will be put in place to monitor possible new variants, now that testing is no longer in place?
Finally, the aviation industry is still in the same position on the sector-specific support promised by the Government nearly two years ago. The impact of covid on travelling patterns and customer behaviour will not end with today’s statement, so what plan does the Transport Secretary have to fulfil the promises made to the sector at the start of the pandemic for real, targeted Government support? The job retention scheme was not enough for the 3,000 people in my constituency who lost their jobs, or for those who faced fire and rehire by companies such as Menzies Aviation and British Airways.
Grant Shapps
I just want the hon. Gentleman to know that, through the UK Health Security Agency, the four chief medical officers were involved in studying the data and reaching this conclusion. I also spoke this morning to a member of the Scottish National party Government, Michael Matheson, about these measures, so there has been that communication.
The hon. Gentleman asked, as he often does, about the support. It has now reached £8 billion for the aviation sector. We have had not just the job retention programme but loans, in addition to assistance to those on the ground. I ask him to look a little closer to home, because both Edinburgh and Glasgow airports have criticised the SNP Government for refusing even to meet them. They have said that that is in stark contrast to the proactive approach of the UK Government, and the Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association has said that the industry has been “sacrificed” by the SNP, so I do not think we want to be taking too many lectures about support. Support comes from getting airlines back in the sky.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
There has been nothing particularly unusual about the constantly changing rules in England—that has been replicated all around the world—but one thing that has been consistent throughout is the World Health Organisation’s advice that travel restrictions and border closures are not necessary because they do not prevent the spread of this virus or variants, so I welcome today’s statement. Of course, many of our popular holiday destinations in North America and in Europe will continue to require testing of people from third countries, so what discussions is the Transport Secretary having with other countries to encourage them to take the sensible approach that we are taking here in England?
Grant Shapps
I am in constant contact with my equivalent numbers around the world. We are having frequent conversations, in particular with G7 countries—we are, of course, chairing the presidency of the G7—with which I speak regularly. The biggest thing that could happen elsewhere is for them to reach our level of booster protection in particular. Our 37 million booster jabs have provided us with a wall of protection. Once that is available elsewhere, that will help to get international travel moving even faster.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
I warmly welcome today’s announcement. As the Secretary of State knows, the Transport Committee has been unanimous in calling for this for some time. Could he explain, though, why he is keeping the passenger locator form? It is a massive irritant to people. It is much longer than the EU form and is very complicated. I hope he is not keeping it because he is relaxing the rules for the unvaccinated. That would be very unfair on the vaccinated. Will he reassure this House that, given what the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) has said—namely, that compared with domestic health measures, these onerous testing requirements and draconian travel restrictions have been shown to have absolutely zero impact on the spread of covid and omicron over the past two years in this country—the Government will never resort to this policy again?
Grant Shapps
I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. I also heard him making approving noises while I made my statement. He will want to speak to his Front-Bench colleagues, who, unlike Government Members, have consistently wanted us to go further and faster on closing the borders. We have tried to balance it against the critical nature of our island status as a nation.
The right hon. Gentleman asks a very good question about the passenger locator form and why we are keeping it. Members may not be aware that it is our only way of distinguishing between those who are vaccinated and those who are unvaccinated when they use e-gates to come into this country. A lot of work has been done to automate the e-gate so that it reads the passport number, refers back to the passenger locator form and knows whether that individual has had to take a pre-departure test—which people who have not been vaccinated have to take—and, indeed, whether they have to take a day 2 test. It is there for a critical reason. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the complexity of the passenger locator form, and I committed in my statement to going back through it and simplifying it, which is much easier to do now that we have the status of fully vaccinated people not requiring any tests at all.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
My sincere thanks to the Government for these measures to reduce significantly the testing requirements for international travel during covid-19. As the Secretary of State has correctly mentioned, other jurisdictions around the world will require British travellers entering those countries and territories to do testing. Will he continue to monitor those testing companies in this country that, frankly, have been ripping off many customers and providing appalling service? One example affecting a number of my constituents is Chronomics. People have paid a lot of money to it and have waited in many cases more than a week to get test results back.
Grant Shapps
I absolutely commit to doing that. The system of testing is run by our colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care, and I share the frustration that the public have, as I know do colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care, that on occasions these companies have in some cases not behaved appropriately. The vast majority of the time, it should be said, they have provided excellent private sector provision, without which we would not have had capacity within the NHS, but I share my hon. Friend’s concern, and I know that colleagues at the Department of Health and Social Care are on the case.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
It is right that the Secretary of State said in his statement that the border at times, while necessary, has been
“complex, confusing and very difficult to navigate”.
That is fair. I highlight that, on a visit to Heathrow airport with the Home Affairs Committee last year, we heard about the frustration and the lack of engagement with the industry and trade unions by the Government on the regimes they were bringing in. Will the Secretary of State comment on the long-term plans to fully engage with unions and the industry to keep the border safe?
Grant Shapps
The right hon. Lady is clearly right to say that it was complex, confusing and difficult, as I mentioned in my statement. That was by necessity in many cases: we had to act over a weekend, and we had to change the law in a matter of four hours with the mink variant, I recall. That has necessitated a lot of discussions. I want to let her know that I have been in constant contact with, for example, Heathrow and the airlines. The aviation Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts), is doing that day in, day out, and we commit to redouble our efforts with them. Today is a watershed moment. Those are not my words, but those of Airlines UK, which has said that this is a real opportunity for the industry to get back on its feet and back into the air.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
When it comes to international travel, Her Majesty’s Government can obviously control only so much. I warmly welcome the excellent Secretary of State’s announcement today, which puts inbound international travel in the best place it has been for two years. I am especially grateful—as he knows, I raised this issue in the House last week with the Prime Minister—as are many of my constituents with half term and Easter plans, that 12 to 15-year-olds will be able to prove their vaccination status via the digital NHS pass from 3 February, as the Secretary of State said in his statement. Can I ask him how practically that will happen, given that under-16s are currently barred from accessing the NHS app at all? What about young people who have had one jab and a recent infection? How will they be able to prove that status? Some practical examples, please.
Grant Shapps
On the NHS pass, my hon. Friend is right that 12 to 15-year-olds have not been able to access it up to now. They will be able to access that in time for half term. So they will be able to show their status or, indeed print it out in advance. Up to now, they have had to call 119 and order it. That system will change, which I know he will be pleased about.
The situation of people who have had a jab and then caught coronavirus and are then potentially in a position of natural immunity will continue in the short term to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, but we recognise that is an issue. I have spoken to the chief medical officer and the chief exec of the UK Health Security Agency as recently as today on that issue, and the ideal will be in a February review to move more towards a system of being able to accept natural immunisation. There is more work to be done on a technical level before that can happen.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The Secretary of State is totally right that covid can spring surprises—in new variants, more often than not. There is one way we can ensure fewer new variants, and that is to vaccinate the world, but we are a long way away from that. In low-income countries, just 10% of people have had two doses. What discussions has he had with Cabinet colleagues to ensure we live up to the 100 million doses that we have pledged to COVAX? Only 30 million have actually been deployed, and we have only six months left.
Grant Shapps
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we are not safe until everyone has been vaccinated and boosted, as well. I do not think any country in the world can claim a better record on this, not least because, as I mentioned, we have invented the Oxford jab, in part thanks to money that the taxpayer and this Government put in. That has gone on to vaccinate 2.5 billion people, many of them in developing nations, with the huge advantage of not having to cold-freeze the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine at minus 70°. We are also committed to providing those vaccinations to the COVAX programme. I am happy to write to the hon. Lady on progress towards that target, so that she can have more detail.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
My right hon. Friend’s statement is welcome and is likely to encourage more families to book trips abroad and the like. What assurance can he give me, following the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) about the resilience to be guaranteed by the Department of Health and Social Care and others, that, as families take up the opportunities to make bookings, families with children—I declare an interest—under 12 will not see their youngsters left behind at the gate because they have not been able to prove what it is that they need to prove?
Grant Shapps
Some pretty good reassurances is the answer. It is obviously the case that something worse than omicron could come along. We very much hope—and the chief medical officer and others suggest—that, over a period of time, although not necessarily in a linear fashion, this should become more and more endemic. As for what we accept when people come here, under-18s are exempt. As for flying out, we are making it easier, with 12 to 15 year-olds being added. The message to my hon. Friend, to his constituents and to the whole House is that I hope to expect no surprises between now and the February half term, and enjoy your holidays.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State, but he will know that other countries still have testing requirements for travellers from the UK. I know that that question has already been raised. He will know that, if testing is to be valid for international travel, tests must be conducted by private testing firms, which are often based in the UK. One of my constituents has written to me and said that she paid £150 for a single test. In response to a previous question, the Secretary of State said some empty words, which I have heard several times. Is there a concrete plan of action from the Government to crack down on this overcharging?
Grant Shapps
It is, as the hon. Lady knows, a competitive testing market, in which many different organisations offer to test people. The market, of course, ensures that prices are being driven down. In fact, we have an exact test on this, because for a while in Wales, under the Welsh Government, only NHS tests were allowed to be used, which meant that Welsh people had to pay more for their tests, rather than doing it privately. I do not think that she means to attack the private system, but she is right that it is wrong for people to be ripped off. The Competition and Markets Authority is looking into it and, as I have said, my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care who look after this side of things are also working to make sure that the system is not being abused. Removing the necessity to have tests removes a large part of the need for that marketplace as well.
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
Throughout the pandemic, Labour has flip-flopped, calling for a pause on international travel, then opposing all and any restrictions. May I thank my right hon. Friend for ignoring its game playing—[Interruption]—and for his unalloyed support for international travel and a truly connected global Britain?
Grant Shapps
Opposition Members do not like the question because it is true. Everyone has witnessed it. Their Front-Bench team has flip-flopped on one side, then the other side; one way, then the other. As it turns out, it is important to follow the evidence, and when the evidence says that we should unlock and do away with these tests that is exactly what we have done. [Interruption.] One would think that the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), who is shouting from a sedentary position, would welcome the data-driven, spreadsheet-based approach to this issue.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. My former colleagues in the travel industry will certainly welcome it. But how did we get here? Billions of people are protected by the vaccine developed in Oxford; we have had a successful vaccine programme here; and so many people have now been boosted. We are now the freest state with travel restrictions and we are coming out of lockdown nationally. Does that not show that we have great leadership from our Prime Minister and our Government? But why can we not bring it forward a bit from 11 February?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend got a question in there at the end. He is absolutely right about everything he said before the question. I would add that we lead the league table not only in being unlocked as a nation, but in growing as an economy because of the difficult decisions we made at the right times to make sure that 37 million people got the booster in their arm and we are able to keep ourselves unlocked, and that of course includes setting Britain free so that people can travel. In answer to his question about timing, it takes a little bit of time to put these technical changes in place and, indeed, to bring all four nations with us in the process. The good news is that it will be ready for the half-term break.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
As someone who represents a very international constituency, where people regularly fly not just for holidays but for business and family reasons, I warmly welcome these changes. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that this shows that we as a Government have made the right decisions when it comes to this virus, and that our country is fully open and ready for business?
Grant Shapps
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is never going to be easy tackling a global pandemic—there is no rulebook or textbook that tells us what to do—and some things we will have got right, while other things we have had to learn along the way. Two years in, I think today is a momentous moment, as Airlines UK has said, because it is important that we are able to unlock the borders and that people are able to travel again to do business and, most importantly, to see family who many people will not have seen for a very long time because of the prohibitive costs, so I am sure the whole House will welcome today’s statement.
Point of Order
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. During this statement, Lord Agnew has resigned at the Dispatch Box in the other place for the Government’s “woeful” and indefensible oversight of covid fraud. Have you had any indication of the Government’s wish to make a statement on their woeful oversight of covid fraud, Lord Agnew’s resignation and the dying days of this Government, who are currently in the cones hotline phase of their demise?
Mr Speaker
The short answer is no, but in fairness, it is obviously not a point of order for me. I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard that and will want to clarify the position—it is rather unusual for people to resign at the Dispatch Box—so we will leave it at that for now.
Bills Presented
High Speed Rail (Crewe - Manchester) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Secretary Grant Shapps, supported by the Prime Minister, Secretary Dominic Raab, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Priti Patel, Secretary Michael Gove, Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, and Secretary Alistair Jack, presented a Bill to make provision for a railway between a junction with Phase 2a of High Speed 2 south of Crewe in Cheshire and Manchester Piccadilly Station; for a railway between Hoo Green in Cheshire and a junction with the West Coast Main Line at Bamfurlong, south of Wigan; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 228) with explanatory notes (Bill 228-EN).
Fire Safety Remediation Charges (Recovery and Enforcement) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Daisy Cooper presented a Bill to introduce a moratorium on recovery and enforcement action by freeholders and managing agents relating to service charges increases, fees or demands for payment in respect of leaseholders’ share of the costs of fire safety remediation work; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 234).
Business of the House (Today)
Ordered,
That, at this day’s sitting, notwithstanding paragraph (2)(c)(i) of Standing Order No. 14 (Arrangement of public business), business in the name of Ian Blackford may be entered upon at any hour and may be proceeded with, though opposed, for three hours; proceedings shall then lapse if not previously disposed of; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) will not apply.—(Steve Double.)
Opposition Day
Cost of Living Increases
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
19:33 - The House divided: - Ayes: 57 / Noes: 0 - Question accordingly agreed to.
David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House notes there is a cost of living crisis hitting homes across the UK; regrets the UK Government’s current plan of reductions in certain benefits and tax rises coupled with rising costs of the UK leaving the EU; is concerned that the UK has the worst levels of poverty and inequality in north west Europe and the highest levels of in-work poverty this century; and calls on the Government to take immediate action with a package of measures to boost incomes and reverse rising poverty, including reinstating the £20 universal credit uplift, introducing a Real Living Wage of at least £10 an hour, introducing an energy payment for low income households, and matching the Scottish Government’s Scottish Child Payment for families across the UK.
Normally, during an Opposition day debate the Tories will berate Opposition parties for not dealing with the issue of the day, crying distraction and somehow suggesting that the discourse in this place of those on the Opposition Benches is focused solely on the interests of the SW1 chatterati, not what matters most to our constituents back home. However, today of all days, not least in the light of what Lord Agnew has just done along the corridor, that seems somewhat ironic, given that the Tories themselves are engaged in a civil war and are besieged by paralysis, with a Prime Minister who might be in office, but is certainly not in power. Let us be clear that we have a British Government and Prime Minister who are so focused on saving their own skins that they are neglecting to get on with the day job; indeed, they are overlooking the biggest issue of the day: the cost-of-living crisis.
The impact of the cost-of-living crisis is far-reaching, but as constituency MPs, we know that it is certainly impacting the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, and yet this British Government indulge in navel-gazing, while our constituents are stuck in the middle of an economic tornado. Simply, the Tories are more focused on saving “Big Dog” than on saving our constituents’ money from spiralling energy bills, and more focused on Operation Red Meat when our constituents can hardly afford red meat, as inflation causes the average supermarket shop to skyrocket.
Like most Scots, I think that the Prime Minister is utterly unfit for office and should have resigned long ago.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman just spoke about the Government navel-gazing and having the wrong priority. Does he therefore agree that Nicola Sturgeon has absolutely the wrong priority? She was on TV again yesterday, saying that she is going to kick-start yet another campaign for independence, at a time when we should be focused on the economic crisis, the energy crisis, affecting all our constituents?
David Linden
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have great respect for him, and I only wish that that was extended to him by the Leader of the House, who I think said he was a “lightweight”. The reality is that the people in Scotland have voted in successive elections to put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands, to ensure that the likes of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, who are posted missing, do not have the economic levers that are causing such distress just now.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman made reference in his previous comments to the impact on constituents of the cost of living. I therefore ask him to take this opportunity to tell the Labour Front Bench that Andy Burnham’s Greater Manchester clean air zone, a tax on business and jobs in my constituency emanating from the Labour party, should not come into place—it should be scrapped. I would welcome the hon. Gentleman joining me in our joint campaign to improve the standard of living for constituents all across the country.
David Linden
Gosh, that could have been a career-ending one for me there. At the moment, it appears that the Labour party and the Conservatives are getting on quite well. The fact that a Tory MP can cross the Floor to the Labour party suggests that the back channels between both parties are relatively good at the moment. I am sure that those can convey whatever message to Andy Burnham that the hon. Gentleman wishes.
As I was saying, if Scotland were independent, we would not have the likes of Boris Johnson and his ilk anywhere near the levers of economic power. In many respects, however, revelations about Downing Street being turned into a frat house during a deadly pandemic are just the latest in a long litany of bad decisions by a Prime Minister Scotland did not vote for. So I must confess that I find myself somewhat baffled and wondering why being economical with the truth in this Chamber is the tipping point for Tory MPs on the Prime Minister.
Why did Tory MPs not see the Prime Minister for what he really is when he compared Muslim women wearing the hijab to looking “like letter boxes”? Why did they not see him for what he really is when, talking of the war-torn Libyan city of Sirte, he said it could be the “new Dubai” and that all that had to be done was
“to clear the dead bodies away”?
Why did Tory MPs not see him for what he really is when he unlawfully shut down Parliament, misled the Queen and tried to run the country like a tinpot dictator?
The fact is, this Prime Minister should resign because he is morally bankrupt—he always has been. But if we do not tackle the cost-of-living crisis now, frankly, it will be many of our constituents who are bankrupt. [Interruption.]
I see that the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), who has managed to come to the Chamber rather than touting for a second job, wants to intervene. If he wants to intervene on the speech, he is welcome to do so, otherwise than chuntering from a sedentary position.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I am wondering when the hon. Gentleman was going to get on to the subject of the debate, which is the cost-of-living crisis.
David Linden
I find it rather ironic to take lectures from the hon. Gentleman about getting on with the job. He was touting for plenty of jobs recently, so that is rather a sticky wicket for him to be on. If he bears with me for a moment, we will get on to the substance of the matter. I look forward to seeing how he votes on the motion tonight and what he does for his constituents in Shrewsbury.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was everywhere; he was all over the airwaves. Indeed, if Rishi’s slick Instagram graphics could be used as a currency, we would probably all be millionaires, just like the Chancellor himself. However, it is clear that the Chancellor does not have a plan for the biggest issue of the day: soaring costs. He talks endlessly about his plan for jobs, but it is clear that his only plan for a job is moving next door when the Prime Minster is forced from No. 10. But I guess we can all console ourselves that at least when he does take over Lord Brownlow will not have to worry about WhatsApp messages looking for a tap to pay for an expensive new wallpaper.
Spending £840 on a roll of wallpaper gets to the very heart of why this Government are so detached from the economic reality of the everyday lives of our constituents. Inflation is rising at a frighteningly rapid pace: this month it rose to 5.4%, the highest in almost 30 years, since March 1992, when it was 7.1%. But we have not reached the summit yet: Paul Dales of Capital Economics has said that inflation is now expected to hit 7% by April.
These abstract figures have a very real impact on people in difficult financial situations, and they often under-represent the true effect of rising inflation, as highlighted in an excellent Twitter thread by Jack Monroe, which I commend to the House. Monroe wrote:
“This time last year, the cheapest pasta in my local supermarket…was 29p for 500g. Today it’s 70p. That’s a 141% price increase as it hits the poorest and most vulnerable households.”
That rise becomes a pattern for many essential household items. The cheapest rice was 45p for a 1 kg bag; today it is £1 for 500 grams.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
May I ask a quick question? Can the hon. Gentleman recall which of the following schemes rolled out since March 2020 he did not approve of: the job coaches or kickstart schemes; the restart schemes; the lifetime skills guarantee; the holiday activity fund; the household support programme; or perhaps we should just remember the furlough schemes that protected the jobs and livelihoods of millions of people throughout the United Kingdom? Did any of those schemes not help the Scots?
David Linden
It is on the record that the SNP supported a number of those schemes. For example, the furlough scheme was hugely important, certainly at the beginning of the pandemic; about 13,000 of my constituents were involved in that scheme and it was something the SNP called for. However, we profoundly disagreed with the Government winding the scheme down too early, and there was such a lack of clarity on that; I know personally many constituents who lost their job in the intervening period from the Government saying it would be wound down to then extending it. The Government could have continued with a number of other schemes, too. We know fine well that as we come out of the teeth of this pandemic the economy is incredibly fragile, and my criticism, which I would reflect back to the hon. Gentleman, is that so many of these schemes were wound down far too early and that has led to the difficult financial pressures many of our constituents feel right now.
I was telling the House about some of the rising costs our constituents are facing in their average supermarket shop. Canned spaghetti was 13p and is now 35p, a price increase of 169%. These price changes will force more people towards food banks, and more people towards having to make that horrendous decision between heating and eating.
On top of the increasing price of food bills, energy prices are surging, delivering yet another devastating blow to families who are already struggling. Household energy bills were the biggest driver of inflation after Ofgem, the energy regulator, lifted the price cap on domestic gas and electricity. That meant that gas bills rose by 28.1% in the year to October, while electricity climbed by 18.8%. National Energy Action estimates that there are already 4.5 million fuel-poor households in the UK, which is nothing short of a disgrace, and if the cap rises, as is predicted, the number will rise to 6 million. Only two weeks ago there was an Opposition day debate in this Chamber and I was highlighting the rising cost of energy to Ministers, yet still, two weeks on, no action has been taken; indeed, if press reports are to be believed, a meeting between the Chancellor and the Prime Minister on this issue was cancelled last Wednesday because they were both so busy courting Tory backbenchers. When I met with Age UK and Age Scotland after their snap survey, it was revealed that 96% of their respondents were worried about their energy bills.
Again, these statistics have real-life consequences. I have heard far too many stories of people in my constituency moving their beds into their sitting room so they will only have to heat or light one room over the winter months. That an image not of Victorian Britain but of 21st-century global Britain.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point about the poverty faced by people in this current cost of living crisis. The all-party parliamentary group for terminal illness last year produced a report that pointed out that the energy costs for people diagnosed as terminally ill double when they are at home. When people are struggling anyway, that is an absolutely damning statistic for people with a terminal illness, yet the Government have failed to move on bringing forward faster access to benefits to support them. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is just a disgrace from this Government?
David Linden
It is. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who very ably chairs the all-party group for terminal illness. It is one of the things that really sticks in the craw of many of us. My hon. Friend highlights some of the very real struggles facing people with a terminal illness. The idea that the biggest issue of the day—the cost of living crisis and spiralling energy bills, which people who are terminally ill are struggling with—is being overlooked at the expense of things like “Fizz with Liz”, and the Chancellor and the Prime Minister courting the Tea Room really is an absolute disgrace.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for giving way; he is being generous with his time. On energy bills and the cost of living, does he agree that one of the great losses to these islands is the fact that the Government prevented more land-based wind turbine arrays which would have brought down the cost of energy significantly as the cheapest provider of electricity? That would have made a significant difference to energy costs.
David Linden
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I agree that it is important that we invest in renewable energy. That is why we on the SNP Benches are fully committed to that. It is only a shame that the official Opposition have such a bizarre fascination with investing in nuclear, but perhaps he will reflect on that.
The current Tory austerity policies do absolutely nothing to relieve the suffering of people who are impacted by the cost of living crisis. In the last year alone, the British Government cut the £20 a week uplift to universal credit. Indeed, they refused to extend the £20 uplift to the 2.5 million disabled people on legacy benefits. That is subject to proceedings in the High Court at the moment. The Government battled against extending free school meals to the poorest children in society. We learned only at the weekend about the allegations that the then Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) personally threatened Members of this House who dared to vote for that with the withdrawal of funding from their constituencies. The Government scrapped the triple lock for pensioners who already have one of the worst pensions in the OECD.
All of that is important, because those cuts only deepen and cement the inequalities in our society. They will impact the lives of the poorest people we represent for decades to come. The British Government must reflect on that. When people fall into destitution, it is other parts of the state, almost certainly councils, that have to bear those eye-watering costs. We know that destitution is bad for the economy. It is not good for the economy for people to be unable to afford their weekly food shop or heating bills. Let me be especially clear to the Government that a proliferation of foodbanks is not a sign of the big society; it is a sign of bad policy from people who think that spending £840 on a roll of wallpaper is somehow normal.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
My hon. Friend is making a number of excellent points about the damaging nature of UK Tory policy. Does he agree that the benefit cap is one of those problems as well? Is he happy today to put on record the SNP’s support for the Poverty Alliance “Scrap the Cap” campaign?
David Linden
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Yes, absolutely. The SNP has stood on successive election manifestos with a commitment to scrap the cap: both the benefit cap and the welfare cap. I am only disappointed that the SNP had to lead the charge against the welfare cap in a vote only a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps when people in Scotland are considering who best serves them, whether it is Westminster or the Government they elect in Scotland, they will reflect on that. My hon. Friend makes a very good point.
It is imperative that the Government bring forward solutions to address the cost of living crisis and lift millions of people from experiencing poverty this year, just as we have set out in the motion. The Government must introduce an emergency package to boost household incomes and reverse rising poverty levels across these islands. We want the Chancellor to launch a multi-billion-pound Brexit recovery fund to mitigate the worst, and growing, costs of Brexit.
Those solutions should go hand in hand with other suggestions to tackle rising energy prices. We need a one-off payment to low-income households, which could be identified by way of the council tax reduction mechanism. We must increase and extend the warm homes discount, delivered through customers’ bills and funded by the UK Government. We need the child payment, as seen in Scotland, to be rolled out right across these islands. We need the April benefits uprating to better reflect inflation rates and to reinstate the £20 a week uplift to universal credit which so many of our constituents described as a lifeline.
There is no shortage of suggestions to Ministers for how we can alleviate family income pressures, but there is, I am afraid, a shortage of urgency and energy on the part of a Government distracted by their own internal wrangling. I have a huge amount of respect for the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, but the fact that, on a day when we have another debate about the cost of living increase, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is nowhere to be seen raises a lot of questions about what he is doing.
In contrast to the cruel policies in Westminster, the Scottish National party Government have committed to relieving poverty wherever they have the power to do so. That is why we have doubled the Scottish child payment, rolled out 11 benefits—seven of them brand new—extended free school meals and are working actively to reduce poverty and inequality, and all the while Westminster undermines those efforts. However, the constitutional reality is that, with limited tax-raising powers, no borrowing powers and 85% of welfare spending still controlled in this place, those policies can only go so far when they are continually undermined by Tories and Tory Governments whom Scotland did not elect.
Since being elected four years ago, I have stood in this Chamber warning the Government about the impact of their policies that make life so much harder for my constituents in Garthamlock, Craigend and Easterhouse. When I make those pleas, it is not from a purely dogmatic or ideological point of view. I do so because every Friday morning at my surgeries I meet people who, because of the way life has panned out, rely on the safety net of the social security system, to which we all contribute and which is frankly no longer able to cope. I appreciate that a Tory MP in the home counties probably does not have much care for, or cause to interact with, the Department for Work and Pensions on a daily basis.
Duncan Baker
It is interesting listening to the number of fiscal policies mentioned that are so terrible and have led to the United Kingdom’s recovery being so poor. Can the hon. Gentleman then explain why every economist predicts that the United Kingdom economy is expected to show the highest growth and bounce back of any nation within the G7?
David Linden
I ask the hon. Gentleman to reflect on the fact that the UK was one of the worst hit by coronavirus, perhaps due to the bungling of this Government in the initial days in locking down far too slowly.
Daniel Kawczynski
One thing the hon. Gentleman has not mentioned in the course of his speech is the extent of the national debt. We have a debt-to-GDP ratio of over 100%, we have more than £2.4 trillion in debt and we are spending more on servicing the national debt than on the entire education budget—£55 billion. Will he not at least acknowledge that the extraordinary levels of debt incurred over the banking crisis and now the pandemic inevitably mean that the Treasury is unable to do straight away everything he seeks to have it do for our constituents?
David Linden
The problem with the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is that he suggests that this is some issue the Government have just happened upon. His Government have been in power for 11 years, so the level of national debt is something they have a direct link to. He should reflect on that.
As I said, a Tory MP in the home counties—or indeed Shrewsbury—might not have much opportunity to interact with the DWP on a daily basis, but I do, and my constituents often tell me—[Interruption.] Mr Deputy Speaker, the hon. Gentleman chunters somewhat. I know he might be quite excitable, and he is probably envisaging this as some sort of on-screen job interview, but if he will calm himself for a moment, I can perhaps make a little bit of progress with my speech—[Interruption.].
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Mr Kawczynski, this is not a conversation; it is a debate.
David Linden
You are right, Mr Deputy Speaker—it is not a conversation, and I am not in a position to help the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) with his school fees, so if he just hangs on, I will deal with him a bit later.
I say to the Government that although the DWP does not often act very helpfully towards my constituents, it is clear from people back home in Glasgow East that the Government are out of touch and do not have the solutions for the big issues of the day. They say that a week is a long time in politics, and yes, for Westminster watchers and the chattering classes, defections, letters to the 1922 committee, Tea Room gossip and “fizz with Liz” are probably all very exciting, but for most of us, it just feels like groundhog day. The Prime Minister, the Chancellor and this whole Tory Government are simply not listening. They are not listening to charities and non-profits, which have repeatedly highlighted the cost of inaction, with soaring prices. They are not listening to the voices of Opposition Members, even though we were told that Brexit meant that Parliament would take back control. Ultimately, and worst of all, they are not listening to the people of Scotland and they are not acting when people need help most.
Inflation is rising, costs are soaring and time is running out for hard-pressed families. The Tories need to stop navel gazing and start acting to head off the cost of living crisis. Frankly, anything less is only a further dereliction of duty on the part of a Government whose focus is elsewhere. Yes, we can debate this tonight, but in reality, the time for talking has passed. Talk alone will not pay our constituents’ energy bills at the end of this month. We need to act now and the Government need to start getting on with the day job. I commend the motion to the House.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
I am glad to have this opportunity to respond on behalf of the Government. The UK economy is roaring back to life following the unprecedented challenges that we faced during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. It may have escaped the attention of Scottish National party Members, but job vacancies have hit record highs while the unemployment rate has fallen sharply. Our GDP has rebounded. We are set to enjoy faster growth this year than anywhere in the G7, and our economy is now bigger than it was before the pandemic.
Job numbers are rising, unemployment is falling and the economy is back to its pre-covid level, but that has not happened by accident. The economy has been able to bounce back so strongly and quickly only because of the decisions made by this United Kingdom Government. Let me remind the House of those decisions. The £400 billion of direct economic support has protected millions of people’s livelihoods in every part of the United Kingdom, with the furlough and self-employment income support schemes safeguarding, in Scotland alone, more than 1 million jobs. The success of our vaccine roll-out has meant that we have retained the most open economy and society anywhere across Europe. And our plan for jobs is creating work opportunities and ensuring that people have the right skills to get into work.
Those achievements are underpinned by the fiscal strength and stability of our economic union. That is why, at the autumn Budget, we confirmed that the devolved Administrations are receiving an extra £12.6 billion of Barnett-based funding this year, taking total block grant funding to £77.6 billion.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
In that glowing list of statistics that the Minister had prepared for him, does he have a figure for the current level of child poverty on these islands, and if not, why not?
Mr Clarke
What the hon. Gentleman misses is that a jobs-based recovery lies at the heart of this Government’s plan. If he cares to look at this Government’s record, as opposed to that of the Government in Holyrood, he will see that the United Kingdom Government outperforms Holyrood every day of the week on job creation, growth and stability, which, in the end, goes to the heart of all our constituents’ life chances.
Over the next three years, the Government are providing, on average, an additional £8.7 billion a year to the DAs on top of their annual £66 billion baseline. That funding equates to an average of £4.6 billion a year more for the Scottish Government, £2.5 billion more for the Welsh Government and £1.6 billion a year more for the Northern Ireland Executive. It will support the devolved Administrations as they shape the economic recovery and decide how best to invest in the vital public services on which people rely.
We are acutely aware of the cost of living challenges that people face. Inflation is expected to average around 4% this year, 2.6% next year and then to return to target by the end of 2023. It is true that almost every other developed economy is facing similar issues due to increasing global demand after the pandemic and a global spike in wholesale gas prices.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Minister says that almost every other economy is facing similar issues, but, of course, other economies have not recently left the European Union. The British Retail Consortium has said that labour shortages—shortages of HGV drivers and warehouse workers—which affect the supply chain are one factor behind the increases in food prices that all our constituents are experiencing. What assessment are the Government conducting of the impact of leaving the EU on the huge increase in food prices in our supermarkets?
Mr Clarke
Contrary to that rendering of events, the challenges we face in relation to the supply of HGV drivers are those faced by countries across Europe. This workforce is predominantly elderly, and has been badly affected by the covid pandemic. Industries across the world, let alone Europe, continue to be affected by the same challenges that we all face of constrained supply and rising demand as the world wakes up from the pandemic. This has absolutely nothing to do with Brexit, and it is fundamentally misleading to suggest otherwise.
As I said to the House earlier this month, we are focused on easing the pressures caused by the cost of living wherever and however we can, and of course we are constantly considering what more we can do. I should remind the House that we are providing support, worth about £12 billion in this financial year and next, to help families with those challenges.
Drew Hendry
The Minister has said that the Government will do whatever they can to help people. I have raised this point before. The Government promised people who have been diagnosed as terminally ill that they would ensure that the six-month rule was moved aside so that those people could gain access to their benefits and survive this cost of living crisis, but nothing has been done. The Government are dragging their heels yet again. Will the Minister give a commitment now to taking this issue back and making sure that it is sorted out once and for all, so that those people who are dying, and their families, can have the support they deserve?
Mr Clarke
I recognise the passion with which the hon. Gentleman speaks in this place. I am happy to take away the issue to which he alludes and to look at it with my Department. However, the wider point stands: we are providing £12 billion this year and next. That is a huge package of support, targeted precisely at the issues that face this country and countries around the world.
To help working people, we cut the universal credit taper rate from 63p to 55p—that is a huge reward for making work pay—and increased the work allowance by £500 a year. That is a tax cut for nearly 2 million low-income families, worth £2.2 billion in the next financial year, or, on average, about an extra £1,000 in their pockets. Furthermore, from this April we will increase the national living wage by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour, benefiting more than 2 million workers across the UK. We have also frozen fuel duty for the 12th year in a row, which means that the average UK car driver will save about £1,900 compared to the level in 2010. All that builds on the help we have already provided elsewhere, such as the increase in the local housing allowance. We have increased it significantly Great Britain-wide, so that it stands at the 30th percentile of market rates, and we have made a commitment to keep cash levels at those higher rates in the future.
For those who needed extra help with their housing costs, we provided £140 million for discretionary housing payments in England and Wales this year; about 4 million people are being given help with their council tax bills; and we are investing over £200 million a year to continue the holiday activities and food programme for disadvantaged children in England. We are providing nearly £5 billion to help children and young people catch up on lost learning. On top of that, we are taking a range of further steps to relieve the financial pressures on the most vulnerable: for instance, we are expanding the Great Britain-wide warm home discount to about 780,000 additional households. In September we announced the £500 million household support fund to help vulnerable people throughout the UK with essentials such as energy, clothing and food bills this winter. Of course, we are also giving NHS workers throughout the United Kingdom a 3% pay rise in recognition of their service during the pandemic.
As I have said, the Government are striving to shield families from the rises in the cost of living, but as I also said a moment ago, the best anti-poverty strategy is a jobs strategy. That is why we believe that supporting, protecting and creating employment opportunities, and giving people the skills that they need, is economically right for this country. That vision is being turned into reality through our investment in the plan for jobs, which is benefiting people in every part of the United Kingdom.
Matt Western
May I make two points? One is about jobs. I think the Minister would accept that the kickstart scheme has been disappointing. The target was set at 250,000 jobs, but I think that only 100,000 have been filled so far. If I could draw his attention back to a point he made earlier about our economic performance and growth in GDP, he said that we were the strongest in the G20. But when we look at the statistics on the OECD website, between Q3 2019—pre-pandemic—and Q3 2021, we are the third worst performing country in the G20.
Mr Clarke
If we look at the Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts, we see that they are for 6.5% growth in 2021 and 6% growth in 2022. That is an incredibly strong economic recovery, and one of which we should be very proud. With regard to the Kickstart scheme, we obviously always want to encourage maximum uptake and we continue to work to refine that scheme and make sure it works to best effect, but it must be considered in the context of an unemployment rate that is now only just over 4%. We have a very tight labour market, and that very success is leading to some of the challenges that we face in getting people through every different scheme.
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
Given the increases in energy costs, can the Chief Secretary tell us how much extra VAT the Treasury is taking, what extra oil and gas revenues are coming in and how much extra is coming in from the increased price of petrol at the pumps? Why are the Government not using that money to mitigate costs for the 6 million households that will be plunged into fuel poverty when the cap rise kicks in in April?
Mr Clarke
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. The concept of some kind of VAT windfall is fundamentally misleading. VAT is charged at 5% on energy and if people are spending more of their disposable income on energy and less on issues that are taxed at the full rate, the Exchequer gets less money rather than more, so it is a net cost to the Exchequer.
We have doubled the number of work coaches and we have provided vital help for those who have been unemployed for over three months through the job entry targeted support scheme, which is worth £200 million. Of course, we are not just helping people into work: we are also supporting them to develop the right skills so that they can adapt and thrive in the job market. In the Budget, we committed to increasing skills spending in England by £3.8 billion over the Parliament, and the plan for jobs is therefore giving people the invaluable tools they need to succeed.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
This is an important motion as it gives the House an opportunity to debate the cost of living crisis. It would be churlish to ignore some of the good measures that the Government have brought forward, but in talking about support for people to get into work and for those in work, there appears to be some contradiction with the proposed hike in national insurance. There seems to be some prevarication today around that policy and the suggestion that the Government may change tack. Is the Chief Secretary in a position to update us on that?
Mr Clarke
It is good to see the hon. Gentleman back in the Chamber. The reality is that nobody came into politics to raise the burden of tax on our society. We all feel that keenly, but we are equally clear that we face a £400 billion bill for covid costs. We have a clear programme of targeted investment in the NHS and in social care, designed to alleviate the backlog in treatment and the longstanding challenges that we know we face with an ageing society. We owe it to people to be candid that there are no easy solutions to how to pay for that. I certainly do not want—and I know the Chancellor does not want—to put more borrowing on to the books, when we know that those are structural challenges that need to be paid down, and therefore a tax increase is the most sensible and honest way for us to pay for that. In that spirit of total candour, that is why we are bringing that forward, and we believe that it is the right thing to do. The sadness is, of course, that the Opposition did not support us in that, and persistently criticise us for not spending enough on the NHS when they will not will the means for that investment.
Direct financial assistance, help to find work and support for people in every region and nation of the UK are just some of the ways in which the Government are aiming to secure a more prosperous future for this country. I note that the motion tabled by the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) calls for the Government to spend more. I should remind him that the devolved Administrations already have the power and the money to make spending decisions of their own. The Scottish Government have significant tax and welfare powers, so they can choose to raise more tax if they want to spend more on welfare.
For our part, we have shown unequivocally that we are not afraid to make the big decisions to do right for the people of this country. That is why we are investing £600 billion in the public sector over the course of this Parliament, on our health service, our education system, and securing our borders. That is why, at the spending review, we took the total we have committed to the economic infrastructure to £130 billion. That is why, to respond the hon. Gentleman’s point, we are spending more on the NHS as a result of the health and social care levy as well.
David Linden
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury talks about the big decisions that the UK Government have taken. Of course, part of the reason they can take these so-called big decisions is that they have the ability to borrow; he just talked about £600 billion. He knows fine well that in Scotland we do not have those powers. If he wants people in Scotland to have them, why will he not give Scotland the borrowing powers to do so?
Mr Clarke
This Government have worked very closely and co-operatively with the Scottish Government in Holyrood to make certain that we can, together, provide the most effective, targeted package of support for all our constituents. I have talks with Kate Forbes, the Scottish Government Finance Minister, coming up later this week as part of the fiscal framework. We continue to discuss all the issues that fall within the relationship between Holyrood and Westminster, and we do so on a genuinely open and constructive basis. We are quite clear that we have provided the devolved Administrations with a huge—indeed, a record—Barnett settlement precisely to make sure that all contingencies thrown up by the pandemic can be covered.
The broad context of our need to deliver the right package of support does not come at the expense of our commitment to safeguarding the country’s finances. As I have said to the House before, reckless promises are the privilege of opposition; tough choices are the task of parties that are in government. We cannot fritter away our achievements on unfunded pledges. That is particularly true at a time like this when our level of debt means we are vulnerable to shocks, including changes in interest rates and inflation. In fact, a sustained one percentage point increase in interest rates and inflation would cost over £22 billion by 2026-27. Given that this country has suffered two so-called once-in-a-generation shocks in just over a decade, the case for building a stronger economy with the headroom to guard against shocks is clearer than ever. We must act to build on that headroom now, because to fail to do so would be folly.
I recognise, as do all my ministerial colleagues, the very real pressures that are facing families in every part of the United Kingdom right now. I have set out the comprehensive action we are taking to address those challenges. That is why, as my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) said, it is so disappointing that Nicola Sturgeon’s first priority, as the omicron wave eases, is not the cost of living but rather another divisive independence referendum. The SNP’s record of failure in government stretches back years. Before the pandemic, the SNP presided over the lowest rate of job creation in the United Kingdom. Under the SNP, Scottish schools have plummeted down international league tables, denying children a good education. Scotland has the highest drug death rate in Europe, tripling on the SNP’s watch.
Now, instead of supporting Scotland to recover from the pandemic, here we are, on an Opposition day, with the SNP again fixating on issues with the negativity that has become its hallmark. The SNP has entered into a nationalist coalition with the Scottish Greens, taking on extreme policies that will be hugely damaging for Scottish workers, in exchange for pushing ahead with its plans for that divisive second referendum. It is more focused on the break-up of our United Kingdom than on supporting Scotland to recover from the challenges the pandemic has created. By contrast, throughout this pandemic, the United Kingdom Government have taken the difficult decisions necessary to steer the country through the crisis we have faced. We will continue to strive to secure the better and more prosperous future that the people of this country deserve.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
May I say how pleased I am that we are having this incredibly important debate today? While Parliament has been hopelessly paralysed by the Prime Minister’s refusal to do the decent thing and resign, I hope that the debate allows us an opportunity to discuss the human reality of this Government’s cost of living crisis.
Up and down this country, people are facing the anxiety that comes from worrying about whether they can pay their bills and heat their homes. Having to decide whether to eat or heat is an awful indictment of Britain in the 2020s. If that decision has to be made by one person, that is one person too many, but, under this Government, millions of people are having to make that decision. Moreover, there is total inaction; there is nothing to say. There is also nothing in this light parliamentary timetable to help. The Minister himself, in the near 20 minutes that he spoke, gave nothing to help families in this country in the cost of living crisis. The Government could have tabled an amendment to the motion—I am sure that the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) would have allowed it—for us all to vote for and back to help the people of this country with the cost of living crisis, but we have radio silence. Because of that inaction, more and more face hardship and worry.
Inflation stands at more than 5%, a 30-year high. Energy bills are to rise by 40%—on average by £700 per household—shortly. The average UK worker is still not any better off than they were when this Government took power more than a decade ago. The Chancellor is planning the largest tax hike in living memory, taking the tax burden on working people to its highest since 1950. What a record that is: a high-tax, high-inflation, low-growth Tory party. This weekend, we were led to believe that the entire Cabinet would get behind stopping the planned national insurance tax rise, but what did we hear today? We heard the Chancellor turning against his own national insurance hike by calling it the “Prime Minister’s tax”. That is a whole new definition—the Chancellor of tax-dodging. Nobody in the country is buying it. The Government should bring the question back to this House if they want to vote the national insurance rise down.
The human cost of the situation is stark. In the past year, Citizens Advice Scotland has seen a 38% increase in the number of people coming to it for advice about being unable to pay their mortgage. The figure is much higher for those unable to pay their rent. Polling conducted on behalf of the same organisation found half a million Scots cutting back on their food spending in order to pay their energy bills this winter—before those huge rises. What is worse is that official statistics on inflation do not capture the full extent of the difficulty facing families, especially those on low incomes. The food blogger, Jack Monroe, who rose to fame with recipes showing how to cook family meals for less than £10 a week, highlighted that on social media over the weekend. They gave examples of the cost of the cheapest pasta in the local supermarket rising by 141% in the past year, the cost of the cheapest bag of rice rising 344% and the cost of baked beans rising 45% year on year. At the same time, those on the lowest incomes have seen universal credit cut and their budgets tightened even further.
To make matters worse, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East mentioned, the costs of filling up the car have risen to their highest level ever and, while they rise like a rocket, they fall like a feather, needlessly costing families much more. Then we have Brexit infiltrating the supply chains, making it much more difficult to get food into the country, increasing costs in our supermarkets. That is the reality not of a global market, but of this Government’s decision making. Families are working every hour under the sun but are still unable to make ends meet, and the position is getting worse, not better.
Joanna Cherry
I am grateful to my constituency neighbour for giving way. He is talking about the price of food in the supermarket. Earlier, he will have heard me put to the Minister the problems identified by the British Retail Consortium with labour shortages affecting the food supply chain. Unless we were watching the BBC, we will all have seen the queues at the Kent ports over the weekend. What assessment has the Labour party made of the impact of Brexit on food price increases, and what does the Labour party intend to do about the problems of labour shortages and supply shortages caused by Brexit?
Ian Murray
I thank my constituency neighbour for that question. I hope that she watched with great interest the speech of the leader of the Labour party just a few weeks ago, and, indeed, the other speech he made before Christmas about making Brexit work. The reality is that this Conservative Government have given us a position whereby Brexit does not work. We have a thin deal that we said would fall apart, and it is falling apart. What we have to do is to get into power to fix the problems with that and to build on that relationship. That is the reality of where we are.
I listened with interest to the Minister not answering the hon. and learned Lady’s question about HGV drivers and the cost of food and supply chains. He rightly said that there is an ageing workforce, but that shows that the Government have not planned for the medium to long term in that regard—it is as if everybody just got older overnight, rather than there being some plan. It sums up the Government that they have not had the foresight to see some of those problems coming. None of the promises that the Brexiteers opposite made to us about sunny uplands have come to pass; indeed, the opposite has come to pass, as we can see in the supermarkets and in prices themselves.
Those of us elected to this place owe it to the millions of people across the country who face such hardship to do everything we can to alleviate and change it. In the UK in 2022, nobody should have to choose between heating and eating. The Government have shown no compassion and not even pretended to care. Let us remember that they voted to cut the £20 a week universal credit uplift for the poorest in this country and refused to feed school kids in the holidays. The only response to the crisis from the Government so far, in all the noise of partygate and everything else, was when they snuck out a £4.3 billion fraud write-off from covid funds and business loans, which was branded “nothing less than woeful” by their very own anti-fraud Minister, Lord Agnew, shortly before he resigned at the Dispatch Box a few hours ago in the other place. Maybe the Minister would like to do the same this afternoon: get to the Dispatch Box, resign, grab his folder and suitcase full of wine, and head for the hills. Any Minister with any kind of morality would be doing just the same thing.
I am pleased that the SNP has called the debate, but it is not a bystander in this crisis either. The SNP is the Government in Scotland and has been for 15 years. A 33-year-old today, struggling to feed their family while paying their energy bills, has spent their entire adult life under the Scottish National party Scottish Government. Such a person might wonder why the SNP did not support legislation put forward by Labour colleagues in Holyrood to enshrine as a human right the right to food. Perhaps we might be able to find out this afternoon why not.
Parliamentary time will be taken up “in weeks” with legislation for another referendum. People are having to choose between heating and eating, but that will be the SNP’s priority in Parliament and elsewhere for months. I accept that Parliament has the capacity to do other things, but nobody should be under any illusions. All the oxygen in the vacuum will be taken up in Scotland with another referendum or the thought of another piece of referendum legislation. That is the reality of what will happen. With the paralysis in this place, the Scottish Government are obsessed by what gets them out of bed in the morning, rather than the real, everyday issues of Scots.
Alan Brown
While the hon. Member is on the action of the Scottish Government, I presume he is going to commend them for bringing forward the £20 a week child payment as one way to help to mitigate the poverty being imposed by Westminster. Earlier he said that we all have a duty in this place to try to help people with the cost of living and energy crisis. In which case, why did Labour vote for the Nuclear Energy (Financing) Bill, the impact statement for which said that it could add up to £63 billion to household energy bills? How on earth is that helping people with the energy crisis?
Ian Murray
What a valuable and timely intervention that was, because I was just about to talk about the child payment. Indeed, we campaigned for the £20 child payment for some time in the Scottish Parliament and were delighted that the Scottish Government eventually introduced it. However, it is a key, targeted intervention that helps to address child poverty, so what we would like now—all the Scottish charities are saying this—is for it to be doubled to £40 a week.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
What would you cut?
Ian Murray
I hear hon. Members behind me asking from a sedentary position what we would cut—which is surely the same budget dilemma facing the Government that they have just been arguing about. What I would do is this. I would not spend money on an independence referendum; I would feed hungry Scottish children instead. Such a move, Mr Deputy Speaker—[Interruption.] SNP Members seem to have woken up. It tells you all you need to know about how Scottish politics works that when this Government are in total disarray, rather than turning their guns on them, they are turning them on the Labour party. Such a move to double the Scottish child payment—[Interruption.] “Where would you get the money from?”, they keep shouting. Such a move would take 80,000 Scottish children out of poverty overnight, so let us find the money indeed, with all these vanity projects and the wastage we have seen in Scotland.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
Will the hon. Member give way?
Ian Murray
I will give way if the hon. Gentleman will tell us how much the SNP has spent on ferries that has been wasted.
Brendan O’Hara
The hon. Member talks about the SNP turning our guns on the Opposition; perhaps if he was not so utterly thirled to trident missiles, we could find the money to lift Scottish children out of poverty. While the Labour party remains thirled to Trident, we cannot do it.
Ian Murray
It is a strange thing that over the past five minutes we have heard SNP MP after SNP MP justify why they cannot lift 80,000 children out of poverty. If that does not show how this country is stuck between two bad Governments, nothing will.
David Linden
Unfortunately, we on the SNP Benches have to turn our guns everywhere because there are very few guns behind the hon. Gentleman. He is focusing on social security and what we can do—I agree with him about how we can alleviate poverty and inequality—so will he tell us from the Dispatch Box that the next Labour manifesto will commit to the abolition of the welfare cap, about which Labour had nothing to say two weeks ago?
Ian Murray
There was not a vote on the welfare cap a few weeks ago. It was about giving more money to the poorest people in this country and SNP Members know that. I take umbrage with what the hon. Gentleman said about the number of people on the Labour Benches, because the criticism we always hear during SNP Opposition day debates is that the Labour party takes up too much time. We leave most of the time for SNP Members to speak and that has always been the case. SNP Members constantly complain that they do not get enough time in this place; they will get as much time as they like today.
I was delighted by that intervention; let me repeat my paragraph. Young children and families in Scotland might be wondering why the Scottish Government will not listen to charities or, indeed, to Scottish Labour’s policy and increase the Scottish child payment to £40 a week. SNP Members cry, “Where would we get the money from?” Such a move would lift 80,000 Scottish children out of poverty and could be done tomorrow under the powers of the Scottish Government. They are wasting money on ferries, Prestwick and vanity projects. The underwriting of the Gupta organisation puts half a billion pounds on to the taxpayer of Scotland. That is what we should focus on.
The Scottish Government passed their budget last month and pushed incredible cuts on to local authorities. They then turned round to those local authorities and said, “If you want the money to run local services, put it on council tax.” Nothing affects Scottish people more than their having to pay massively increased council tax bills because the Scottish Government are slashing the budgets of local government.
There is no better example of dither and delay than the devolution of welfare powers. In 2016, we agreed on a cross-party basis to the devolution of a whole host of welfare powers to the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, in essence the Scottish Parliament could now create its own welfare system if it implemented the policies. Six years on, the Scottish Government still delay the full implementation of the policies. In fact, they will take until 2025 to take full control of the devolved powers. It is important because with skyrocketing energy bills and increasing child poverty, the powers could be used to give, for example, a supplement to the winter fuel payment to help pensioners who are stretched by increased fuel bills. That is what should happen in respect of the changes to welfare powers in Scotland, but it cannot, because the welfare powers have not yet gone through as they should have.
We know that the best way out of poverty is the creation of highly skilled, highly paid jobs, so I must give credit to the SNP Scottish Government because over the past 15 years they have created a host of highly skilled jobs in turbine development, in the construction of ferries and in steel manufacturing. But none of those jobs have been in Scotland: they have been in China, Turkey, Poland and elsewhere. The decisions that the Government make have a fundamental impact on the way we deal with things in Scotland. The newly announced Scotland projects could generate billions of pounds of economic activity in Scotland, so every single job created should be in Scotland, with fabrication plants, British Steel and others.
Of course, as the cost of living crisis develops, the Prime Minister faces some difficulties of his own. Although much of the country is about to spend all their income from their jobs on energy, the Prime Minister is spending all his energy on saving his job. It seems that the choice in No. 10 is not so much about heating or eating but about whether it should be red or white. Little does the Prime Minister know that the cost of living crisis will affect him as well as everyone else in the country. Will the Minister tell us how much more a suitcase of wine from the Co-op will cost next year than it did this year?
As the Government party through the night, Labour offers a serious solution and leadership on the crisis. While the Government are hopelessly distracted by the chaos of their own making and more focused on infighting than on tackling people’s energy bills, we are calling on the Government to address the situation now. They could bring in a motion now to sort out this problem, with fully funded measures to reduce the expected price rise in people’s energy bills in April through a VAT cut on home energy bills that would save most households £200 or more, and targeted extra support for the squeezed middle, pensioners and the lowest earners, who would receive £600 off their bills, paid for by a one-off windfall tax on the North sea oil and gas producers who have profited from the price rises. Under Labour’s plan, every household in Scotland would save more than £180 off their energy bills, and 800,000 households in Scotland struggling with the cost of living would get an extra £400 in additional support. That is nearly £600 for those hardest hit by the energy price rises—critical money into the pockets of hard-pressed Scots now.
While everyone is dithering and delaying as we talk about new referendum Bills and why the Prime Minister is more concerned about his job, Labour proposes genuine action that would help families pay their bills over this most difficult year. That is the difference that Labour and leadership can make, and we will make it in power. With the support of the people of Scotland and those across the United Kingdom, that is exactly what we plan to do at the next election.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
I will begin by picking up a few remarks made by the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) in opening the debate. First, he criticised the Chancellor for not being here. I apologise for any harm that this does to his career, but I must say that I am delighted that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury spoke for the Government in these opening speeches. It did irk me slightly that the hon. Gentleman felt he should highlight that the Chancellor was not here, because I remember being in Holyrood in the Scottish Parliament just a few weeks ago when—[Interruption.] SNP Members can laugh at this if they want, but we were discussing kids dying at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, and I led for the Scottish Conservatives, Anas Sarwar led for Labour and Alex Cole-Hamilton led for the Scottish Liberal Democrats. Every party leader turned up to that debate with the exception of Nicola Sturgeon, who is the local MP in Glasgow and was the Health Secretary when that hospital was created. She has many questions to answer, but she could not even turn up to a debate about that. Not only that—she could not even be bothered to vote. When SNP Members pick fights and say who should or should not respond to these debates, they should remember what their own leader does in Holyrood.
Secondly, the hon. Member spoke about groundhog day. We are in groundhog day in Scotland because, in the run-up to another party conference and elections, we have got Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP yet again speaking about Scottish independence. She was on the TV yesterday saying that she is putting civil servants to work to get ready to fight the case for another independence referendum. Businesses in Scotland are still struggling as a result of restrictions put in place by the SNP. Even the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), who is no longer in his place, said it was a fair point that they went too far before Christmas, yet Nicola Sturgeon thinks that now is the right time to recharge her efforts to separate Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom. That is the wrong focus, and it is groundhog day all over again.
Finally, the hon. Member for Glasgow East spoke about the economy and currency. The SNP Benches are very full, so I want to ask SNP Members this once more. They all support independence and want to separate Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom, so who on the full SNP Benches can tell me what currency an independent Scotland will have? I will give way to the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar), who put up his hand—we stand up in this place.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
We will use our currency—the Scottish currency—the Scottish pound.
Douglas Ross
The Scottish pound—there we go. That has answered all the problems. There are no concerns about what the Scottish pound would be or when it would be introduced. I think that the muted response of the hon. Member’s colleagues tells him that that was not the best intervention to make. Yet again, none of them can answer that question. I have asked them many times before, but none of them can credibly say what currency an independent Scotland would have. I think that is telling.
Douglas Ross
They are all excited now. I will give way to the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) in a moment, but we are speaking about the cost of living crisis and the SNP leader in Scotland wants to start the campaign to separate Scotland all over again. If Scotland were to separate from the rest of the United Kingdom—which I hope never, ever happens—surely the SNP can tell us what an independent Scotland’s currency would be.
Hannah Bardell
I am sure the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that in the run-up to the independence referendum in 2014, we offered the public in Scotland more information about the currency alone than his party offered voters across the UK on the whole Brexit debate.
Douglas Ross
I note, having asked the hon. Lady to tell me what currency an independent Scotland would have, that she failed to do so. She did, however, mention the White Paper, which was very detailed. It said that oil would be worth $114 a barrel. I am not sure that oil ever achieved that figure; it is certainly not worth that much at the moment. I really do not think that the White Paper is a strong argument for the SNP to focus on, but—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I know that the hon. Member is having fun, but this is about the cost of living increase and not some possible referendum in Scotland, so could we get back to the subject matter, please? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]
Douglas Ross
SNP Members are cheering because they are hoping that I move on very quickly. Like any good official, I will follow the rule from the referee and agree to do so. However, I think that many people in Scotland will be watching and will have heard that not a single SNP Member was able to answer such a crucial question for Scotland’s future.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss an important issue for my constituents in Moray and for constituents across Scotland and the United Kingdom. Households are struggling with the rise in global energy prices; with inflation as a result of spending decisions taken by Governments across the world, including this Government, who have invested £315 billion to get us through the global pandemic; and, of course, with rising prices of essential items such as food because of continued supply chain issues, again as a result of the pandemic.
Douglas Ross
I have given way quite a few times—[Interruption.] Okay, I am happy to give way, but my answer to the hon. and learned Lady will be that, as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has said, this is a global problem. We are seeing problems with shortages—[Interruption.] She says that she has not asked the question. I am about to give way, but I am pretty sure that her question is going to be about the British Retail Consortium and the points it has made, because she has asked it three times already.
Joanna Cherry
Clearly the hon. Gentleman, having been described as a lightweight by his colleagues, is planning a future career as Madam Zelda looking into a crystal ball, because he seemed to think that he knew what I am going to ask.
The hon. Gentleman’s constituents in Moray, like mine in Edinburgh South West, will have noticed a very significant increase in food prices in supermarkets. The British Retail Consortium—I know how much he loves British things—says that labour shortages, including shortages of HGV drivers and warehouse workers in the supply chain, are contributing to those increased prices. Many commentators have said that the red tape on food imports from the EU is contributing to those increases, too. In the interests of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents and mine, and given his lofty standing—in the Scottish Conservative party, at least—will he tell us what request he has made of the Treasury to assess the impact that leaving the European Union in the middle of a global pandemic will have on the cost of living crisis?
Douglas Ross
It turns out that that was exactly the same question and the same point that the hon. and learned Lady has already made three times. She mentions the British Retail Consortium, but she also has to accept that there have been labour shortages and driver shortages in other parts of the European Union, the United States and many other parts of the world. I understand that it fits her narrative to paint her question in that way, but we also have to remember that these are global issues that Governments across the world are having to address.
Governments in this country have to think carefully about the effect that their policies have on family budgets. That is why I was amazed, but sadly not surprised, that there was not a single mention in the SNP motion calling on the nationalist coalition of the SNP and the Greens in Holyrood to take some decisions itself that could make an immediate and direct impact on the cost of living in Scotland. The SNP motion that we are debating makes reference to tax rises, which is very interesting given that for the past decade and a half SNP colleagues have been running the country that is the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) says it is about the rich, but it is not; it is about the 1.1 million Scottish taxpayers who earn more than £27,393. That is not rich; that is 1.1 million people across Scotland. Those who earn just over £27,000 are not the rich; people across Scotland are being punished by SNP decisions.
David Linden
It is reassuring that at least today the mantra from the Tories is that Scotland is the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom, because sometimes we are told we are not doing anything with our tax powers.
To go back to the point of what we are doing for people on low incomes, the hon. Member will know that the regressive tax hike in national insurance will take away 20% of the pay increase for a band 5 nurse in Scotland. Does he support the Government’s plans for a tax hike in national insurance?
Douglas Ross
I have listened carefully to the hon. Gentleman, and I make this point: the tax rises that his Government are introducing in Scotland have made Scotland the highest-taxed part of the United Kingdom, and that is affecting nurses, teachers and police officers. That is who it is affecting right now in Scotland.
Ian Murray
Does the hon. Gentleman think that his Government’s national insurance tax rise in April helps or hinders that?
Douglas Ross
We have been clear, as my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, that the Government have taken a difficult decision to focus that vital funding on health and social care—an issue that has not been grappled with for decades by parties on either side of the Chamber. It certainly has not been grappled with by the Scottish Government. Sometimes difficult decisions must be taken to ensure that we have a health service and support for older people in this country that has not always been available.
The hon. Member for Glasgow East mentioned local government, and I suddenly got excited, because I thought we were finally going to hear an SNP politician standing up against the disastrous cuts that Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP are imposing on local government, but he said “local government”—Hansard will show this when the report is published—and then did not say another word. The SNP has the highest ever block grant since devolution. Since 1999, more money than ever before has been going from the UK Government to the Scottish Government, and what do they do to local councils? They cut the local government budget by £371 million. That is a cut from the SNP Government to local government, when the UK Government are giving them more money than ever before to spend.
Douglas Ross
I will give way in a second, if the hon. Gentleman will show that he stands up for his constituents, just like SNP council leaders have stood up to the Scottish Government and said, “That is a cut too far”, and that they should change their view on the £371 million cut to local government.
David Linden
I know the hon. Gentleman is used to running the line on a Saturday, but we are not all going to play his game this afternoon. On the issue of local government, will he pass comment, given that he has the floor, on Councillor Tim Eagle from his council in Moray, who suggested that free school meals, free tuition and free bus travel for under-22s are somehow “little treats”?
Douglas Ross
The hon. Gentleman knows that that was taken completely out of context. If he wants to repeat to the House the entire comment that Councillor Eagle made to the Moray Council committee meeting, he is welcome to do so. I gave way to the hon. Gentleman, so I will do so once more: does he agree with the SNP council group leaders who are saying to the SNP that the cuts are too much?
Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, I beg your forgiveness—I am not an expert in “Erskine May”—but I understand that if a Member resumes their seat without an intervention, they are deemed to have concluded their contribution.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
As Christmas has just passed, let us be a little generous. Have you finished your contribution, Mr Ross?
Douglas Ross
I am grateful for your generosity, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I will begin to conclude my speech.
It is interesting that the Scottish National party uses such tactics when the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), who introduced the debate, cannot stand up against the party in Holyrood and say that its cuts have affected the cost of living in Scotland.
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. If the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) sits down, how is that an SNP tactic?
Douglas Ross
I would think a bit more about that comment if the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil) had not arrived in the Chamber about five minutes ago for a debate introduced by his party.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman will be cognisant of the fact that Norway has an oil fund that is worth more than $1 billion, while Scotland’s oil fund is worth absolutely nothing on his party’s watch. Does he regret the fact that the UK Government have mismanaged Scotland’s resources for decades?
Douglas Ross
It is not worth nothing, because time and again we have seen the UK Government supporting Scotland. Indeed, during the pandemic, £15 billion or £16 billion has gone from the UK Government to the Scottish Government.
Douglas Ross
I have given way to the hon. Gentleman. That money was provided to support individuals, families and communities across Scotland. No matter how the SNP tries to paint it, its position on oil and gas is fundamentally different from what it was only a few years ago, and people in the north-east can see that and what it means for their jobs and communities. On the topic that we are discussing today, they can see what it means for the energy bills that they will receive in the weeks ahead.
Douglas Ross
I have given way a lot, and I realise that your patience is being tested, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss all these important issues. I only hope that SNP Members reflecting on today’s debate will begin to ask serious questions of their Government in Holyrood, as they have been in power for a decade and a half and have many of the tools, levers and, indeed, the funding to deal with this issue right now in Scotland.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
It is a pleasure to contribute to this important debate. May I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) for securing it and, indeed, for introducing it in such an impressive manner?
I should like to put on record my disappointment that the Government have done very little to counter misplaced rhetoric that falsely links net zero commitments to the cost of living crisis. We have heard a great deal about oil and gas imports, and it is true that 87% of the price cap increase is due to increased gas prices, with the remainder due to supplier failure. The green transition is not the cause of rising energy bills. Inflation, reflecting the confluence of factors at play in the crisis, is running at 5.4%—the highest it has been in nearly 30 years. Worse, contrary to Government rhetoric, wages are not keeping up, which means a decline in real wages for UK households.
Sky-rocketing fuel bills, and the challenge of that to households and businesses alike, is a key element of the crisis. To help them both in the immediate term, I urge the Government urgently to consider that short-term measures be taken to alleviate the cost of those bills. Members across the House have in recent weeks raised the merits of a temporary VAT cut on energy and the Government must consider that. Both the UK and Welsh Governments should be looking to expand support to in-need households through existing channels, whether universal credit or the winter fuel support scheme. Finally, in the short term the Chancellor should reconsider the merits of planned tax rises in the new financial year. The national insurance hike has already been discussed in detail; that would harm many of my households in Ceredigion and come at a time when costs of living are rising.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman represents a rural constituency, as I do; I represent one of the vastest and most remote constituencies in the UK. As well as household costs, if the price of petrol and diesel goes up, as we are pretty sure it will, that will in turn impact on my constituents, some of whom are trying to work on a very tight, balanced budget. If they get the household heating fuel bill and the extra cost of getting the kids to school and everything else, that will be a pretty nasty vicious circle.
Ben Lake
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Like him, I represent a rural constituency, where concern about rising petrol and diesel costs is bearing down heavily on families. For people in Ceredigion private cars continue to account for the overwhelming majority of commutes. Indeed, in Wales as a whole about 80% of people have to commute by car. Sadly, for people in Wales, and particularly in rural areas, there is no short-term alternative to using private cars, so those rising fuel costs are having a devastating impact. Of course the long-term solution would be greater investment in public transport infrastructure, but, as an MP representing a rural area, I know how devastating cuts to bus services have been in the last decade so, sadly, for the time being using the bus instead of a private car is not a viable option.
The crisis has also demonstrated the need for longer-term action, such as action to boost productivity, and green solutions to help address the energy supply emergency and in so doing to alleviate stagnating living wages. We can ease the crisis in the long term by reducing energy demand. We have discussed that often in this place and debates have also been held in the Senedd in Cardiff. If we reduce fuel and energy demand, we also reduce fuel bills.
A good place to start is with the simple measure of improving household heating efficiency. At the autumn Budget I called on the Chancellor to make a £3.6 billion investment over 10 years, in conjunction with the Welsh Government and the private sector, to improve home insulation in Wales. It is well-documented that the quality of Welsh housing stock is poor by both British and European standards, and its energy efficiency is, sadly, a sight to behold. Introducing measures to improve the heat and energy efficiency of our homes would not only boost employment in areas that are desperately in need of levelling up through the retrofitting schemes, but would also address fuel poverty. A report by the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales has suggested that with such a package of investment over 10 years we would be able to end fuel poverty in Wales, producing average annual savings of £418.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
One great problem is inequality —there is always a fuel poverty issue in good times as well as bad times in the United Kingdom. I was Chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee. We visited the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen and a Conservative member asked an academic there about fuel poverty in Denmark; the response was, “In Denmark, folk can afford stuff.” There is a structural problem in the UK in that the problems are not always acute but are always there.
Ben Lake
I agree with my hon. Friend. He makes an important point. Those who had the fortune of being able to listen to the debate in the Welsh Grand Committee last week will have heard that this matter as it relates to Wales was looked into in great detail. Sadly, we have a situation where, too often, I can walk to a petrol station in London, for example, and the price of energy, of petrol from the pump, is the same or cheaper than it is at a place in Felinfach in my constituency, and yet London has the benefit of the tube, the overground and regular bus services, whereas Felinfach is lucky to have two services a day.
To conclude—I have spoken for some time already—we must also bolster local renewable energy supply if we are serious about tackling the longer-term issues of our fuel and energy supply. In closing, I raise Plaid Cymru’s call for the devolution of the management of the Crown estate in Wales. Simply put, with many colleagues from Scotland in attendance this afternoon, if Scotland can, why not Wales? Devolving the management of the Crown estate in Wales would bolster Welsh revenues, increase our bargaining power with the private sector and support renewable energy deployment, all the while ensuring that the communities in which this energy is generated will be where its benefits are enjoyed the most.
In sum, the Government need urgently to do more to tackle the immediate crisis. The cost of living crisis is worsening, not abating, and households and businesses need support now—but let us not forget about the longer-term action that is required if we are not to find ourselves in this situation again in future.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
I am grateful to the SNP for calling this debate. As parliamentarians, it is absolutely right that we should debate in this Chamber the issues that are of most importance to our constituents when those issues are high on the political agenda, so I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about the cost of living and what we can do about it.
In the opening remarks of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, we heard the long list of targeted assistance that the Government are providing. I will come back later in my speech to dwell on some of those. Overwhelmingly, however, the best solution for cost of living squeezes is high levels of employment and increased levels of pay when in employment. It is because of the Government intervention in response to the covid pandemic that we have an employment field that is so strong at the moment.
The Government intervened right at the start of the pandemic to save jobs through the furlough scheme, which supported more than 1 million jobs in Scotland alone, and other schemes, from the self-employment income support scheme—I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—to the business bounce back loan scheme to CBILS, the coronavirus business interruption loan scheme. Those saved thousands of jobs, including in the business of which I formerly had the honour to be managing director. Without a CBIL, that company—which employs more than 1,000 people, including several hundred in Scotland—would likely have gone to the wall. It has not and is now growing again—probably because I am no longer directly involved in it—and it is creating many hundreds more jobs, here and in America.
The impact of all that is that we did not suffer from 12% unemployment, which was the estimate of economists at the time. Now, as we leave this dreadful pandemic behind us—I hope—we have 4.2% unemployment throughout the country. In my constituency, it is at about 3.2%. Instead of having a jobs crisis in which people need jobs, the crisis in Broadland is the lack of people to fill the jobs available as our businesses grow.
It is always better to have good jobs with rising wages —which I will come on to—than to rely on a statist solution of increased benefits under universal credit, with the exception of the taper rate. The reduction of the taper rate from 63% to 55% should make good tabloid headlines. All those involved in that part of the economy know the importance of that injection of about £2 billion into the pockets of those who are least well off, as they move from benefits into employment. That is incredibly important, and I am grateful to the Government for focusing their firepower on the taper rate, rather than on the attention-grabbing £20-a-week part of universal credit, because that is where it can do most good.
There is now more employment in this country than in pre-pandemic times—over 400,000 more jobs—and we should celebrate that, but employment is only the first issue. The second is the amount people are paid when they are employed. I have already referred to the universal credit taper rate, and we should not underestimate how hugely important it is, but the other factor is the hourly rate people receive for their work.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman is right that it is not so much about jobs as about earnings. Does he think the average worker would be better off in the UK, or in one of the Nordic countries, such as Norway or Denmark?
Jerome Mayhew
There is a trade-off between earnings and taxation: what people get to take home. I do not have the data, and I confess I do not know the full tax rates in Nordic countries, but I can say that the hourly rate in this country has risen consistently under this Government because of the national living wage—a Conservative Government development. The most recent rise of 6.6%, to £9.50, well above the forecast average inflation rate of 4% for the rest of this year, is the latest in a long line of above-inflation hourly rate rises under the national living wage.
From my local experience, I see the localised wage pressures to attract new staff in my constituency. Numerous businesses I have spoken to have told me they are raising their hourly rates above minimum wage to attract good new staff. There is a whole swathe of businesses, like the one I had the honour previously to lead, where, although the hourly rate is not the national living wage, it is in some ways pegged to it. The national living wage has a positive effect on hourly rates right across the economy.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
The Living Wage Foundation has classified a living wage as an hourly rate of £11.05 in London and £9.90 outside London. That is significantly higher than the minimum wage set by the Government—it was George Osborne as Chancellor in a former Conservative Government who changed the branding from national minimum wage to national living wage. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should support the Living Wage Foundation and the rates it independently sets?
Jerome Mayhew
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. The Government are on a journey to get the national living wage to two thirds of the median income, and they are making good, above-inflation progress to get there. We have to balance the needs of the recipients of hourly rates against the viability of the businesses that pay them; they need to thrive as well.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury mentioned a long list of assistance in his opening remarks. Particularly important, from my perspective, are the household support fund, with £500 million going directly towards utilities support; the warm homes discount, which reduces the price of heating by £140 per household, at a cost of £200 million to the taxpayer; and cold weather payments, which provide £25 per week to up to 4 million people in this country. The Government have taken proactive steps to support those most in need while supporting the entire economy of our country, in Scotland and elsewhere.
If the SNP was really worried, it would reduce its income tax, which costs £800 million more to taxpayers in Scotland than the rest of the United Kingdom—I was shocked to hear that it applied to taxpayers earning just over £27,000 a year and above—support continued access to North sea oil and gas reserves, and regret Nicola Sturgeon’s assertion that she would not give the go-ahead to the Cambo oil field. We need security of supply and we need to support domestic extraction during the period of transition between now and 2035. That supports our domestic prices and helps us in our transition to net zero. The Committee on Climate Change itself recognises that we need oil and gas resources between now and 2035
Jamie Stone
I rise to my feet as somebody who worked in the oil sector, but that is not what I want to address. The furlough scheme meant that the money paid out in my constituency was reinjected back into the local economy and the UK economy. It was not salted away in Zurich. In terms of supporting families through these hard times, the money does not go into a black hole. It is recycled. It can be clawed back by corporation tax on companies and so on. Perhaps it would be a good thing if all of us, including Her Majesty’s Government, looked at that as we tackle the problem of fuel poverty that lies before us.
Jerome Mayhew
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Treasury Ministers are attending this debate and I am sure they were listening very carefully to what he said.
In conclusion, there is a difference between grandstanding on these issues, which the SNP appears to be doing—there seems to be a certain amount of virtue signalling here—and what the Conservatives have been up to in government, taking practical steps to improve the lives of people right across the United Kingdom.
Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)
The last few years have been times of great adversity and challenge for people across the globe. In every country in the world, people’s ability to cope with those problems has relied on them having a sense of a common endeavour, a sense, to coin a phrase, that we are all in this together. The problem with Britain today is that there are many people who no longer believe that we are all in this together. The statistics, as we look around us, show that that is the case. This is a country where there is great poverty, but what is worse than the fact that millions of people are working themselves into an early grave through mental illness because they fear they cannot afford to feed their children, is that there are many people in this country for whom the story is the complete opposite.
Last year in Britain, a record number of billionaires were recorded. As I said in this House last week, the most alarming statistic to me is that 171 of the richest people in Britain could afford to cover every single penny the Government have spent in responding to covid—more than £400 billion. They alone could afford to cover that bill and still be the richest people in Britain. The stock exchange has never been higher and the people who own stocks and shares have never been wealthier. Because of the increase in property prices, those who own the biggest and the most properties have done far, far better than those who own a modest home. That is the dreadful story of unequal Britain that we have today—a story of poverty on the one hand and great wealth on the other.
Let us not pretend that we are all in this together, because the truth is that those people at the lower end of the scale, in particular those on fixed and low incomes, are the ones who will disproportionately pay the cost of this crisis. When prices rise, it is the people on fixed and low incomes who are hit disproportionately. When general taxes increase across the board, it is they who are hit. When benefits or state spending is withdrawn, it is those who are already suffering who are asked to suffer even more.
That is the state of Britain today and you would think, Mr Deputy Speaker, that any Government—not just a Tory Government, but any Government—would be concerned about those figures and would want to do something about them. Yet in every respect, the Government’s only response is to either do nothing or demonstrably make things even worse.
Let me illustrate that in two ways. First, we have had a big debate about rising energy prices. Probably the most bizarre thing, which was alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown), is that when energy prices rise, Government income rises from taxes on the production and taxes on the consumption of that energy. The Government are facing a huge windfall in energy taxation and at the very least—the very least—we would expect them to say, “Let’s put this back into the pockets of the people we’re asking to pay these bills”.
Tommy Sheppard
If the hon. Member is going to confirm that that is the Government’s intention, I will gladly give way.
Jerome Mayhew
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for giving way, but did he hear the Chief Secretary to the Treasury say that VAT is charged at 5% on energy and, if households are not spending on other things that are taxed at 20%, the net income for the Treasury is likely to be negative?
Tommy Sheppard
Forgive me, but I think that most people will find that argument rather perverse: 5% on someone’s electricity bill is still 5%, and if it doubles or trebles, that is two or three times more than the Government were taking before.
Tommy Sheppard
If the hon. Member does not mind, I would like to continue.
What the Government ought to be doing is recognising that we are coming towards a crisis in the cost of living, particularly with the fuel bills coming in April. They ought to make sure that the energy cap remains in place and does not rise. They ought to provide support for energy supply companies to be able to deliver that. They ought to make sure that the people who have already faced an increase in their bills are given a one-off payment to enable them to get through the rest of this year. But instead of doing that, they do nothing. Tax is another example of where the Government go out of their way, it seems, to make things worse.
When I talk about tax, it is worth bearing in mind that benefits are also part of the tax system. If the Government choose to withdraw benefits from people, the effect is exactly the same as if they were to increase taxes on their wage bill. That is why the cut of £20 a week to the 6 million poorest households in Britain is so iniquitous and so immoral. It would be at any time, but to do it in the middle of a cost of living crisis is beyond imagination. Of course that ought to be reversed, and of course the Government ought to do more to try to help those who are on fixed and low incomes, particularly those living on meagre state benefits. The fact is that, if the Government do not uprate in the next 12 months the level of benefits paid to those people who desperately need them, with rampant inflation, the real value of those incomes is going to go down even further, and the people who can least afford it are going to be the ones who will pay the most.
Of course, the increase in tax that the Government are proposing—the national insurance increase—is a tax increase that everyone will pay, and the proportion they will pay is exactly the same, no matter how rich or how poor they are. I have heard Ministers on the radio talk about this as a progressive tax. It is the farthest we can get from a progressive tax. It is fundamentally regressive. The reason it is being brought in is that this Government, who have to increase revenues because of the economic crisis, do not want to ask the very richest or the very wealthiest in our society to pay a bit more. If they had any morality to them, in a situation where they knew they needed to raise income through taxation, they would first consider taxing those who have the most and taxing accumulated wealth, before they levied a tax on people on poor and fixed incomes.
I think there are many Government Members who can see that this is not a good situation and that the Government’s response is quite abysmal. By the way, I do not know how much of this is by design, or how much of it is turbocharged by the fact that the current Administration are in complete inertia and paralysis; they are unable to do something because they are so scandal-ridden at this point in time. I accept that the lockdown crisis the Government have makes it harder for them to govern, but either way this Government’s honeymoon is long over—the veneer is disappearing. Those people in the red wall seats in the north of England who were conned into believing that this Government—this Tory Government—would stand up for their interests are going to see over the next 12 months things laid out very clearly for them. That is why, of course, there are a lot of nervous people on the Government Back Benches, and there are going to be a lot of problems for the Government in the 12 months ahead.
Let me turn, in my final remarks, to the situation in Scotland. I was going to congratulate the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), but he is no longer in his place. He brought into the debate the question of Scottish independence. He introduced it—it is not an SNP obsession. If we look at the text of the motion, the words “referendum” and “independence” do not appear in it. That is not just because we are capable of talking about many other things: it is because this debate, by itself, makes the case for independence. We do not need to write it down—it is self-evident.
If people want to see how things might be done differently or a different set of instincts, aspirations, attitudes and character at work, they can look north of the border and at what the Scottish Government have tried to do within the competence that they have available. The discretionary housing payment is ameliorating the bedroom tax. The child payments, already introduced and doubling in April, will mitigate some of the attacks on the very poorest in our community. Income tax increases for those who can afford to pay more, which the Conservatives claim make Scotland the most taxed part of the United Kingdom, in fact make Scotland the fairest taxed part of the United Kingdom.
Hannah Bardell
My hon. Friend is making a very powerful point about independence. Does he agree that the real fear on the Government Benches and in the establishment at the heart of Westminster is that when Scotland becomes independent the other nations of the UK will look north, see what we do with the full powers of independence and will want change for themselves, away from the corrupt, scandalous bunch running things here?
Tommy Sheppard
Indeed I do, but in closing I want to point to the monstrous deceit in this argument. It is a fact of life that no matter what the Scottish Government try to do in terms of the Scottish economy, they live with the reality that it is a regional economy of the United Kingdom, not the economy of an independent country. Therefore, for example, the decisions that we make on income taxation are very limited, because the Scottish Government have no authority or power over the movement of capital or labour within our borders. If it was an independent country, those things would be very different. I am afraid to say that that is compounded by Labour party Front Benchers. When they criticise the SNP Scottish Government, they basically think of a number and double it, without any regard to the actual powers, authority or legal status of that Government to deliver on the cost of living crisis.
The Scottish Government are doing some very good things, but those are only an illustration of what could be done if we had the full powers of a normal independent country. That argument has already become much more attractive to people in Scotland. Opinion is divided about whether we should have another referendum. I know that Conservative Members say that should never happen—
Tommy Sheppard
If it is on that point, I will, but I see that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, want me to finish.
Robin Millar
To the point about opinion being divided, I refer the hon. Gentleman to a survey on 25 November from north of the border in which 13 different policy options were presented. He is correct that the economy and jobs are important, as they came third in that ranking. The issue of independence—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. Interventions must be brief. We have a lot of Members who wish to speak and I will have to put a time limit on almost immediately.
Tommy Sheppard
I conclude by saying that it is a complete deceit to criticise the Scottish Government for not doing something that the House actively prevents them from doing. The simple way to test the truth of that is to let Scotland become an independent country, which is what people voted for at the last election in Scotland. Let them have that choice and, when it comes, we will put before the people a complete proposition that will answer all the questions that the hon. Member for Moray wants and many more. I believe they will choose a different way, an alternative way, of running their economy than what we get from this Tory Government.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I am sorry, but as I said, I will have to put a time limit of six minutes on speeches; otherwise, people are not going to get in. I have been able to warn the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) about that.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Duly warned and noted, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will not take up much of the House’s time—I am sure that will delight SNP Members more than anyone else—because up and until the hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) spoke, I was struggling for something to say in this debate. The hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden), who led the debate, is a passionate campaigner for combating poverty in his constituency and around the country, and I know how hard he works on behalf of his constituents to alleviate the burden that so many people find themselves under across this country.
However, the problem is this: the hon. Member for Edinburgh East said that we would not find any reference to independence in this motion, and he is right, but unfortunately, it does refer to the
“rising costs of the UK leaving the EU”.
Unfortunately, we cannot get away from the deep irony of Scottish National party Members coming here today to talk about the cost of living crisis, which genuinely is one of the most important things we can speak about at this time, and the cost of leaving the European Union while making no reference to the inordinate cost and huge challenges that would be put on businesses and individuals in Scotland if it were to separate from the rest of the United Kingdom. They cannot make one case to answer that.
Angus Brendan MacNeil
Is the hon. Gentleman saying that walking out of a trade bloc and increasing red tape, meaning that the UK has to have paperwork with every country that it exports to, is the same as repatriating political powers? Is he saying that Ireland or Finland are not independent, because if he is, he will be laughed at all over Europe?
Andrew Bowie
The hon. Gentleman knows very well that separating Scotland from the United Kingdom would be far more than just repatriating powers to Holyrood; it would be the break-up of an economic, political and social Union that has been in existence for 300 years and, in fact, it would make Brexit look like a cakewalk. I understand the concerns of the hon. Gentleman, who stands up and fights for, for example, his exporters and fishermen, who are struggling with some of the burdens that Brexit has brought—I have said openly that I recognise that—but that is as nothing compared with the burden that independence would put on businesses and people in Scotland.
David Duguid (Banff and Buchan) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point about the cost and financial strife that an independent Scotland would inevitably go through, but does he also agree with me and many others, especially in the business community, about the cost of an independence referendum and how investor confidence would be shaken up by merely having an independence referendum?
Andrew Bowie
Yes. That goes to the heart of one of the arguments that was made earlier about uncertainty for business. Actually, I take issue with what my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) about the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) being a lone voice on the SNP Benches in calling for continued investment in the North sea, because he is not. A couple of other SNP Members are in the Scottish Parliament. For example, Gillian Martin, the SNP MSP for Aberdeenshire East, said that decreasing domestic oil and gas supply would lead to greater imports. Jackie Dunbar, the SNP MSP for Aberdeen Donside, said that
“a hard shutdown of the oil and gas sector”
would see Scotland “with thousands left unemployed”. What does that say about uncertainty for businesses that are looking to invest, create jobs and take people out of the cost of living crisis in my constituency in the north-east of Scotland, and around the entire country?
Let me go back to the point I was making about independence. I understand that SNP Members do not believe what I say—that independence would be a bigger shock to the system than our leaving the European Union —but they might believe their own growth commission, which the SNP commissioned a couple of years ago. [Laughter.] There is laughter from SNP Members. Maybe they are laughing at the SNP’s growth commission, which said that creating a separate state in Scotland would cost £450 million. I wonder what that would do to the cost of living. It also says that £5 billion would be paid to the rest of the United Kingdom annually to account for its share in the national debt, while public spending—despite what the hon. Member for Glasgow East would like to do to combat child poverty and poverty across the board—would have to be capped at 1% less than annual GDP growth. What would that do to the cost of living in Scotland?
I genuinely respect the efforts of quite a few SNP Members in what they do in their constituencies, along with Members across this House, to combat poverty in this country. The problem is that they cannot argue that the impact on business of leaving the European Union was bad for growth and created more poverty while saying that independence and the hammer blow that it would bring to the economy would be good. I am afraid that that is why I will not be joining them in the Lobby tonight.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Due to interventions, which obviously give others extra time, I am afraid that after the next speaker I will reduce the time limit to five minutes.
Ms Anum Qaisar (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie). I listened to his contribution with interest. I just remind Conservative Members, in the politest of manners, that in last year’s May elections the people of Scotland continued our tradition of rejecting the Conservatives’ xenophobic and far-right policies.
Before I continue, I want to put on record my congratulations to my predecessor and constituency colleague, Neil Gray, who is set to join the Scottish Government as Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development. I know he is well respected across the House.
Yesterday we heard the interesting news that there were further allegations of Islamophobia within the Conservative party. That came as no surprise to me, of course, because we have seen Conservative MPs support a Prime Minister who has openly and publicly said that veiled Muslim women look like letterboxes. However, regardless of faith, or no faith, there is one community that the Conservatives have continually attacked since coming into power in 2010—the working-class community. The Conservatives have proved time and again that they only have the interests of one community at the heart of their policies, and that is those who are rich. The United Kingdom has the highest poverty rate in north-west Europe, and most people across all four nations have experienced some sort of financial hardship through the pandemic. But at the exact same time, we saw the UK gain a record number of billionaires, and it now stands at 171. Those billionaires do not have to worry about spending money on food or fuel, about how they will afford rent, or about losing their jobs. The Government did create some policies in response to the pandemic, but the crucial matter to remember is that while the Tories gave with one hand, they took with the other. I was inundated with correspondence from constituents when the Government made the horrific decision to cut universal credit by £20 a week. Then, just weeks later, they decided that they would hike national insurance. This is a series of continued attacks against working class communities.
The reality for people is that the cost of living is mounting. In my constituency of Airdrie and Shotts, I receive regular correspondence on this. My team and I are currently working with a constituent whose only source of heating, due to a number of different factors, is two halogen heaters. They are expensive to run, and his running costs are over £60 a week. By comparison, according to Usave, the average cost for heating a one-bed flat is about £29 a month. So my constituent is faced with a decision every single day—does he heat his food or does he heat his home? His reality is not having parties in his back garden, or asking his rich mates to decorate his flat, or deciding what cheese goes with what wine. His reality is that the majority of his income has to be spent on heating his property, so he is often left without money for food or other essentials. Just yesterday, I also received correspondence from an elderly constituent, worried that she will be unable to keep up with fuel costs. That is the reality of our jobs as Members of Parliament. I am receiving regular correspondence from constituents who are genuinely worried about how they will afford the growing cost of living.
The Chancellor has an opportunity to introduce an emergency financial package to help people with that growing cost. There are a number of things he could do. One option to tackle fuel poverty could be reducing VAT on energy bills, which would save about £90 per customer and is backed by some in the industry. Loans could be given to energy companies which would, in turn, help consumers. The Government could increase minimum wage rates to bring them into line with the real living wage, and the completely inadequate statutory sick pay could also be increased to match it. Those are just a few steps that the Government could take to ensure that the most vulnerable in our communities are not left to suffer.
We have a Prime Minister who is asleep at the wheel, a Government who are trying to keep him in power, and Back-Bench Tory MPs who are either writing letters to the 1922 Committee or trying to Save Big Dog—who knows?—while households across the country are having to prepare for the uncertainty that is about to follow. With soaring energy prices and inflation and the cost of living rising, the Prime Minister seems to be intent on ensuring that his own skin is saved, rather than protecting the most vulnerable in our society.
James Daly (Bury North) (Con)
In opening the debate, the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) rightly pointed out that it is a UK-wide debate on an issue that affects constituents throughout the country, but in some parts of the country, pressures on the cost of living come from different sources and are very onerous. Wanting, as ever, to help, I have come to the Chamber today to highlight something that all politicians across Greater Manchester can do to prevent those pressures from being increased, namely ensure that the Greater Manchester clean air zone—created by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, supported by all the local authorities, and emanating from Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Transport for Greater Manchester—is scrapped. It is a ludicrous proposal that will place burdens on those such as the taxi drivers who today have rightly staged a go-slow throughout Bury town centre. To go to work, if they are in a non-compliant vehicle, they will have to pay £10 a day, which will be devastating, while lorry drivers will have to pay £60 a day. That affects businesses of all kinds. It affects employment, and all the other things that we have been discussing. The Greater Manchester clean air zone will put people out of business and out of work, and will increase already onerous costs.
I visited a haulage yard in my constituency and talked to Mark Hinchliffe, who set out very clearly the costs faced by his business and others like it. There is a transport café in Walmersley Road, and lorries travel along the motorway two minutes away from it. Any lorry driver who wants to have his or her breakfast in that café will have to pay a £60 congestion charge, which is ludicrous. The business that comes from everyone who goes to that small café, which has been open for decade upon decade, will be obliterated by a charge and a process that emanate from a plan delivered by Greater Manchester Combined Authority to central Government on 1 March 2019. This is a plan that has been championed continuously by the Mayor of Greater Manchester. The charge on my constituents was put to a vote at Bury Council on 28 July 2021, and all the Labour members present voted for that tax to be imposed on them.
In discussing the cost of living today, we have heard SNP Members quite rightly talk at great length about matters involving the Scottish Parliament. We have also heard the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) talk about the Welsh Assembly. However, we, too, have devolved government in Greater Manchester. It is a disaster, but it is devolved government all the same. When required to be there for the constituents of Bury and every other part of Greater Manchester during this difficult period, the best thing that the Mayor of Greater Manchester, the leader of Bury Council and all the other local authorities could do was to impose onerous taxation on businesses and individuals that will destroy their ability to earn a living. It is ridiculous.
I understand that the Mayor of Greater Manchester is coming to Westminster this week, as he should, to speak to Ministers. He has been thinking for years and years and years that this is the greatest plan in the world. On his visit here, I encourage him and all politicians—
Navendu Mishra
Does the hon. Gentleman agree, that, since 2019, the market for vehicles has changed dramatically in the UK? That has a lot to do with covid, but also with the global semi-conductor shortage. Does he not think that the onus is on the Secretary of State to support the local authorities in Greater Manchester to make sure that they can make a just transition so that the population of Greater Manchester can breathe much cleaner air?
James Daly
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. We have a complete difference of opinion. Both he and his Labour colleagues do not wish to scrap the scheme. They wish to go back to Government for further funding—for a hardship fund. That hardship fund has not been defined, but estimates of the funding required are in the region of £2.2 billion to £2.5 billion of income. I would be interested to hear where he proposes that income should come from. I hope that, instead of that and to support his constituents in Stockport, he will join me in telling the Mayor of Greater Manchester to say to the Secretary of State, “I got this wrong. We got this scheme wrong.” The consequences of it for my constituents and for the constituents of the hon. Gentleman are too severe.
Surely no politician, whether in Greater Manchester, Scotland, Wales or England, would simply go ahead with the plan of the Mayor of Greater Manchester, of the GMCA and of Transport for Greater Manchester to put people out of business. Why would anybody do that? It is incumbent on the Mayor of Greater Manchester to come to London this week and say, “This plan is wrong. I got it badly wrong.” He needs to ask the Government to look at it in that context and not dance around the edges. He should not say that we need extra money—a bit here and a bit there. He must say that the plan is a disaster in terms of the cost of living of my constituents and the constituents of the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra). Every single politician who believes in supporting their constituents with the cost of living, which has been talked about today, should completely and utterly oppose the Greater Manchester clean air zone.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
While the immediate cause of the current cost of living crisis is being blamed on rising international gas prices, the real story is that of decades-long abdication of duties by the UK Government and an ideological frenzy of free market extremism.
Fundamentally, the UK’s system of economic regulation is aimed at maximising returns for investors and shareholders, not ensuring a comfortable standard of living for the bulk of people across these isles. If we add Brexit to that mix, the UK Government are overseeing—nay promoting—a cost of living crisis that will impact every resident of the UK, but that will, as ever, impact the poorest and most vulnerable hardest.
There should be no doubt about what Brexit is costing households. Every minute, haulage firms are being held up at the new EU border as more costs are being passed on to consumers. Every extra worker hired to deal with the exponential increase in paperwork caused by Brexit is an additional cost added to sales. Every hurdle put in place by Brexit is another increase in living costs for every household and every family.
Perhaps the Prime Minister and his colleagues could dig out their old bus and slap the truth on the side of it—that Brexit will seriously damage household wealth. However, that sort of honesty would be out of character for the isolationists. They will still maintain that the uplands of Brexit are sunlit and that the confusion and barriers that they have erected are having no impact on the cost of living.
Scotland is being hit hardest despite voting against Brexit and voting, yet again, against the Conservative party. The inflationary pressures caused by the record vehicle fuel prices that others have mentioned are seen right throughout the UK economy but felt hardest in Scotland. The sad irony that we experience higher petrol and diesel costs while being responsible for getting much of the stuff out of the ground in the first place is not lost on many Scots. Until we have fully transitioned to a net zero society, that irony will continue to demonstrate the particular impact that Scotland has to endure as prices rise.
It is scandalous that in an energy-rich country such as Scotland, which has now been awash with both carbon-based and renewable energy for decades, nearly one quarter of households are in fuel poverty. The Scottish Parliament’s limited powers mean that its actions are limited to measures such as programmes to improve household energy efficiency and insulation—programmes that have, in fairness, been pushed hard by both Labour-led and SNP Governments since devolution.
The plain fact is that the fundamentals of the energy market and the radical changes needed to tackle this scourge are in the hands of the UK Government, who have shown no sign of taking the kind of action needed to improve the lot of millions of households in poverty. In fact, rather than take that action, the UK Government simply changed the definition of fuel poverty to something more amenable to them—surely the ultimate in evading responsibility.
There is no dodging the carnage that is coming this year when the full effect of price rises is felt. I fear for the numbers of people who will find themselves in fuel poverty, whether the UK chooses to count them or not, and in particular when I look at what the UK Government think is an acceptable amount to live on for people who have to claim social security benefits. Does the Minister really think that a £2.30 a week increase in jobseeker’s allowance in April will be enough to meet the rising costs? I would be delighted to hear him answer that. The poor, sick and disabled again face the brunt of excessive inflation, because of the Chancellor’s refusal to maintain universal credit at its previous level or even to uprate legacy benefits to match.
As always, the Government will expect communities and charities—organisations such as Renfrewshire food bank and the Darkwood Crew in my constituency—or already hard-pressed local authorities to pick up the pieces. Scotland’s citizens and their household bills are bearing the brunt of the UK Governments’ systemic mismanagement over decades and the short-termism that has been the hallmark of successive Administrations. We are subject to policy made for London and the south-east that is simply unfit for purpose when applied to Scotland. Every resident in Scotland is literally paying the price.
The plain fact is that the UK Government have sat back over the years—indeed, decades—and allowed this crisis to build up as they repeat the mantra that the market will solve everything. The market cannot solve everything. Following that path has been a complete failure and now the chickens are coming home to roost. The Government allied that approach with a kamikaze Brexit that, as they were told umpteen times throughout the process, is destroying livelihoods and driving up the costs of trade and therefore the cost to the consumer.
The UK Government have unleashed a perfect storm on the country, forcing households to choose between heating their homes or eating. The choices made by this Government that have led to the present crisis are not the choices that Scotland made. There is a different road that supports our people instead of punishing them. These choices are not in my name. Scotland will choose its own future soon and I hope—indeed, I know—that it will choose a future that places a greater value on people’s day-to-day lives than the current set-up and the current management.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
It was only a couple of weeks ago that I stood here and spoke in the Labour Opposition day debate. On that day, Labour Members were concerned about the cost of living but, two weeks later, it is not quite so important to them today.
We all agree that there is an issue with the cost of living. Office for National Statistics data shows that in December the consumer prices index and retail prices index showed average price increases of 5.4% and 7.5% respectively. Most economists predict that those rates will run higher still. Inflation at a 30-year high is obviously worrying, as it is for many families, but, as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said when he was at the Dispatch Box, inflation is expected to come back to reasonable levels in the not-too-distant future. We have to analyse why that is the case.
High inflation is not a factor unique to the United Kingdom: the US is in a similar position and Germany is experiencing the same problems in the EU. There are inevitable consequences from our waking up from a global pandemic, with supply chains readjusting and struggling to meet the demand after we have been released from restrictions—restrictions that this Government have handled far better than the Governments of most other countries around the entire world. We also have to deal with the spiking of energy prices.
However as Conservative Members said in interventions at the beginning of the debate, it is fair to say that, since March 2020, the Government and the Chancellor’s response to the pandemic has been one of the best in the world, with help and support for millions and millions of people. It is widely expected that our recovery will be the best in the G7. We have unemployment back to pre-pandemic levels, and we have multiple job vacancies—last time I looked there were 1.25 million of them. The SNP must realise that we cannot spend £400 billion and be some £2.2 trillion in debt without needing some degree of responsible management of the public finances going forward, especially when we will have rising interest rates in the future.
What the Government are doing is sensible. Indeed, when I spoke in the Opposition’s debate only a fortnight ago, I said that targeted support was needed, and it is clear from reports that that is being looked at. The problem is that we cannot shield the entire country from rising food costs, or from rising energy costs—it is not feasible or practical. Anybody with a degree of understanding of economic policy will recognise that.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury was very honest when he said that, as we emerge from the pandemic, the reality is that there will be difficult times. We have been in a coronavirus pandemic and had an economic shock the likes of which we have not seen pretty much since the second world war, and the Government are targeting support at families whose need is greatest. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), there is the 6.6% rise in the national living wage, which is the highest ever—it is the highest rate of pay that the United Kingdom has ever had—and the universal credit taper will help some 2 million families. However, what does not grab the headlines or really get picked up in the House is the other support that the Government give, including half a billion pounds through the household support fund and £200 million for the holiday activities programme, which is still being run. That support is there specifically for local councils to roll out on the ground, because often they know the people—we have talked about them all afternoon—who need it the very most.
There are short-term issues that we must deal with and longer-term ones. However, getting the economy moving is clearly by far and away the right approach. Ever more reliance on the state and increasing public debt is wholly irresponsible and the sort of mismanagement that the Opposition would use. Thank goodness they are not in power.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
It is interesting to see the contrast in how much attention the UK Government are giving to their ever-increasing self-inflicted chaos while it goes completely unremarked by Government Members that the UK has the worst levels of poverty and inequality in north-west Europe and the highest levels of in-work poverty this century. It is all about choices, and while the Tory UK Government are choosing to look in on themselves just as the cost of living crisis really bites, the SNP Scottish Government, with their limited powers, are seeking to support those who need it most, whether through doubling the Scottish child payment, baby boxes or free prescriptions—I could go on.
It is not some random accident that has led us here; the Tory Government’s choices have propelled us down this road. It was their choice to cut the universal credit uplift, which has been so devastating. What might not be a large amount of money for those in the market for fancy gold wallpaper, for instance, is actually a whole lot of money for someone who is short of funds to feed their family or heat their home. So much for the sunny Brexit uplands that we were promised, and so much for the utter lies written on the side of that Brexit bus or the extraordinary nonsense spouted by the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg), who told us that
“the price of food…will go down”.
In reality, pursuing Brexit—against the will of the Scottish electorate, let us remember—has caused substantial damage to families and businesses, and will continue to do so.
The Government have chosen to remove the pensions triple lock, and their decision to write off the £4.3 billion in fraudulently claimed covid business funding, which has today caused Lord Agnew to resign at the Dispatch Box, is a very different approach from that taken by the DWP when it makes mistakes resulting in overpayments, which causes huge hardship to those affected. Whichever way we look at it, the choices that this Tory Government are making are pressing hard on household finances, but they are just closing their eyes to it, looking the other way while they prop up a Prime Minister who is so remote from the cost of living crisis that he would not know it if it arrived in his own garden dressed up as a work event.
The headline facts are bad enough. Consumer prices were 5.4% higher in December 2021 than the year before. It is the highest inflation rate recorded since 1992, and it is forecast to carry on rising. Energy prices are an enormous worry for many. Domestic gas prices increased by 28% between January and November last year, and electricity by 19%. We need serious action on that now.
We also need to drill below the headline figure. Low-income households will always take a bigger hit because they need to spend a bigger proportion of what comes in on energy and food. The cost of living crisis presses them so much harder. Those of us who work here in this Westminster bubble could do with reflecting on some of the points that Jack Monroe has made over recent days. Headline figures say that food prices increased by 4.2% in the year to December, but she looked further. Since this time last year, the cheapest pasta in her local supermarket went up by 141%. Similarly, rice is up by 344%. Those increases disproportionately hit those who, by necessity, have to shop for the cheapest items. How are people meant to make ends meet with those kinds of price increases for basic food supplies when their income is being reduced thanks to the UK Government’s universal credit cuts, fuel price crisis, regressive NI increases to come, and two child limit? I could go on.
All those UK Government policies are actively pushing people into hardship—and they know that full well. The Resolution Foundation recently reported that the UK welfare system no longer does what it is meant to do—protect the poorest. It no longer provides a safety net. The UK Government know that but choose to ignore it. Ask yourself why that is: why do they not choose to follow the lead of the Scottish Government, who use their limited powers to support wellbeing with free prescriptions and dental care, free higher education and increased free childcare? Why do they not match the Scottish child payment and make it available for families across the UK? Why not introduce a real living wage of at least £10 an hour, or an energy payment for low-income households?
The UK Government know all of this. They know that, as the cost of living rises, propelled by their policy choices, many more people are in significant hardship. Their choices and their priorities have consequences, and it is absolutely clear to me that, as long as Scotland is under Westminster control, we will always be vulnerable, and it is time to make a fairer, better choice.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I am afraid that I will have to reduce the time limit to four minutes. I have been able to warn the next speaker, Christine Jardine.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate and to follow the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald).
It is important that we have heard contributions from the hon. Members for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker), for Bury North (James Daly), for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) and for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew), because they emphasised that this is an issue that affects households not just in Scotland but in every single corner of the United Kingdom. I suggest to the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) that there are people in the home counties who are suffering just as much as households across the rest of the UK. They will suffer as a result of the Government’s hike in national insurance, and they are suffering from the record inflation rate and the stealth tax introduced as a result of the Government not increasing the tax threshold. All those things are affecting households who are also facing a massive increase in energy prices, which for a lot of them will mean a choice between heating their home and feeding their family this winter.
It is important that the Scottish National party take into account that this is an issue on which we all agree. The Labour party agrees; the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) made many of the same arguments that we have heard from the SNP Benches, and that people will hear from the Liberal Democrats. We want to see a doubling of the warm homes discount and the winter fuel allowance. We want to see a new 10-year home insulation scheme, support for energy-intensive businesses and a windfall tax on those who have benefited.
However, every single time SNP Members come to this House, they make it about independence and breaking up the United Kingdom, rather than sticking to the issue, which we all agree is important and which we all agree that our constituents across the United Kingdom face—yes, they face the same issue in Edinburgh South as they do in North Norfolk. That is something we have in common. It is a common problem and it will need all our attention and efforts in the United Kingdom to address it.
We have seen our cost of living degenerate over the course of the pandemic. Now we see it under more stress, and we have a Government whose attention—let us all be honest—is not entirely where it should be, but on their own internal problems, such as partygates and internal rows. Those should have no place here at a time when we face such a serious problem. I appeal to the Government to put all that aside, to fix it and to sort it; the Prime Minister should consider his position, and they should get on with dealing with the issue we all face.
To the Scottish National party I would say: we support you in fighting the cost of living crisis we all face, but we could fight it together. We could beat it together. We could help our constituents together, if we stopped having narrow identity arguments that simply divide us and make it more difficult for everybody.
Allan Dorans (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (SNP)
The rise in the consumer prices index will disproportionately affect those already facing pressure on disposable income. The rise will affect low-income families, including the disabled, the long-term sick, the unemployed and those on a low fixed income with no prospect of overtime or salary increases, who on average spend a larger proportion of their income on energy costs and food and will therefore be more affected by the price increases.
I make specific mention of the 3.8 million women born in the 1950s who were cruelly robbed of their pensions by the Government, who are still being unfairly denied full restitution for their loss and who continue to suffer an appalling injustice. I also mention the 3 million people, mainly self-employed and directors of small limited companies, whom the Chancellor callously excluded from any financial support during a pandemic.
There is sadly another, perhaps less reported consequence of inflation: an increase in crime. In 2014 Professor Richard Rosenfeld, an American criminologist, concluded:
“Inflation is the most powerful economic predictor of crime.”
I have several examples from research data to prove that case, but time prevents me from explaining them. I am not suggesting that everybody in financial difficulties, poverty or debt will resort to theft or other crime to make ends meet, pay their bills or feed their families, but unfortunately we too often hear anecdotal stories of parents arrested for shoplifting essential items such as baby formula, nappies and food that will enable their families to survive.
While it is impossible to predict how much crime will increase, history tells us that if inflation continues to increase, crime will also inevitably do so. Therefore, to mitigate the effects of a predicted increase in all crime, which will put pressure on our already overworked police, courts, prison, probation, social work, women’s aid and other support services in the criminal justice system, it is essential that the Government provide further immediate financial support for those services. Not to do so now would be negligent in the extreme. I also urge the Government to take steps to reduce those levels of poverty and spiralling debt in the rest of the United Kingdom by introducing measures such as we have in Scotland, including the game-changing £20 child payment, the 1,140 hours of free childcare a year for eligible children, free prescriptions, free sanitary products for women and girls, free bus travel across the country for everyone over 60 and the disabled—briefly expanded to include young people between the ages of five and 21— and free university tuition in our world-class universities for our young people.
I suggest that savings could be made by not renewing weapons of mass destruction on the Clyde, currently estimated at £205 billion. Spending could be stopped on vanity projects, including the new royal yacht, or on the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, estimated at £360 million. There was also the shambolic process that resulted in the loss of £4.3 billion to fraud during the pandemic being written off by the Chancellor.
With independence, we could keep crime levels at least where they are, if not further reduce them, by gathering revenue from the massive energy production soon to power all the UK’s 30 million or so homes. More importantly, as an independent country in the European Union, we would have full control of our economic levers, which would help to control inflation and deliver a more equal, progressive and prosperous—
Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)
It is incredible that in this cost of living crisis the UK Government have done nothing and that the Chief Secretary earlier did not give us one new Treasury policy. Even when there is a chance for Tory Back Benchers to vote for a VAT holiday on energy bills, the Brexiteers dutifully voted it down.
In only a couple of weeks’ time, Ofgem will undertake its review of the energy price cap and is likely to confirm the April increase of about £600, a 50% increase. There is limited time for action. Tinkering at the edges, such as delaying the impact of the £2 billion administration costs of 28 energy companies going bust, is not enough. Direct Government action is needed to prevent the cap rising or to support those affected by it. In UK Government policy, the Tories have already made matters worse for those who are struggling—a cut in pensions of more than £500 per year, the removal of the £20 a week universal credit uplift—and that in the midst of the cost of living crisis, with inflation at a 30-year high and household incomes dropping in real terms by up to £1,200.
National Energy Action estimates that the cap rising to £2,000 will lead to 6 million households in fuel poverty, a shocking 33% increase in only a six-month period. Worse, and shamefully, it also estimates that approximately 10,000 premature deaths a year arise from fuel poverty. How many more premature deaths will occur if the Government do not do something?
To date, the only direct Government intervention on energy has been the allocation of £1.7 billion for the development of Sizewell C. Not content with Hinkley Point C being the most expensive power station in the world, the Tories are determined to create another one. In their own impact assessment, they estimated costs of as much as £63 billion being added to our energy bills.
If people live in the Scottish highlands, they are more likely to be off the gas grid, so energy costs them more. Worse, many customers are on what are called restricted meters, so they pay about £400 more per annum for their energy, due to a 4p surcharge per unit of electricity. How is that fair? People in the highlands who export energy to the rest of the UK pay a surcharge for the privilege. It is time that the Scottish Tories stood up for their constituents on that.
To return to direct intervention, that can be paid for by levying a windfall tax on the Treasury. As our energy bills have increased, so has its VAT returns on them. As fuel prices have increased, the Treasury has raked in more money in fuel duty and VAT. As for the North sea, the November Budget confirmed that this year alone the Treasury would receive an extra £1.1 billion in oil and gas revenues, or £6 billion over the lifetime of the Parliament. The Treasury should release that money now. It is astounding that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury does not seem to understand that 5% of £2,000 is twice the value to the Treasury as 5% of £1,000.
By contrast, in Scotland, the Scottish Government are doing their best while operating on a fixed budget with limited borrowing powers. The Scottish Government’s child winter heating assistance supports 14,000 families with disabled children through automatic payments of £200 a year. The low income winter heating assistance will help 400,000 low-income households with £50 every winter, instead of complicated cold weather payments of £25. For families there is a game-changing £20 per week child payment; compare this with the hapless £20 a week universal credit cut.
It is absurd that Scotland has paid £375 billion of oil and gas revenues to the Treasury, and that this has been squandered, with no legacy. We only need to look at Norway to see what a small independent country that is in charge of its own resources can do, and I look forward to Scotland’s joining it.
Neale Hanvey (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Alba)
I thank the SNP for bringing forward this important debate, and I commend the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) for his opening remarks.
The front page of today’s Daily Record newspaper brings this shameful situation into sharp relief. While inflated Tory egos jockey for position in a power struggle for the worst of possible reasons, the cost of real-world inflation is being felt across these islands as millions struggle to fund the power they need to heat their homes. What a dismal situation it is where more than one in three Scots are already in crisis with energy costs soaring by up to 28%, but there are more price hikes and more pain still to come. This underscores the need for my Cold Climate Allowance Bill, and I hope the Government will give that due consideration in the course of this Parliament.
This debate is on the cost of living crisis, but for Scotland it could easily be cast as the cost of the Union crisis. Since 2014, the cost of the Union has been to rip Scotland from Europe against our democratic will, damaging our freedoms, impacting our economy and driving European friends away from their homes. It has seen the opportunities of our vast renewable resources realised abroad, while Scottish jobs have failed to materialise. We have suffered the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, the rape clause, universal credit cuts, and Ministers acting unlawfully, while obscene billions of pounds have been lost or written off on covid contracts and schemes. All the while, the Government have pursued a tax and cut agenda, punishing the poorest and the most vulnerable, yet it seems today that the anticipated rise in national insurance may be abandoned. If the Government know it is wrong now, then they knew it was wrong when they pushed it through.
All of this is intrinsically linked to Scotland’s continuing position in the UK, yet nothing is more emblematic of the cost of the Union than the current Prime Minister, who stands rejected by his own Scottish party and its leadership. I have found that politicians generally fall into two groups: people who want to do important things and people who want to feel important. The Prime Minister takes self-importance to stratospheric levels of self-indulgence. If he had just one ounce of humility, he would surely die of embarrassment.
It was the Tories’ return in 2010 that brought me into frontline politics, because I knew it would be bad and that our communities would suffer, our economy would suffer, poverty and greed would rise, and compassion would fade into the shadows. I knew this because I remember when Thatcherism stalked the streets of Scotland, decimated industry, fractured communities, broke people and robbed them of hope. Toryism is the engine room of despair and the champion of injustice.
Of course the Prime Minister should resign, but what would this achieve? A Tory power struggle will not change the very real power and poverty struggle in Scotland one iota. Each and every one of us in Scotland should prosper from our vast natural resources, but instead those assets are handed on a plate to profiteering corporate interests, while our people are cold and hungry, and people turn to the oblivion of drink and drugs because hopelessness has replaced opportunity. I urge Scottish colleagues across the House to join my calls for the Scottish Government to begin a constitutional convention to consider Scotland’s future. This is the cost of the Union, and from my perspective there is only one clear remedy—the aspiration and hope of an independent Scotland.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
It is a real pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey), and I entirely support his views on Scottish independence. I also support the call for a constitutional convention, which was the idea of our First Minister and was first called for by her just prior to the start of the covid crisis.
I just gently say to the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine) that those of us who are returned to this House on an SNP ticket will continue to talk about independence for so long as we are returned in the very significant numbers that we are. If she has been looking at the opinion polls over the weekend, she will see that support for independence in Scotland is at 50%—considerably more than support for her own party—so I am afraid that her calls on us to stop talking about independence will very much fall on deaf ears. We believe that we could tackle these matters better in a social democratic, independent Scotland.
The real focus of this debate is how the weight of the cost of living crisis will fall hardest on low-income households, who on average spend a much higher percentage of their income on energy and food and will therefore be most affected. A number of hon. Members have referred to Jack Monroe’s work. Jack Monroe has shown in a blog and in an excellent article in The Guardian at the weekend how the rise in food costs in particular falls on the poorest people in our society.
As for the rise in energy costs, I will give one example, from the many that I could give, of a constituent of mine in Edinburgh South West. She contacted me in despair after receiving her renewal quotation from Octopus Energy:
“I am really shocked. I currently have a fixed 12 month tariff and pay £86.55 a month but from end of Jan 2022, they”—
Octopus Energy—
“have proposed the following deals between £116 and £240 per month. I expected prices to rise and expected £200-300 more a year however based on their new tariffs I am looking at an extra £1000 to £2000 per year.”
That is just one example of the sort of difficulty that my constituents have been put into by this crisis.
The constituents who will suffer the most are those who are already in considerable difficulty because of the misery heaped upon them by unfair Conservative and Unionist party policies. The Government have it within their power to help these low-income families and the most hard-hit. The Government can always find money when they want to, and they have written off a pretty extraordinary amount of money, squandered during the covid crisis because of what their own resigning Minister has called a “woeful” lack of oversight.
This is about priorities. When my constituents suffering on low incomes go to the supermarket to shop, they do not go with a suitcase to fill with wine and spirits for illegal parties; they go with a wee basket, which they fill sparsely, taking things out as they realise that their meagre budget will be exceeded. The low-income families in my constituency do not have money for cheese and wine parties in the garden. Most of them do not have a garden, and if they did, they would not have the leisure time to spend in it because they are working all hours in low-paid jobs and the gig economy to feed their children.
In households not just in my Edinburgh South West constituency but across this country—across all the nations of the United Kingdom, on the Tories’ watch—parents go hungry to feed their children. The walls of those low-income families are not papered with expensive designer wallpaper; often, they are damp and poorly insulated, so they need to spend even more on extortionately priced energy to heat them than they should. The Tories have the power and the money to solve this. Do something.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
A survey last year by 38 Degrees found that 36% of people asked in my constituency of Stockport had seen their energy bills rise. Since then we have heard from the Office for National Statistics that two thirds of adults in the UK have seen their cost of living increase. Meanwhile, half of Britons say that they could not afford an additional £50 a month or £12 a week on their cost of living.
What are the Government doing about it? While the Prime Minister jostles to protect his own future, he seems to have forgotten the job that he is in No. 10 to do. Wages have fallen in the face of inflation at a 10-year high, while rents have risen at their fastest pace in 13 years. All the while, the safety net of the furlough scheme and the £20 universal credit uplift have been swept from under people’s feet. In 2019, the public were promised a national living wage by the Conservative party, ahead of the general election, but even back then it was a wage that most could not live on. Now, while people struggle to make ends meet, the Government are in a crisis of their own making.
I believe it was the hon. Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) who made a point about the minimum wage. What we need is an end to poverty wages. I am a supporter of the Living Wage Foundation, which sets the rate of pay per hour independently in London and outside. Surely what we should push for is better jobs—unionised, well-paid jobs—in communities such as mine.
If the meetings we hear about were truly work meetings, the Government and the Minister will have done enough work to explain to the people of Stockport how they will make tenancies more affordable or how their petrol and fuel bills will go down. In my constituency, the average rent for a two-bedroom property is an unaffordable £800 a month. Despite a recent review of the local housing allowance and a subsequent rise, the calculated rate is only £650 a month, so many people fall short. If people on low incomes have to find an extra £150 a month for a home, how can they be expected to cover the cost of the basics when prices are rising?
The Government do not seem to have a plan in place to boost skills and jobs for workers. As a result, we face a labour shortage, gaps on the shelves and rising prices. If the Government had a proper industrial strategy, we could deliver the green, well-paid jobs of the future but, sadly, we are missing that.
I shall keep my contribution brief and end with this point: as families face a calamitous drop in their standard of living, the Government need to get their house in order and sort out their act. My constituents, like many others across the country, need to know how they are going to pay those bills.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
We have heard in this debate heartbreaking stories of constituents who are facing real and enduring hardship; of the choices that people are already making in the face of the poverty that they endure; and of the impact of the cost of living crisis on those we represent. The crisis is the direct result of political choices made by the UK Tory Government and their predecessors over the past decade. Many of our constituents face grinding poverty, whether in or out of work. The Covid Realities report that came out today states:
“Our social security system is currently ill-suited to protect people from poverty”.
That should be the system’s very function.
The Tories have cut the £20-a-week uplift to universal credit and to working tax credits, which made such a difference to low-income families during the pandemic, and shamefully they completely forgot about the 2.5 million people on legacy benefits, including many people with disabilities, who depend on their heating so much more. To make matters worse, we have the upcoming Tory tax on jobs—the national insurance hike, which is coming in April. Laden on top of that, we have Brexit chaos, spiralling fuel prices and inflation seemingly running out of control at a 30-year high.
This is a perfect storm for the poorest in society. Already buffeted by the ill wind of austerity, a growing number of people have no savings, and debt which is becoming increasingly unmanageable. Last week’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation report on poverty in 2022 highlights the two-child limit, which I have fought since 2015 but which remains on the Government’s statute book, driving up child poverty with every passing day; the benefit cap—in Scotland, 67.8% of capped households are single-parent households; the five-week wait for the first universal credit payment; unaffordable debt deductions from benefits; and the freezing of local housing allowance rates since April 2020. All those things have increased the levels of poverty in the UK.
People are increasingly trapped in situations that are not their fault, unable to take on more hours, and unable to change their circumstances. Many of them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Allan Dorans) mentioned, are WASPI women, whose pension plans were cut short by the Government. I want to pay particular tribute to June Miller, part of the WASPI Glasgow and Lanarkshire group, who was buried today. She was 64 and never saw her pension—shame on this Government.
The impact on those facing the hostile environment is even sharper. Asylum seekers and people with no recourse to public funds are regularly left destitute, dependent on charitable support and help from local churches, gurdwaras and mosques to survive. If we know this, if people out there know this, then Tory ministers must know all this, and it makes it all the more utterly despicable that they have chosen not to act.
Ministers, of course, will talk up the changes to the taper rate, which are welcome, but they only help those lucky enough to be in work. The Office for Budget Responsibility has said that real wages will be lower in 2026 than they were in 2008. What kind of future is that for people in work? Ministers will laud their pretendy living wage, which is not even set at the real living wage rate, and has age discrimination baked in. They will praise food banks, calling them “rather uplifting”, instead of their proliferation being a mark of shame. My former caseworker, Ellenor Hutson, has reflected that food banks were a rarity when she began advice work in 2005. Yet in 2020-21, the Trussell Trust distributed over 2.5 million food parcels across the UK, which is up 128% in the past five years.
Hannah Bardell
On food banks, does my hon. Friend agree it is disgusting that there are now more food banks in the UK than McDonald’s restaurants, that almost 25% of folk in the UK are in poverty and that the Office for National Statistics calculated that the richest 10% of households hold 44% of the wealth while the poorest 50% own 9%—all under this Government’s watch?
Alison Thewliss
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. While we know that those who work in food banks and support them do incredible work, they should not have to.
Away from the realm of boozy lockdown parties at No. 10 and birthday dumps for the Prime Minister while the rest of us were locked down, in the real world, people are experiencing a shocking rise in the price of the most basic necessities, as highlighted so powerfully by Jack Monroe. Average prices do not take into account the distribution of those prices across product lines. Increasing prices and the reduction in what is on offer is far more concentrated at the lower end, the cheaper end, of the food market, disproportionately impacting on those low-income families who depend on them. The reality of inflation is that it is much more than points on a chart to families who are already struggling. For many, it will be the difference between putting food on the table or not.
Energy prices mean that families cannot afford to heat or even light their homes, making them more vulnerable to health issues, particularly those who already experience health conditions and disabilities. Macmillan points out that about one in six people with cancer see their household fuel bills rise because of their diagnosis, with the average cost for those affected reaching £100 a month. The UK Government must act now on energy prices. Instead of a rising price cap, the UK Government must introduce an emergency financial package to support the most vulnerable and help families to cope with this growing Tory cost of living crisis.
The New Economics Foundation found that lone parents, pensioners and families caring for disabled relatives will be hit the hardest by increasing bills, and that the poorest will lose the largest proportion of their incomes to fuel bills. National Energy Action estimates that 6 million—6 million—UK households will be living in fuel poverty by April, a 50% increase from 2021. Resolution Foundation research shows that on average families will be £1,200 worse off in April and that fuel stress will dramatically increase from April due the higher energy price cap. New Joseph Rowntree Foundation analysis also warns that the energy price cap will have a harsher impact on the poorest families, who will spend on average 18% of their income after housing costs on energy bills after April. Minister, people cannot cope with those increases. The Government must act.
The reality is that poverty kills people: quickly and slowly, painfully and miserably. It stunts life chances and its effects endure. It is clearer every day that this UK Government, this Prime Minister, this Chancellor and this Minister in front of us today have the powers to tackle this, but not the will. They have the resources and the wealth, should they choose to use them. We can only conclude by their inaction that they have no interest in ending poverty—none whatsoever. Lord Agnew showed some courage—more courage than anybody on the Government Benches here—by resigning over the fraudulent misuse of bounce back loans: further billions to the amount they have allowed fraudsters to walk out the door with, including £4.3 billion from the covid support schemes alone, while so many were completely excluded from UK Government support. That incompetence is not new. According to Best for Britain, a total of £19.3 billion has been wasted by the Prime Minister since he came to power—all that while the Tories play their political games, shifting the blame for tax rises, filling suitcases full of booze, and ducking questions about lies and parties.
People are freezing and people are starving, not in some Dickensian dystopia but right now, on these islands. Tackling the Tory cost of living crisis is a matter of urgency and lives depend on it. The UK already has the worst levels of poverty of any polity in north-west Europe and the highest levels of in-work poverty this century. Only independence will allow us to recalibrate our economy to support and invest in those who have the least, rather than to reward those who already have the most. I urge all Members with sense and compassion to support our motion today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (David Rutley)
The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) speaks with conviction —I know that from having listened to many of her debates in the past—but it will be no surprise that I will come to a very different conclusion in my arguments today. Let me begin by thanking all hon. Members who have taken part in this important and sometimes lively debate. The pandemic has been a very challenging time for many. We acted quickly to put in place unprecedented levels of support. Since the start of the pandemic, we have spent more than £400 billion protecting people’s jobs and livelihoods, supporting businesses and public services and providing unprecedented welfare support. That is not inactivity, as alleged by the SNP, and it has been conveniently overlooked by hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey).
Universal credit has stood up to the challenge of covid-19, providing a vital safety net for 6 million people, thanks to the hardworking staff in DWP across the nation, including in Scotland. Thousands of work coaches worked tirelessly to ensure that the benefits system did its job. Our successful vaccine programme is providing us with the protection to fight the virus in all its forms.
The latest labour market statistics prove that time and again we have made positive decisions during the pandemic. As has been highlighted during the debate, it is important to put the rising cost of living in context. Prices are rising in countries around the world. I know that Members such as the hon. Members for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), for Glasgow East (David Linden) and for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) have raised concerns, but we need to look at the issue in context. As the global economy recovers from the pandemic, consumer demand is surging at a time when global supply chains are disrupted. We recognise and understand the pressures that is causing for people’s wallets, and their worries as they see the cost of food, energy and other essentials increase.
The Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—and, indeed, the Chief Secretary sitting next to me—are listening to those concerns. As shown during the pandemic, the Government will do what it takes to support those most in need, and we are looking at the best way to build on the support that is already available. With the economy moving into a higher gear, it is time to focus our attention on getting people into work and progressing in employment. That was ably highlighted by my hon. Friends the Members for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) and for Moray (Douglas Ross).
Alan Brown
The Minister said that the Government will do everything it takes to resolve the cost of living crisis. What will they do to mitigate the energy price cap rise in April?
David Rutley
We have shown what we can do when faced with challenge. We are monitoring the situation and looking at all the solutions—we will come forward—as, I understand, the Scottish Government are monitoring the situation to see what more they can do.
David Rutley
I will not give way just yet: I will make further progress.
The latest job figures tell a very positive story. There is now a record number of people in payroll employment in the UK, with 23,000 people added to payrolls in Scotland in December alone. With around 1.25 million vacancies across the UK, up 33,000, or 2.7% in a month, and by 467,000, or 58.9% since the start of the pandemic, there are many further opportunities for people to move into and, importantly, progress in work and increase their earnings.
Current estimates also show that the number of online job adverts in Scotland has risen by 13% since the start of the pandemic. We know the importance of employment, particularly full-time work, in substantially reducing the risks of poverty, especially in households with children. That is why the focus of the Secretary of State and the whole DWP ministerial team is on matching people looking for work with those opportunities, which will also boost key sectors and the economy as a whole. As well as getting people into jobs, we are taking action to boost the take-home pay of low-income working households by giving 2 million families an extra £1,000 a year through our cut to the universal credit taper rates and increasing work allowances. Raising the national living wage by 6.6% to £9.50 from April will mean an extra £1,000 a year for full-time workers.
To help people to take advantage of the record number of vacancies, our plan for jobs is helping people at any age and any stage of their career, as the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), is fully aware. Since the start of the pandemic, we have recruited 13,500 new work coaches to ensure that claimants, no matter where they live across the country, can access support and opportunities to get a job, progress in work and realise their potential. It is good to know that there are 1,200 extra work coaches in Scotland alone. In addition, the flexible support fund is available to remove barriers for anyone looking to access the labour market and is administered by work coaches on a discretionary basis, so it is a great tool to help people overcome their own personal barriers to work. For those who have been unemployed for between three and six months, the job entry targeted support programme provides intensive support to help them bounce back as quickly as possible, and for individuals requiring upskilling to take advantage of a vacancy in a certain sector—Members have discussed particular concerns in specific sectors—sector-based work academy programmes, or SWAPs, provide claimants with those key skills and a guaranteed job interview at the end of the placement.
For young people, who are of course most at risk of long-term unemployment and have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, we have the £2 billion kickstart scheme, which has seen over 122,000 young people start a six-month work placement across many different kinds of jobs and sectors, with 10,000 starts in Scotland alone. There are youth hubs in every jobcentre to support young people—150 youth hubs have been opened, 19 of them in Scotland—and extra support is available for those aged over 50 as well, to help them find the work they need and help them progress with their career aspirations.
We recognise the pressure people are facing with their household finances and are providing extra support for those who need it in this period of cost pressures. We must of course highlight the household support fund, which has provided £500 million of support across the United Kingdom, with £41 million going to Scotland and the Scottish Government.
We have provided extra support as well over the years, recently by increasing the local housing allowance in cash terms, with an extra £600 on average to 1.5 million households. As we look at the rising energy prices, we are working with Ofgem and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to ensure that we have the correct response to the recent pressures and make the appropriate changes where needed to increase our resilience to future price fluctuations. There is the energy price cap, and the winter fuel payments, cold weather payments, and the warm home discount, all of them making a real difference to people facing energy cost challenges across the country, including in Scotland.
So, we have done a lot. We will continue to do more. We are committed to working with the Scottish Government to help them achieve their devolution aspirations. We look forward to hearing more about them so we can help them in this task, and we are absolutely committed to help those—
Owen Thompson
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main question accordingly put.
David Linden
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. During the Brexit campaign, we were all told that Parliament would be taking back control. Given that the House has just voted by a clear majority for a motion calling for the Government to reinstate the £20 universal credit uplift, introduce a real living wage of at least £10 an hour and an energy payment for low-income households, and roll out a child payment similar to that in Scotland—given that the Parliament that has been given all this control has just voted for that—can you inform me when the Government will introduce such measures to help people with the cost of living crisis?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his very reasonable point of order. I am looking at the motion which the House has indeed just passed, and I note that the crucial point is that the House
“calls on the Government to take immediate action”.
Well, the House has called, and I am sure that the Government have heard.
Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 2)
Ordered,
That the Order of 29 November 2021 (Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [Lords] (Programme)) be varied as follows:
(1) Paragraphs (4) and (5) of the Order shall be omitted.
(2) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.
(3) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion three hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion for this Order.—(Gareth Johnson.)
Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill [Lords]
Monday 24th January 2022
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 View all Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 24 January 2022 - large print - (24 Jan 2022)
20:37 - The House divided: - Ayes: 162 / Noes: 306 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 1, in clause 2, page 3, line 16, at end insert—
“Retirement developments where some leasehold residential flats have already been sold prior to commencement but others remain unsold
(12) A lease is an excepted lease if it is a lease of a retirement home in a development, where—
(a) other residential flats within the development have sold and completed on a long leasehold before the relevant commencement day under section 26(4) but it is a flat within the development which remains unsold, and
(b) the development commenced prior to 6th July 2021.”
This amendment seeks to avoid retirement developments where properties are on the market, but not fully sold by the time the Act comes into force for retirement properties, needing to have two lease types within one building, some paying ground rents and others funding the development of communal areas by another method.
Mike Amesbury
Let me begin by thanking all colleagues who have helped this short but important Bill through its stages so far, including our friends in the other place. In particular, I thank those who joined the Minister and me in scrutinising the Bill in Committee. Let me also begin with an apology to the Minister. I told him on the occasion of our final meeting in the Committee that that would be my last outing in respect of housing, having handed over the portfolio to my capable hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook), who is sitting behind me. I was wrong to say that, and I am very pleased that I was wrong. I stand here today ready to continue to raise an issue which matters hugely to me, to many of my constituents, and to leaseholders across the country—and, indeed, to the Minister himself.
Although the Bill is short, many important issues in it have already been covered extensively, first by our colleagues in the other place and then by Members here, in Committee. I do not wish to repeat too much of what has already been said, but the two new clauses tabled for Report are an opportunity for Members on both sides of the House to raise again two important aspects of the Bill.
New clause 1 would require the Government to produce draft legislation within 30 days to reduce ground rents to a peppercorn in existing long residential leases. The antiquated feudal system of leasehold is unjust for the many and not just the new. People in England and Wales have been trapped in that relic from the past for far too long. I urge the Minister to set them free, level up their life chances and support the new clause.
New clause 1 proposes that the narrow scope of the Bill be simply widened to improve the lives of leaseholders—the 4.5 million people trapped in this feudal system. Some 1.4 million of them are in houses, many in the north, the north-west and Wales, and may be experiencing high ground rents on top of other exploitative terms built into their leasehold contracts.
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
We are all united in wanting to stamp out abusive practices with ground rents, but is the defect of the hon. Gentleman’s amendment not that it amounts effectively to a confiscation of existing property rights? That in itself has fairness issues, but it also deters future investment in our building stock. That future investment is needed, for example, if we are going to insulate against climate change and turn our buildings into more carbon neutral ones for the future.
Mike Amesbury
A feudal system of kings and barons needs to be kicked into touch. It is unjust and it is unfair. I am sure the right hon. Member will make an informed decision when it comes to the Division Lobby, but I know whose side I am on.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee looked at the leasehold issues in some detail and produced a report that led to the Competition and Markets Authority conducting its investigation. We looked at the issue of property rights and took advice and evidence from leading property lawyers, who said that where there is a general public interest, it is perfectly reasonable under the European convention on human rights to go down the road being suggested, and that even for existing properties, the ground rent system and other leasehold issues could be changed to reflect the fact that currently they are simply unfair.
Mike Amesbury
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and all the work he and the Select Committee have done to move the matter forward. Together with the Select Committee and many others, I certainly want to see this system kicked into history.
I reaffirm that campaigners have waited long enough for change, and we should not keep them waiting any longer. A former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), referred to the Bill as the “appetiser” before “the main course”. Again, I affirm that what we need is an all-you-can-eat buffet of reform here and now.
Amendment 1, tabled by the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), would prevent some retirement properties from being bound by the legislation. Unfortunately, we are not able to support the amendment. In fact, in Committee I tabled an amendment that would have done quite the opposite. Those who buy retirement properties should have been able to benefit from this new legislation and be put on par with everybody else. Justice is justice. The right hon. Member has certainly been consistent, but consistently wrong on this matter.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Has it occurred to the hon. Gentleman that for many purchasers it will be in their interests to pay a lower purchase price and pay a ground rent, rather than to have to pay a very much higher price at the outset?
Mike Amesbury
I will agree to disagree. The Government have proposed a compromise, giving a longer transition phase for retirement properties, and we will support that approach, as was stated in Committee.
I find that the concerns of retirement community developers do not outweigh the need for those buying retirement properties to be treated fairly as consumers. Given the notice that the retirement community has had about the change, the transition period is generous enough. Many in the industry have done the right thing and already moved away from this income stream model, and I ask that their colleagues do the same.
In conclusion, the Bill marks another milestone in the slow journey to put the feudal system of leasehold into the history books. I thank all those campaigners who have educated legislators and the Government to secure change. The investigation and intervention from the Competition and Markets Authority have shone an authoritative light on the leasehold scandal. Developers have been exposed and are now responding by ditching the practice of doubling ground rents every 10 years. I urge Ministers to strengthen the Bill for all leaseholders and back new clause 1.
Sir Desmond Swayne
I draw your attention, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I am deeply embarrassed about the way that the retirement living industry has been treated over the past few years in the progress to this Bill. In recognition of the significantly greater capital costs of building developments that have communal areas, which have traditionally been funded through an income stream of ground rent, the industry was granted an exemption, or an assurance that it would be exempt from the provisions of the Bill, back in June 2019. That exemption was then withdrawn in January 2021. I understand that the decision to withdraw the exemption was made almost a year earlier, in February 2020, and that discussions about revoking the assurance of exemption had actually begun in August 2019. Throughout all that period, the industry continued to be reassured that the exemption was good and would hold, and it was not.
Throughout that period, the industry continued to raise capital on the basis of the model with which they had been told they could continue. The amendment goes one tiny little bit towards trying to remedy the damage that has been done. It accepts that the practice will have to end, but it asks for one tiny concession, namely that, when the provisions of the Bill bite in March 2023, properties that are part-sold can continue to sell the residual remaining flats or properties on the basis of a continued ground rent. Without that, what we will have is some properties within a development being worth significantly more in terms of the purchase price than others, and some properties paying a ground rent and others not. It will be hugely complicated and divisive. Therefore, the amendment merely asks for that to be addressed. At the most, if the provision were to pass, we anticipate that this would account for about 2,000 properties. I ask the Minister to reflect on this, and, even at this late hour, accept the amendment.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I rise to speak in support of new clause 1, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury).
To respond to the previous speaker, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), on the issue of ground rents, it is clear that service charges are for communal areas. Indeed, McCarthy Stone’s website says very clearly—
Sir Desmond Swayne
It is unlawful to charge ground rent for the maintenance of a communal area. They are clean different things.
Justin Madders
Indeed: ground rents are payments for which nothing is received in return, which is why they should be abolished. For the record, I am a co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform and have campaigned for the abolition of ground rents for a number of years, having seen the impact on individuals of their use and abuse.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale for tabling the new clause and for being a consistently strong advocate for leaseholders during his time as an Opposition spokesperson. He apologised at the start of his speech; I would ask him to resign based on that apology had he not already been moved to another position. [Laughter.] He has done a sterling job in this brief, and the new clause is typical of the way he has used every opportunity available to him to push forward the cause for leaseholders.
As we know, new clause 1 would not abolish ground rents altogether but, if it is agreed to, will set a timescale by which concrete proposals on their abolition must be put forward. That is important because for too long my constituents and thousands of others have suffered because of the leasehold scandal.
I know that the overturning of a system that has been in place for 1,000 years is not necessarily straightforward, and arguments will always be made as to why things cannot happen, but, as has been said so many times—I have already said it once in this debate myself, but it is worth saying it again and again because it is such a powerful point that can never be made enough—ground rent is a payment made for which absolutely nothing is received in return. Why, then, can we not get on and reduce that payment to effectively nothing so that the legal position reflects the reality of the situation? That would send out an important signal—not just a departmental press release but a signal that will make a tangible difference to people’s lives: that the days of leasehold are numbered and that this place does not accept that ground rent is a legitimate payment.
We see ground rent for what it is: a feudal device used to suck money away from people who get no benefit and no advantage from the payment but risk losing their home if they do not make it. Such arrangements have no place in the 21st century or, indeed, any century.
Some say that we should not ban ground rents on existing leases because that would introduce an element of retrospective impact on long-standing investments, including pension funds, but that is not an argument I have any sympathy with. The toxicity of leasehold has now been known for at least five years, which is plenty long enough for any investor to have taken a closer look at what they were involved in, looked for alternative sources of income and realised that nobody with an ounce of humanity should be using people’s homes as an investment vehicle—and especially not ones that included leases that were so onerous they made the homes unsellable.
Yes, there is a concern that we should not readily change the law so that it works retrospectively and changes the legal nature of a contract after it has already been entered into, but let us not forget that this place voted to introduce the loan charge, which retrospectively changed the law, arguably to the considerable detriment of many who say they were misled about what they signed up to at the time. There are parallels, because let us not forget that the victims of leasehold did not sign up to leases in the full knowledge of what they entailed. The developers, lenders and lawyers all have some degree of culpability, but the innocent victims—the leaseholders—do not.
The Competition and Markets Authority has been clear on several occasions that leaseholders have been wronged, and I welcome its decisions, but of course those decisions do not cover everyone, which is why we in this place need to step in. We often talk in the House about the plight of the Women Against State Pension Inequality—did the WASPI women not sign up for something very different from what they ended up with?
I know there are legal opinions about freeholders’ human rights, but what about my constituents’ human rights? In fact, I would love the owner of a set of freeholds to get on the witness stand and try to convince a judge that they are the wronged party in all this. I would love to ask them whether they think people should have the right to live in their own homes without them being used as an income stream for someone else.
The irony of what we are debating is that many of those who have done the most to bring the leasehold scandal to the public’s attention—I think in particular of the National Leasehold Campaign—stand to benefit the least from this Bill because there is nothing in it to help existing leaseholders. That is why new clause 1 is so important. Four years ago, when he was Communities Secretary, the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid) promised an outright ban on leasehold houses, and we all hoped that by now a law would be in place for everyone so that these wrongs could be righted. Those people deserve an end to this. They deserve hope that something will finally be done to make their lives a little better. If the Government cannot support the new clause, then, at the very least, I would like to hear from the Dispatch Box a commitment in the form of a final date by which the scourge of leasehold will finally be consigned to the history books. The wronged leaseholders deserve that, and it is about time it happened.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders). I share his concerns and those of the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), because a significant number of new homes built in the north-west of England, particularly in my constituency and in theirs too, have been on leasehold contracts. Although I recognise the aim of the new clause, I am not completely sure that it will resolve all the issues for my constituents, and I want to talk through some of the issues that they have told me about over the past couple of months.
I welcome many of the proposals set out in the Bill and recognise the important role that they will have in protecting leaseholders moving forward. I am, though, concerned that, as the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston said, they will offer little comfort for the thousands of homeowners who have become trapped in historical leases, which I am afraid many were even unaware they were purchasing when they signed for their new home. That includes an number of constituents in Warrington South who have spent the past 12 years trying to resolve a situation that they were inadvertently drawn into when they were mis-sold their properties on the Steinbeck Grange estate in Chapelford village by David Wilson Homes.
My constituents believed they were purchasing their properties freehold, and many were not disabused of this position until several months after they moved in, when they received an invoice. One might rightly ask why their lawyers did not make them aware when they were signing the contract. It has become clear that most of them used a legal firm recommended by the developer—by the house builder’s sales team—and those lawyers failed to point out the tenure under which the properties were being sold, and failed to make Steinbeck residents aware of the important clause in their contract documents. By using their first names in dealings with clients, they made sure they could not be traced by dissatisfied customers once they became aware of the situation. The law firm went into administration within days of the estate being completed.
I note with interest that the Law Society’s response to the Bill states that it is not the solicitor’s place to dissuade a client from entering into a particular transaction; their role is to ensure that the transaction is legally sound and efficiently completed. I agree with that, but I believe that every lawyer has a responsibility to their clients, and in this case the client was not the developer but the homeowner, or prospective homeowner. They should have made clear all the elements of the contract and their clients should have been advised accordingly. I am aware of one Warrington solicitor who, when looking at the contract that was brought to him, advised the purchaser not to proceed because of the leasehold situation, and has come forward to give me all those details.
As hon. Members have mentioned, the Competition and Markets Authority is currently investigating several issues surrounding the potential mis-selling of leasehold properties. I thank the CMA for its endeavours in addressing this poor practice. It has been to Warrington and engaged with my constituents, and I am incredibly grateful for the work that it is doing there. These investigations have looked at four developers—Persimmon, Countrywide, Taylor Wimpey and Barratt Homes, which is the parent company of David Wilson Homes. To date, the CMA has reached agreements with the first three. I therefore encourage the management of Barratts to recognise the harm that has been caused by its past sales polices and agree a way forward with the CMA as soon as possible to put things right.
Many hon. and right hon. Members have raised these issues in this House, but progress is also down to the tenacity of the men and women trapped in unfair leasehold contracts across the country who have continued to fight for their rights. I particularly praise my constituent Mr Mike Carroll, who has refused to take no for an answer and is continuing to work tirelessly with me and his neighbours to achieve the right and just outcome for them.
Ministers also need to look again at how consumer bodies around the country, particularly trading standards, should be working in the interests of homeowners, to help them resolve some of these issues. In the case of homeowners in Warrington, trading standards appear not to have been interested and have done little to involve themselves in any investigations. That is not the case in other parts of the country, where resolutions have been reached. I note in particular that Cardiff trading standards got involved and looked very closely at some of these practices.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his tenacity in looking after his constituents. All of us across the House try to do that, and he has done a brilliant job. On other areas that need to be addressed, the solicitors that have gone into administration were insured. The big companies have liability insurance sitting in pots, so leaseholders could simply say to the insurers, “You’ve had the premium, and now we want to see some help from you.”
Andy Carter
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. The greatest challenge that my constituents face is that they cannot find the people who did the work—the lawyers no longer exist as a company body. My constituents are working to try to find some recompense, and I hope that the situation will be resolved by the CMA.
Will the Minister consider what actions his Department can take to tackle the problem faced by residents on Steinbeck Grange in Warrington and elsewhere who are locked into leaseholds and did not expect to be in this situation? I hope he will look very carefully at what the CMA says. I know that he has been working with the CMA to try to find solutions, and I hope that he will continue to do that, so that a satisfactory outcome can be found. Having met residents and constituents on Friday evening, I know that the impact that this has had on their lives cannot be overestimated. They have been living through a genuine nightmare, having bought what they thought was their dream home. I urge the Minister to think about the impact that this has had on those individuals.
It is time not only for us to protect those who will be looking to buy a new home in the future, but to secure justice for those who have been mis-sold properties in the past and are still paying a heavy price through unreasonable management fees and escalating ground rents. I am pleased to support the Government’s efforts, but I urge them to go further.
Mr Betts
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I welcome the steps that the Government have already taken but encourage them to go that little bit further.
Thinking back to the Select Committee inquiry in, I think, 2018, I remember that we invited not just formal witnesses—I have mentioned certain very distinguished lawyers who advised us—but many leaseholders from up and down the country. Up to 100 people came to events. There were a number of roundtables at which they met individual members of the Committee and told us about their experiences.
All the issues that the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) has just raised were in our report, including mis-selling and how lawyers told people, “It’s just the same as freehold, really. It isn’t any different: you own your own house and, by the way, there’s an incentive to go with us on this leasehold arrangement. Here are the presents we’ll give you, the garden we’ll do up for you and the new carpets we’ll provide.” What solicitors were doing was scandalous, and we identified that in our report.
The simple message we had from everyone present was, “Everyone’s talking about changing the system for the future, but we’ve got problems here and now.” I understand why the Bill goes only so far on future ground rents and future arrangements, because it is more challenging and complicated to unwind existing legal arrangements than it is to describe what should happen in new arrangements, but I say to the Minister that the people in these leasehold homes who are experiencing all the problems that have already been explained, including in our report, think that that is unfair. They think that people in the future will be protected but that they will not and that Ministers, having raised the issue, should take it one step further and bring in the same rules for them. It is almost as simple as that. They cannot understand why, as they see it, they are being left behind and, so far, ignored on not just ground rents but a range of issues including the mis-selling of the service charge and all the other scandals that the Select Committee unearthed in its inquiry.
Sir Mike Penning
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. On new clause 1, I do not think there is any argument that we need to look at historical leaseholds. However, my constituency has lots of new build and regeneration going on, and a lot of leasehold properties being built, and I am not convinced that that investment would come forward if the developers did not see where that income stream would come from, including pensions and so on. A lot of evidence is going back and forth, but I disagree just on that point.
I completely agree on the historical leasehold issue. The real problem is in the myriad different leases that are out there and have been for many years. I read the Select Committee report referred to by its Chair, the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), a moment ago, and I found some of the things that lawyers were doing astonishing. It fascinates me how they ever got insured and how they have not been struck off—I know that other investigations are going on. This is about not just ground rent but service charges and buildings insurance, which is an issue we must address, whether in this Bill or another measure.
I own a freehold property with a mortgage, and I have contents and buildings insurance. In my buildings insurance, I have legal protection of the sort that we would expect our constituents to benefit from when they pay for buildings insurance. However, those in leasehold properties must pay buildings insurance to the freeholder or their management company and have no choice whatsoever about the company, what the premium is or what the coverage is. I use an example from my own constituency of what happens when a claim is made. We had a large sinkhole in a housing development where there were leaseholders: I sat in a meeting with the insurance representative, the freeholder and my leaseholder constituents, and the insurance company said straight to me, absolutely deadpan, “Your constituents may well have paid the premium, but the policy is not theirs. They have no cover whatsoever—the cover is for the freeholder.”
There has to be something morally wrong about that. Insurance has developed over the years; it used to cover very few things, but these days nearly all buildings insurance worth its salt has legal protection. That is what it says on the tin. The Bill does not cover that in the way I think it should. Sometimes it is wrapped into the service charges and everything else, and the ground rent is part of that package, but at the same time we have houses with historical freeholds, some of them from the old military estates where people have bought properties on what used to be Ministry of Defence property, and they are paying leasehold rents on what everybody assumed was a freehold property. Something is structurally wrong.
There was an allusion earlier to looking forward rather than back. I say to the Minister that looking forward is fantastic—we need some dates and some targets that our constituents can look forward to—but we should not rule out looking back just because it is difficult. As I said on the Building Safety Bill in this House only last week, looking back because it is difficult is what this House is supposed to do. It will be more difficult to look back and bring in those leaseholders, our constituents, who feel left out of this legislation and still very vulnerable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) said, but it can be done.
This is not a case of, “It’s impossible”, because we are doing it retrospectively in the Building Safety Bill. We are going back 30-odd years retrospectively on that Bill. Can the Minister explain, when he sums up on new clause 1, why the Government feel that that is so difficult, when we are doing it on a separate piece of legislation that is going through the House today?
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. I express my support for new clause 1; I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), and to others across the House, for their words tonight and for pointing out the enormous imbalance between powerful developers on the one hand and people buying a property for themselves, who possibly do not have all the information before them that ideally they should, on the other.
I refer to an issue in my own constituency, an attractive modern development on the edge of the town of Woodley, which is part of my Reading East constituency. The Loddon Park development is relatively recent, but there is a clear need for action to be taken. This development is in the south-east of England, a different part of the country from many of the developments mentioned tonight, and while there are some similarities there are also some differences.
Loddon Park is an attractive new estate, built in the past few years in parkland on the edge of Woodley. There are several hundred properties, a mixture of owner-occupied and some social housing. There are many attractive ponds and features, including meadowland, in the development. Unfortunately, when the whole development was given planning permission, the local authority—mistakenly, I believe—allowed the site developer to charge upkeep for those common areas in perpetuity. There is no limit, as I understand it, to the charge that can be made. It is deeply unfair for normal householders—many of them have young families, are commuters who work locally and are facing, like many people across the country, significant rises in the cost of living—to face in addition ongoing costs for maintaining the landscape around their homes. Frankly, that is wrong.
I hope the Minister will consider new clause 1. We have heard arguments from many MPs across the House and from different places around the country, whether in the south or the north of England; we have heard from the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who set out some powerful legal arguments for why this action should be considered. I hope the Minister will look at it again, even at this stage, and will consider further action by the Government and our new clause.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is always a pleasure to make a contribution in such debates, and it is nice to be here. When we look at amendment 1 and the reasons why the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) tabled it, as he expressed in his contribution, it is hard to say that we should not support it.
We must make sure that there is financial fairness for leaseholders, especially long leaseholders who plan to hold a lease for more than 21 years. The issue of ground rent payment has been brought to my attention by my constituents, and the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) rightly gave an example of his constituents. An elderly couple in my constituency, who paid their mortgage off more than 15 years ago, are still paying ground rent of more than £50 a year. Although that is not much, I am pleased that the need to abolish this has been recognised. We already changed the legislation in Northern Ireland, so I understand why this Minister and Government are looking forward to making these changes tonight. Many Members have stated that many people have long leases with higher ground rents at the start of their lease, with shorter ground rent review periods. As a result, leaseholders face unsustainable ground rents, so there is a real need to change this, as hon. Members have said.
Leaseholders with high or escalating ground rents will often struggle to remortgage or sell their houses, leaving them in greater financial distress. The Bill aims to restrict ground rents on newly created long residential leases, with some exceptions, to a token of one peppercorn a year. That effectively restricts ground rents to zero financial value. The intention is to make leasehold ownership fair and more affordable for leaseholders. We should support that purpose.
In Northern Ireland, individuals can apply to the Land Registry to buy out their ground rent. In some cases, the individuals cannot afford to pay the substantial sum outright, so I am pleased that the Bill has assurances for long leaseholders and that Government have protected householders. If ground rent is demanded in contravention of the Bill and any payment received is not returned in 28 days, the landlord will face a fine ranging from £500 to £30,000 per qualifying lease. The fines are clear and hopefully prohibitive.
However, there is one substantial problem with the Bill, as others have said: it will apply only to new leases and will not assist existing leaseholders faced with high and escalating ground rents. I feel that they should not be left behind and I would be grateful if the Minister clarified this matter, looked at it again and considered the impact that the situation has not only on finance, but the possibility of remortgaging or selling property.
The Bill’s commencement date has also raised concerns across the House, so I would be grateful if more clarity was given about that. A Bill on broader leasehold reform is expected in the third Session of this Parliament and I would encourage discussion and a closer look at how the situation can be improved to make circumstances easier for leaseholders. Others have said that we just need a wee bit more movement, and perhaps that can be done in the next Session.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Eddie Hughes)
This is a bit like the Rolling Stones tour in that I said goodbye to the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and he has come back for an encore, for another concert. However, like the Rolling Stones, it is good to see him back again. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contribution to this debate and for the constructive way in which they have engaged with the Bill throughout its passage. I particularly thank the Opposition Front Bench team for their helpful contributions.
I will address each amendment, starting with amendment 1 in the name of the hon. Gentleman. The difficulties faced by existing leaseholders have rightly been raised by Members across the House, both in Committee and in correspondence. I understand Members’ points about the fact that the Bill relates only to new leases. I point out, however, as I did in Committee, that the Bill is just the first of two-part legislation to reform the leasehold system and that further legislation will follow in this Parliament, so I encourage others, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning), to engage with me in discussions on the second part of the legislation as it begins to form.
The Government understand the urgency of the need for changes for leaseholders paying out unacceptable charges day to day. However, I do not think that the arbitrary deadline in new clause 1 is useful in this context, and similar is true of the alternative deadlines suggested by the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). Although I appreciate that this is not completely relevant, Madam Deputy Speaker, on what he said about new burdens, the point of legislation such as this is to encourage people to behave appropriately so that they treat leaseholders fairly and there are no cases. However, as the Bill is implemented and we see how it develops, I look forward to discussing with him and the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee the impact that that will have on councils.
Justin Madders
The new clause is obviously not going to find favour with the Minister tonight, but could he at least give us the date—maybe even just the year—by which leasehold will finally be in the history books?
Eddie Hughes
I would love to be tempted by something like that, but given that we have just gone through two years of a rather unexpected global pandemic, it is best not to pin these things down too firmly.
Unfair practices have no place in the housing market, and the Government are committed to ending them. That is why, in addition to our proposed reforms, we asked the CMA to carry out an investigation into the potential mis-selling of homes and unfair terms in the leasehold sector. We are clear that we want to see existing homeowners who have been affected obtain the justice and redress they deserve. During 2021, through determined negotiations, the CMA secured commitments from Aviva, Persimmon, Countryside Properties and Taylor Wimpey to amend their practices, which included righting the wrongs of doubling ground rents and houses being sold as leasehold. These settlements will help to free thousands more existing leaseholders from unreasonable ground rent increases. I am sure the whole House will join me in welcoming the progress the CMA has made.
Indeed, the investigation continues, and we are closely monitoring those developers and landlords that have failed to sufficiently change their practices, such as those described by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter). The action against major industry players serves as a warning to other developers with similar arrangements in place. Let me be absolutely clear in reiterating the Government’s position: we want to see other developers come to the table.
Again, I reassure hon. Members that we take the plight of existing leaseholders extremely seriously, and we are making moves across a number of areas of Government policy to reflect that commitment. It is on that basis that I ask the hon. Member for Weaver Vale to withdraw the new clause, and to work with me on the development of further reforms to support existing leaseholders, as I have described—or, alternatively, the hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook) and the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), with his experience through the work of his APPG.
On amendment 1, which is in the names of my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) and my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), as hon. Members will know, it is our intention to protect leaseholders from unfair practice through this Bill by ensuring that in future regulated leases are restricted to a peppercorn rent unless excepted. The Government believe that those who purchase retirement homes should benefit from the same reform as other future leaseholders. While we would like the provision of the Bill to come into effect as soon as possible, we have decided to give the retirement sector additional time to prepare for these changes. The transition period for retirement properties is being granted in recognition of the fact that the sector had previously been informed that it would be exempt. We have provided this additional time—first announced over a year ago, on 7 January 2021 —for the sector to prepare for these changes. As such, the ground rent Bill will come into force no earlier than 1 April 2023 for retirement homes. We have carefully considered this to ensure we are striking the right balance—giving the retirement sector time to transition and ensuring that protection for leaseholders comes as quickly as possible.
Amendment 1 seeks to exempt retirement properties from the peppercorn rent provisions where part of the development remains unsold at the commencement of the Bill and where the development itself was commenced prior to 6 July 2021. There is a simple reason why I am rejecting this, which is that we want to protect more leaseholders. The amendment would mean that many new leases enter the market charging a monetary ground rent, with more consumers of retirement properties being left outside the Bill’s protections.
Sir Desmond Swayne
What was the rationale for granting the exemption in the first place? Surely the Minister recognises that, for many people in the retirement sector, it will be in their financial interest to pay a lower purchase price and have a continual ground rent, rather than to pay a significantly greater capital sum upfront. Individual circumstances will of course differ.
Eddie Hughes
I was delighted when I was appointed as a Minister for the Department on 16 January 2021. The negotiations to which my right hon. Friend refers pre-date my time at the Department, so I will have to take his word for what happened. It is important that as many people as possible benefit from the provisions of the Bill. We have offered a generous transition period and many people have already adopted their operating models, so he can be reassured: the sector will cope.
The amendment could serve only to incentivise any retirement developer to sell simply one unit on a development before commencement of these provisions in order to continue to charge ground rents on all the properties in that development. The amendment would risk providing a loophole. Throughout consideration of the Bill, arguments concerning the transition period have been made on both sides: there have been those who wished to extend the period, including by application to part-sold properties, and those who wished to remove the period entirely.
On Second Reading, we heard arguments by my right hon. Friends the Members for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) and for New Forest West in favour of amending the transition period for the sector. Subsequently, I had helpful conversations with representatives of the retirement development sector, whom I met on 8 December. I am grateful to them for taking the time to explain their position to me.
We appreciate that there are likely to be some developments that will continue to include a mixture of properties with monetary and peppercorn ground rents. That will not be limited to retirement properties, and we do not consider that that is a compelling case for retirement sector leaseholders to be exempted or treated differently. I put it to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that there is a simple way to avoid this: reduce all ground rents to a peppercorn.
The Bill provides a clear-cut date for consumers. If a regulated lease is sold after the date, there can be no monetary ground rent. That is transparent and easy for consumers to understand. Indeed, many consumers may already be planning their purchase based on that date, secure in the knowledge that they will be protected from pointless monetary ground rents from that point forward. To bolster the clarity and transparency provided by the Bill, we will of course ensure that all relevant leaseholders are aware of the legislation and the impact that it will have on them, before the Bill comes into force. I therefore ask Members not to press the amendment.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Eddie Hughes
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I start by thanking colleagues across the House for their support for this important piece of legislation. I am pleased to say that there has been recognition from both Houses of the importance of getting the Bill enacted promptly for the benefit of generations of future leaseholders, and I thank the Opposition, particularly the hon. Members for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) and for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), for their engagement and valuable input. I also wish to put on record my thanks to those who served on the Committee; the Chairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott); the Clerks; and particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) for ably assisting me throughout.
The Bill delivers an important improvement to the leasehold system for future generations of home owners. It is a vital step towards addressing the historic imbalance in the leasehold system and it is integral to the Government’s broader reform to create a housing market that works for everyone. It has benefited from a number of amendments both here and in the other place, and I thank all those who have participated in debates and given their time. The changes have included raising the maximum penalty from £5,000 to £30,000, giving certain powers to Welsh Ministers when a property is in Wales and a range of important clarifications that ensure that the Bill will not have unintended consequences. Taken together, the amendments have significantly strengthened the legislation.
The Bill is narrowly focused on the ground rent of future residential leases, but it is understandable—
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
I strongly support the Government’s commitment to ending the practice of charging unfair and excessive ground rents. As my hon. Friend will know, residents in park homes such as those in Penton Park in my constituency are still facing excessive pitch fee rises each year. Does he agree that legislation should be introduced to link the pitch fee review inflation index to the consumer price index rather than the retail price index as soon as possible?
Eddie Hughes
As I have said, the Bill is narrowly drafted, so the pitch fees do not apply. However, the Government are committed to making the changes for which my hon. Friend has been campaigning, and we will make those changes when legislative time allows.
Although the Bill is narrowly focused, it is understandable that Members—including, just now, my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) —have raised broader issues relating to the leasehold system. We understand that many leaseholders feel trapped in a system that is not working for them, and we are determined to provide greater protection and support for all leaseholders. The Government are committed to undertaking an ambitious and far-reaching programme of reform of the leasehold system, and I can assure the House that we are working apace to bring about those reforms.
Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead) (Con)
I thank the Minister for giving way to me, because it saves me a speech.
The most important aspect of the legislation to which the Minister has just alluded is that “far-reaching” should not mean “far away”. It is really important for leaseholders that it should be introduced as soon as time is available, and any help that the Minister may need in cajoling other parts of Government to introduce legislation as soon as possible to protect leaseholders in a way that this Bill does not will no doubt be extremely welcome.
Eddie Hughes
I strongly suspect that my right hon. Friend will be catching up with the Secretary of State next time they walk through the Lobby together, and will be making exactly that point to him.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
May I take up the point made by the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning)? When the Minister conducts that far-reaching review, will it return to the case of Custins v. Hearts of Oak Benefit Society back in 1969? Will it consider the abolition of leasehold, and the full ability of leaseholders to take on the franchise and ultimately the freehold of their buildings?
Eddie Hughes
I think it is too early for me to be able to predict exactly what will be in the Bill, and what its reach and remit might be, but I am sure I will be open to conversations with the hon. Member to discuss his thoughts on what could go into it.
It would be remiss of me to not mention that in fact only two weeks ago we launched a public consultation to seek views on proposals to allow more leaseholders in mixed-use buildings to take control and ownership of their building. That consultation will play an important role in shaping the next stage of our reforms to create a fairer leasehold system in England and Wales.
I thank the Competition and Markets Authority for the vital role it is playing in improving the sector for existing leaseholders. The CMA has already helped thousands of leaseholders to gain access to justice since opening its investigation, and I welcome its dedication in the ongoing fight against abuse in the sector. Let me repeat that the CMA’s action against industry players serves as a warning to others, and we expect those who continue to permit such poor practices to heed the example set by the investigation.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
To save the Minister time, may I, on his behalf and that of the whole House, thank the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, the campaigning charity, especially Sebastian O’Kelly and Martin Boyd, together with their compatriots in the campaigning groups without whom we would still be saying that there was a major problem that had not yet been recognised?
Eddie Hughes
I thank the Father of the House for saving me the trouble of having to offer those thanks.
I thank Welsh Ministers and their officials for their engagement on the relevant amendments, both here and in the other place. My thanks also go to the Local Government Association, National Trading Standards and the relevant tribunals, all of which have provided support with the progress of this legislation. I again thank all Members for their contributions. This legislation will make a real difference to thousands of future leaseholders across England and Wales, and I commend the Bill to the House.
Mike Amesbury
I thank the Minister and everyone in the House who has been involved with the Bill: the Clerks, the Library specialists and the Bill team. I also thank hon. Members who have participated in each part of our proceedings, giving their time, effort and wisdom. I thank the many Members who contributed on Report: the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne), who is not in his place but we agreed to disagree; my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on leasehold and commonhold reform; my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), the Chair of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee; the hon. Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter); my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda); and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). They all made very powerful contributions.
I would like to reiterate and re-affirm the comments made by the Father of the House, the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and put on record my thanks, and that of the Opposition, to the incredible campaigners at the National Leasehold Campaign, Catherine Williams, Katie Kendrick and Jo Darbyshire, and at the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, Martin Boyd, Sebastian O’Kelly and, of course, the late Louie Burns. I want to pay my respects to the Father of the House, who has consistently campaigned on this issue and educated others, including me. I know he will continue to do so. I thank him.
They and many others have done the hard graft in fighting for leasehold reform and, with this Bill, they are only now beginning to see their efforts bear fruit. It is unfortunate that their wait will continue. The Bill represents the picking of a single apple in the orchard. It really is narrow in scope, a point acknowledged by the Minister. It does not attack the many issues raised by Members across the House that plague existing leaseholders. It will not deal with existing ground rent costs, untransparent service charges or management agent fees. It is crazy that anyone of us here or beyond could set themselves up as a management agent and charge astronomical and unfathomable service charges. Those issues must be dealt with sooner rather than later.
The Bill will not force accountability on freeholders or managers for their actions. It will not cover, as has rightly been pointed out, historical building safety costs, which are still being debated at considerable length in this Chamber. It will not deal with the cost or difficulty in obtaining enfranchisement, unfair contract terms or the many other issues still faced by homeowners locked in leaseholds, such as insurance, which is a major unfairness. The unfairness and injustice must be gone for good. The Government need to take further action. Leasehold is a system hundreds of years old. A 28-page Bill is not enough to finish it off—and we need to finish it off. The Bill is a good attempt at preventing future wrongs, but with so many real existing wrongs in front of us it is easy to see why leaseholders sitting in properties today will feel short-changed when new neighbours literally across the road will be freed from the problems that are still impacting them—a real injustice.
I am partially pleased—partially—that in advance of today’s debate the Government published a consultation on wider leasehold reform, but let us not pretend that that is a considerable step forward. We have been here before. We have had numerous consultations. A consultation paper published in 2017 on tackling unfair practices in the leasehold market was closely followed up in 2018 by consultation on implementing reforms in the leasehold market. We have had announcement after announcement from Government press officers. What we have not had so far is real and fundamental change. After hundreds of years of leasehold, patience is wearing thin. England and Wales are lagging far behind the rest of the world and our neighbours closer to home—I referred to Scotland.
In conclusion, the Government will have to do more, and do it quicker than “in due course”, to convince leaseholders that they are serious about taking on those vested interests to which Members from across the Chamber have referred. Members tonight have echoed the view that we need a clear timetable. Be the history-maker, Minister, set people free and usher in an age of commonhold.
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury) for his kind words. It has been right and proper and a pleasure to work in collaboration with him and the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), as it was to work with Jim Fitzpatrick when he was co-chair of the all-party group on leasehold and commonhold reform.
It is 20 years since the House of Commons and the Government thought that we had brought some sense to the leasehold system. We failed and successive Governments did not pay attention to what had gone wrong, partly because the responsibility for the leasehold and commonhold sectors were split between Departments. The Ministry of Justice, as it was at some stages, did not have any resources and it did not collaborate with the Ministry of Housing, so effective action has been delayed.
The Minister has referred to the narrowness of the Bill. We have to accept that. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer) raised the issue of park home residents, who have been treated even worse than some leaseholders. I hope that the Government will give some serious attention not just to the inflation rate that they are charged, but to some of the criminal and near-criminal and exploitative actions of many of the people who run those sites. It is completely appalling, and I direct investigative journalists to look at that matter.
On the question of leasehold itself, I welcome the progress made by the Bill. I am sorry that I got back in time to vote on new clause 1—I probably voted in the wrong way and I apologise for that. The sooner that we can deal with existing leaseholders and the cost to them of ground rents and of extending their leases the better. We must get to the stage where owning somebody else’s leasehold becomes a diminishing asset. The faster the freeholders sell the freehold to the leaseholders together and create, in effect, a commonhold the better. We are making progress. I am glad to have contributed in part, and I am glad that the Minister and his colleagues are taking the action that I wish had been taken many, many years ago.
Justin Madders
It is a pleasure, as always, to follow the Father of the House. As we have already mentioned this evening, we are now four years on from the promises that were made about reforming leasehold, and the Bill, as we have all accepted, is a step in the right direction. However, as we have all acknowledged as well, it is little comfort to those who are still trapped in homes that they cannot sell because of the onerous leases with which they have been left, and we must do something about that. I tried to get the Minister to give us a year when that might happen, but we could not get anything out of him. None the less, I can assure him and the House that we will keep pushing on the issue, because justice demands that it is resolved.
It is also worth commenting on the fact that one in three houses sold in the north-west in the past 10 years is leasehold. There has been much talk about levelling up. Who can doubt that a person’s home is the biggest investment they will make? So it is simply unacceptable for so many homes in my part of the world to have been built off the back of an exploitative and unjust business model. Surely, if levelling up is to mean anything, it should at the very least mean that people’s homes are owned on the same basis wherever they live in the country.
The ending of ground rents for new homes is a positive, but it will create a strange situation. There will be houses within a stone’s throw of one another that have a different form of ownership. That will just add more weight to the sense of injustice that existing leaseholders feel, which is why I am so keen for us to push on and deal with that issue.
As many Members have said, a lot more needs to be done. A whole range of issues have been mentioned tonight. We have, for example, barely touched on park homes. There are so many scandalous things going on there, and we really should be paying them more attention. For homeowners, we see the following: management fees, which are a rip-off; non-transparent service charges; the cost of enfranchisement; insurance scams; obscure penalty clauses; and other costs that appear everywhere we turn in a lease. They are all baked into the business models of those avaricious companies which, let us not forget, are still out there building houses.
I am a little concerned that the companies on which we rely to build the houses that we need are responsible for many of the injustices that we have discussed tonight. We need to keep a close eye on their practices in future. I still think that we need an inquiry into the whole industry. We have previously discussed some of the things that we touched on tonight, and the question of how close lawyers were to developers and whether they were acting in the best interests of their clients needs further examination. We need to look at the lenders and surveyors and what the developers were saying to people, often first-time buyers, who were misled about what they were buying. We need to make sure that the system is examined thoroughly so that there is no repeat of the scandal that we have seen over the past five years.
People who buy a home should have a right not to expect it to become an ongoing income stream for a third party. If we have that as our guiding principle we will not go far wrong, so let us crack on with legislating so that that can become a reality for everyone. As many Members have done, I want to acknowledge the fantastic work of the many campaigners who have been active in bringing this issue to the fore including, as we have heard, the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, Martin Boyd, Sebastian O’Kelly, the late Louie Burns, the National Leasehold Campaign, Catherine Williams, Katie Kendrick, Jo Darbyshire and many others, with the Father of the House being one of the biggest cheerleaders. There are many people who have contributed to bringing the issue to the attention of the House, but there is much more that we need to do. It feels at times as if progress is painfully slow, but that should not dim our determination finally to consign leasehold to the dustbin.
Sir Peter Bottomley
We know about some of the abuses, because people who were working in firms that I would respectfully declare to be dodgy provided information anonymously. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in saying to Richard Davidoff, who might take defamation action against people who have blown the whistle on practices that we would condemn, that the courts should not be used to stop people blowing the whistle on practices that are questionable, if not completely wrong?
Justin Madders
As always, I find myself in agreement with the Father of the House. Whistleblowers should be able to speak up freely. With my other hat on, it is probably time that we had a review of whistleblowing legislation to make sure that people are adequately protected. We owe a debt to people who are prepared to speak up and put their head above the parapet, possibly at great personal expense. The scams have to be stopped, and people need to be supported.
On that note, we have made a little progress tonight, and I want to keep making progress. I am sure that the majority of the House will want leasehold finally to enter the history books, rather than being something that we deal with on a day-to-day basis.
Theresa Villiers
I shall begin by highlighting the investment property in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which is a flat held on a long leasehold basis. Like everyone else in the House, I recognise the need to deal with abusive practices in relation to leasehold and ground rents, but I fear that the blanket abolition of ground rents for every single new building could have significant negative unintended consequences.
Measures specifically targeted at unfair practices such as a code of conduct, a potential cap on ground rents and a ban on selling houses on a leasehold basis could be effective in stamping out wrongdoing, but without the negative potential consequences of the Bill’s widely drawn approach. As drafted, the Bill will see professional freeholders exit the market. It is disappointing that the Government have not responded to the calls on Second Reading to consider an exception in the Bill to enable ground rents to continue to be an option for large, complex apartment blocks. If we remove the choice to use ground rents for buildings of that kind, all the responsibility for ensuring the safety and long-term viability of the block will fall on leaseholders. That will inevitably lead to higher costs, since individual residents groups will not have access to the kind of specialist expertise and collective buying power that professional freeholders have when they buy in services to repair, maintain and enhance buildings.
There is evidence that after the removal of professional freeholders in Scotland, the lack of professional oversight and accountability has meant many more buildings falling into disrepair. A 2019 report for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors highlighted that many residents in Scotland had great difficulty in securing agreement from fellow flat owners to fund essential work on the fabric of their building. That can slow down remedial work, greatly adding to costs. Even identifying and contacting fellow flat owners may be difficult, for example if they are buy-to-let investors living overseas, and that is even before we get to the point of trying to secure agreement on the work that needs to be done, how much it will cost and persuading everyone to pay up. Disputes have left some leaseholders in Scotland having to threaten their neighbours with legal proceedings, generating even more fees to pay.
Without professional freeholders, flat owners in large blocks will have to take on myriad financial and legal responsibilities and keep up to speed with a rapidly changing and complex regulatory environment. These onerous obligations are an extra burden to be shouldered by ordinary people on top of busy lives holding down jobs and looking after their families. Some leaseholders might prefer to pay a modest regulated ground rent so as not to have the hassle and risk of taking on these responsibilities, but the Bill denies them that choice for new buildings.
Buildings that involve business as well as residential use will be especially difficult for residents to manage. Even the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee recognised that exceptions to the ground rents ban should be considered in such circumstances.
I find it hard to comprehend a Bill whose main effect will be to reduce professional oversight and responsibility for residential buildings at a time when we have a building safety crisis. This is also an era where we urgently need investment in our building stock to make the changes to insulation and heating systems needed to meet climate change commitments. That is another reason surely to try to retain professional freeholders, not shut them down. It is worth remembering that the investors behind most of these professional freeholders are generally the pension funds that are so essential to providing us all with security in old age.
I close by asking the Minister to pause, reflect on this legislation and consider whether an exemption can be allowed for large, complex apartment blocks. The system of freehold interests and ground rents has come under sustained criticism, including this evening. It has even been described as “feudal”, but England’s laws on real property have successfully underpinned economic activity for centuries, providing a crucial foundation for economic prosperity and development. That was made possible by adaptability and inventiveness, including the capacity to slice up different rights over land in a way that maximised the incentive to use the property constructively and efficiently.
Put simply, there is a reason why English land law has deployed the concept of a freehold interest for the past 900 years. It makes sense for someone to have stewardship of the long-term future of a building, and it makes sense for their economic interests to be aligned with maintaining the building and investing in it for the long term. Yes, we need to crack down on the unscrupulous activities of morally suspect developers abusing the ground rent system, but I fear that the approach in this Bill is too blunt an instrument. We would be better off with the regulation of professional freeholders, not the de facto abolition of professional freeholders. I hope that the Minister and the Secretary of State will give that the most serious consideration.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Business without Debate
NHS Dentistry: Bristol and the South-west
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)
I am grateful to have secured this evening’s Adjournment debate on access to NHS dentistry in Bristol and the south-west. Over the past few months, many of my constituents have told me how difficult it has become to find and access an NHS dentist in and around my constituency of Bristol North West. Their accounts have been wide-ranging, from having their NHS treatment left in limbo following the closure of a local practice to having to look as far as Gloucester to try and register as a new patient with an NHS provider.
In particular, last year an NHS dental surgery in Southmead in my constituency unexpectedly closed to patients. Many of my constituents were left without an NHS dentist, often mid-treatment. One constituent explained that they had paid for NHS treatment prior to the closure of the dental surgery but had been unable to secure another appointment with a local dentist. Their dental work remains incomplete. Another constituent described contacting nine dental practices across Bristol to try and resume their treatment as soon as possible, only to be told that none was accepting NHS patients.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this important debate; I have similar stories from my constituents. Does he agree that we also need to think about pregnant women, for example, who have free access to care but are also being denied access to dentistry at a really important point of their life?
Darren Jones
I absolutely agree, and I thank my hon. Friend for her contributions, not least as a leading voice on healthcare policy, knowing that prevention is more important than cure.
A third constituent of mine rang over 25 practices across the south-west, but was unable to secure an appointment as an NHS patient—something that has affected patients who were pregnant as well as everyone else. Southmead in particular is now left without any NHS dentists at all.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The number of child patients nearly halved in 2021 compared with 2019, with a 42% decrease in the south-west, including my constituency and his. Is the hon. Member as concerned as I am that the most worrying part of these statistics concerns the loss of access to dental treatment for children?
Darren Jones
I do share that concern, because we know that children in particular are seeing the dentist on a fewer and fewer occasions, and I understand that the tooth extraction rate for children is increasing significantly because of a lack of prevention.
Luke Pollard (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
Some 3,925 teeth were removed from Plymouth children under anaesthesia in 2019-20. The figure was lower last year because of the pandemic, but does my hon. Friend agree that we will not solve this crisis until children get to keep the teeth in their mouths through better oral health, and that we will not get that until the dental crisis is properly addressed by Government?
Darren Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; as ever, he is a strong advocate for his constituents. He identifies that children are ending up having teeth extracted in emergency situations instead of seeing the dentist in the first place.
While the three cases that I have referred to have stemmed from the closure of the same dental practice in Southmead in my constituency, their stories serve to highlight the difficulties faced by those across Bristol and the south-west in accessing NHS treatment.
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman highlights Southmead; may I highlight another important case for the record? The closure of the Frampton dental practice has left many of my constituents unable to secure any type of dental support at all. He is therefore quite right to say this is an issue right across the region and to bring it to the Minister’s attention, so may I offer him my full support in this debate? Although we are grateful for the NHS’s medium-term response, there are lots of people seeking treatment now who cannot access it. I therefore offer him my support and call on the Minister to meet me to discuss the issue in further detail.
Darren Jones
I thank the hon. Member, because it sounds as if his constituents are suffering the same problem as mine. Many have rung eight, nine or 10 NHS service providers, to be told that they could be accepted only as a private fee-paying patient. Going private is simply not an option that many of my constituents can afford. Some have been left with no other choice and others have just not been able to see a dentist at all. Outside of emergency cases, it seems that dentistry in our country has become merely a private healthcare service, with all the unacceptable inequalities that that presents.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
In many cases even emergency appointments are simply not available, given the number of people asking for them. The waiting time to get an NHS dentist in Exeter is currently two years. We have thousands and thousands of people in Devon as a whole with no access to an NHS dentist. They cannot afford to go private and they cannot get access, in pain, to emergency treatment. It is an absolute disgrace, and for the last eight years this Government have done nothing about it.
Darren Jones
I agree, and I thank my right hon. Friend for raising the case in Exeter, which seems similar to the many other cases we are hearing about this evening.
When I surveyed my constituents, 79% of those who responded said that they did not feel that they could access a timely dental care appointment when they needed it, while 60% had not had any form of dental treatment during the past year. Twenty five per cent. detailed that they had contacted 11 or more dental practices to try to register for NHS treatment but were unable to do so.
Information compiled by the Association of Dental Groups puts those conclusions in context. The ADG highlights that 43% of patients across Bristol alone were unable to book an appointment when they wanted to do so. That figure increases to over 50% of patients when considering the south-west altogether.
In its 2021 “Great British Oral Health Report”, mydentist found that those in the south-west who have had a dental appointment in the last year lived, on average, over 5 miles away from their closest surgery. More concerningly, those who had not had a dental appointment in the last 12 months were twice as likely than the national average to live over 30 miles away from their closest surgery. That seems to suggest that there is a correlation between someone’s proximity to an NHS dentist and the amount of time that has elapsed since their last appointment, adding geographical inequality to income inequality in the often privatised dental care system—no doubt a levelling-up priority for the Government.
This is a growing problem, with increasing numbers of NHS dentists closing and a shortage of dentists available to do the work. For those familiar with the south-west’s regional news, Thursday’s BBC “Spotlight” reported that the number of NHS dentists practising across the south-west had fallen by more than 200 between 2017 and 2021. Across the country, 45% of patients have been forced to pay for private care due to the closure of a local NHS dentist.
The good news is that there are several actions that the Minister can take to address these issues. First, the Government should consider measures to reverse the decline in the number of dentists offering NHS services. Research from mydentist shows that nearly 1,000 dentists ceased providing NHS treatment in 2020-21, and in response to a survey, 47% of the British Dental Association’s membership said that they were considering reducing the provision of NHS dentistry due to the pressures being faced. I understand that the Government have announced a south-west dental reform programme. I would be grateful if the Minister could provide some detail as to how it could be deployed to increase dentistry numbers.
Secondly, the Government should look again at how they recognise international dentistry qualifications. The overseas registration examination has only 500 places available annually in the UK. The ADG has recommended that part of the examination could be taken in the candidate’s home country as a way of reducing some of the pressures, and that the overall number of places available should be increased. Furthermore, both the ADG and mydentist have recommended that the Government take swift action to reduce the impact that Brexit will have on those who have received their training in the European Union but whose qualifications are not recognised in the UK, and therefore on the number of dentistry providers in the UK. At present, the Government have agreed to recognise dentistry qualifications achieved in the EU until the end of the year, but given that 22% of dentistry care and treatment is provided by dentists from the European economic area, it is vital that certainty about the future is provided to those dentists and their patients as soon as possible. It is ridiculous that Ministers would prevent EU dentists from being able to work in the UK. I would be grateful if the Minister could update the House on that particular issue.
Finally, and most importantly, the Government need to bring forward long overdue reforms to the NHS dental contract, which was established in 2006. Local dentists in Bristol North West have contacted me to highlight their frustration with the current contract, which prevents them from seeing NHS patients when they need to be seen. They have explained that they have been expected to meet higher patient targets due to local closures, despite the need for covid-19 safety measures and without the full payment usually required to see those extra patients. Those pressures are in addition to the backlog from the pandemic, with more than 350,000 dental appointments lost in Bristol alone between April 2020 and November 2021. Reforming the NHS dental contract is vital to solving the underlying issues with access to NHS dentistry, and I would welcome an update from the Minister on the status of that work.
In the round, NHS dentistry is broken and the problems are getting worse. The system works only for those with dental emergencies—and that is if they are lucky—while everyone else is left largely to pay private fees in a private dental system that costs significant sums of money. The closure of so many NHS dentists is adding geographical inequalities to the income inequalities created by the private sector-led dentistry system, and the shortage of dentists in the country is being exacerbated by a failure to recognise European Union dentists and an unwillingness to make it easier to welcome dentists from other countries around the world.
From my experience with Ministers and officials, I get the sense that dentistry in this country is now nothing more than an afterthought, placed in the “too difficult for Government action” box.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I do not know whether my hon. Friend has written to Ministers about this. I have written to Ministers on behalf of constituents who are in pain and need emergency surgery, but cannot come up with thousands of pounds to pay for it. It is so frustrating when the response we get is a link to a site where they can check where their nearest NHS dentist is, or similarly useless bits of information. Does he share my concern that the Government are totally complacent about the crisis we face?
Darren Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution and I agree entirely. I know from my own experience of trying to get access to ministerial time following the closure of an NHS dental practice in Southmead that it took ages to get a response. I then had time with officials, who tried to be helpful but could not resolve the problem, and we had local briefings in Bristol where, I am afraid, the presentations and information were completely inadequate. That confirms my point that dentistry seems to be an afterthought, not a priority, for this Government.
Luke Pollard
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way again. Could he add one extra ask of Ministers—to keep the dentists we train in the west country in the west country? The last Labour Government opened a dental school in Plymouth that trains enormous numbers of high-quality dentists, but then they have to spend time in practice and they go into a national shuffle. If there was a regional shuffle to keep those dentists in the south-west, it is more likely that they would stay in the west country, providing additional services, rather than being spread across the country. Does he agree that would be a good idea?
Darren Jones
That sounds very sensible, and no doubt it would be a great levelling-up opportunity for the Government to ensure that dentists trained and qualified in the south-west stay there. I do not want to put particular pressure on this Minister, because this has been a long-running failure over many years.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
I have an interest here, clearly, but why should dentists, or any profession, be forced to stay and practise in the area they trained? No other profession has that. It would be a very unfair liability and tie on the dentists.
Darren Jones
I am not sure that was the suggestion from my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard); it was merely an opportunity for those who train in the south-west and who wish to stay there to do so, and I would support that.
Ministers’ long-running failure to tackle this issue is resulting in hundreds of thousands of people across the country, not least many thousands of children, being unable to access NHS dentistry until it becomes an emergency and a hospitalised problem. That is unacceptable; it no doubt costs the Government more to treat problems instead of trying to prevent them, and I call on them to put in the work to fix this problem now. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s responses to my questions.
Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)
I listened with interest to the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones). He mentioned the word “prevention”, but did not go into the prevention the Government are doing at the moment. There is enormous work being undertaken in schools, not just in England, but in Wales and Scotland, and the results are very positive. They are teaching children, from a very tiny age right through to infants school, how to look after their teeth, how to brush their teeth, what a toothbrush is, what toothpaste is, how to use fluoride and so on.
The hon. Gentleman failed to mention the fact that the Health and Care Bill currently going through the House of Lords will introduce an opportunity for fluoride and fluoridation. The roughly two-year payback will make a dramatic difference. Rather than complaining now, he should be campaigning as hard as he possibly can to ensure that fluoride is brought into his area as soon as possible. That will make a dramatic difference.
Finally, the hon. Gentleman mentioned dentists coming in from overseas. Those in the Commonwealth, new and old, will now be in a position to come here, once the immigration Bill is through and the General Dental Council gets the slight change in legislation it needs to bring the dentists in. They will come here, because this is an attractive area to work in national health, privately and in research.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
It is a pleasure to respond to this important debate and I thank the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) for securing it. I acknowledge many of his points but reassure him that dentistry is an absolute priority for the Government. He said he has previously tried to make contact with Ministers; he has not formally asked me for a meeting but I am happy to meet him should that be of assistance.
Let me touch on two of the main reasons why patients up and down the country currently struggle to see dentists. The first relates to covid. This is not a lame excuse for why there are currently difficulties: dentistry and dental services have gone above and beyond during covid. I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley (Sir Paul Beresford), who is a dentist, will back me up when I say that many dentistry procedures are aerosol-generating, so significant infection-control measures have been in place to protect patients and dentists and their teams.
At the start of the pandemic, when we first went into lockdown, only urgent procedures were allowed, so no routine procedures could be carried out. It was not until 8 June 2020 that infection-control measures allowed the reintroduction of some routine care. Even then, dental practices were able to work at only 20% of normal activity. That has of course had knock-on effects throughout England in respect of patient access to routine care.
Later that year, infection-control measures allowed up to 45% of normal activity, but it was not until last year that that proportion went up to 60%. Just before Christmas, NHS England and the chief dental officer wrote to practices to say that they could go up to 85% of normal activity and 90% of orthodontic activity. They are still not up to 100% of activity so they are literally treading water to try to keep the service going. I pay tribute to all those who have done such significant work to try to deliver services to the patients who have needed them.
Urgent care has been back at pre-pandemic levels since December 2020, so the backlog is in respect of routine services, whether fillings, caps, crowns or routine dental-hygiene work. Covid has significantly contributed to that backlog.
Wera Hobhouse
I understand from the dentists I speak to in my Bath constituency that the Government funding provided per patient just covers hygiene, not any of the repairs or dental work the Minister has just mentioned. Can she confirm or deny that?
Maria Caulfield
I will come to that in a moment, but let me first conclude on the impact of covid on dental services. The hon. Member for Bristol North West may be reassured to hear that the proportion of adults and children accessing dentists in Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire remains higher than the average for access to dentistry in England. It is probably no consolation to his constituents, but access is slightly higher.
Darren Jones
Is the average acceptable or below where the Minister would like it to be?
Maria Caulfield
I have been clear that covid means we are not yet operating at 100% of normal activity. We need to get back to pre-covid levels, when the majority of patients were able to access a dental appointment and around 28 million people saw an NHS dentist every 24 months. That is where we need to get back to but we will struggle, because of infection-control measures due to covid, to get there until we are at 100% of activity.
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that NHS England is supporting local commissioners. There was an intervention about helping to get more service provision; provision is commissioned at a local level, not by the national Government. National Governments provide the funding and then local commissioners commission the services. It is important that Members talk to their local commissioners to understand what services are being commissioned. NHS England provides flexible commissioning toolkits to local commissioners to help to focus the available capacity.
Darren Jones
Does the Minister recognise that local commissioners can only commission dental services if the NHS dentists exist and are willing to provide NHS dental services? The core of my debate this evening is not about the impact of the covid pandemic, which we all recognise; it is about the underlying issues of the dental contract and the shortage of dentists. Does she recognise that?
Maria Caulfield
I will come on to the contract, which was developed in 2006 under the last Labour Government, and highlight the impact it is still having on dentistry—
Maria Caulfield
This Government are always clearing up the mess of the last Labour Government. I am hoping to have a constructive debate but obviously Opposition Members are not willing to engage in that.
Despite all our efforts to increase services, we know that patients are experiencing difficulty gaining access to dentists. There are a number of options that are helping patients to locate their nearest dentist. Patients can call 111 to find out which dentists are taking on patients. [Interruption.] If Opposition Members are not serious about this and make funny head-in-hands gestures, it is really not helpful.
Maria Caulfield
No, I will not give way. The right hon. Gentleman is obviously not interested in my response.
In Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, a dental helpline has been set up to help patients to find an NHS dentist for routine care and to arrange urgent treatment. In addition, we have written to dental practices asking them to update their online information on the nhs.uk website. It is really important that this is available so that patients can find out which dentists are taking on NHS patients and which are not. It is crucial that that is kept up to date because it does change on a significant timescale.
Dentists are also being asked to maintain a short-notice cancellation list so that they can proactively contact patients who are on their waiting list if a patient cancellation occurs. All these measures help with the underlying problem of gaining access to NHS dentists. Later this week, there will be an announcement on some extra funding so that local commissioners will be able to commission services, because in some areas there would be more capacity if extra funding were available. Colleagues across the House will see the details of that in the coming days. My hon. Friend the Member for Thornbury and Yate (Luke Hall) intervened on a similar point. I am happy to meet him to discuss the issue around Frampton Cotterell, as I am happy to meet all Members if they want to raise specific local issues around dentist availability in their constituencies.
To get to the crux of the long-term issues, we hope to get to 100% capacity at some point post the pandemic. However, as mentioned by many colleagues, there is an issue with the dental contract, which has perverse disincentives within the UDA—units of dental activity—system, which dentists struggle with because they are paid similar rates when they are taking out one tooth or doing one filling as compared with doing extensive dental work. This is a disincentive to dentists to take on NHS patients, or sometimes to hand back NHS contracts.
Work has already commenced on dental contract reform. The Department and NHS England are working with key stakeholders, including the British Dental Association, to look at alternative ways of commissioning services, because only when we address the fundamental of the contract that dentists are working on will we get to the crux of the matter of the poor uptake of dental contracts and the reluctance of dentists to take on NHS work. Our aim in contract reform is to improve patient access, reduce health inequalities and make the NHS a more attractive place to work for dentists, making them feel more valued and helping to recruit and, more vitally, retain the experienced dentists who do so much to protect and promote oral health in this country. I am sure that the hon. Member for Bristol North West will welcome that. We are making some building blocks in terms of work that is already happening.
A number of Members touched on the issue of recruitment and retention of dentists. Only in September last year, Health Education England published its “Advancing Dental Care” review report on a four-year programme of work to recruit, retain and train not just dentists but dental teams. We have identified more effective ways of utilising the skills mix in the dental workforce. We are widening access and participation to training, we are allowing more flexible entry routes, including for overseas dentists, and we are developing training places for dental professionals, not just dentists; we want to upskill dental technicians and dental associates by providing them with more skills so they can provide a greater range of services. We are also looking at providing training in areas where we have dental deserts—where we do not have dental provision that local commissioners can commission. Importantly, we know from GP trainees that those who train in an area are more likely to stay in the area. We want to facilitate that. Health Education England is doing a huge amount of work to make that happen.
Darren Jones
I thank the Minister for her answers. One specific question I asked was about the recognition of EU qualifications and the 22% of dentists in the UK who originate from the EU. Can she answer that specific question please?
Maria Caulfield
Absolutely. We want to encourage everyone who wants to come and work in the United Kingdom to be able to do so, and we are working with the General Dental Council to make sure that happens. Currently a period of continued automatic recognition is in place for dentists with EEA and Swiss qualifications wishing to work in the UK and we want that to continue. Those with qualifications which were previously automatically recognised will continue to be recognised in the UK. I have heard from dentists from abroad who want their qualifications to be recognised here and we will work hard as part of the contract reform to make sure that that process is easier than at present.
On preventive work, my hon. Friend the Member for Mole Valley was absolutely right to point out that, as well as dealing with dental issues, oral health is crucial, and the Health and Care Bill is introducing proposals that will transfer the power to bring forward the new water fluoridation schemes, which will transform the oral health of many in the most deprived parts of our country, and could reduce the level of decay among five-year-olds by up to 28%. Simple measures such as that will make a big difference.
Although tonight I am unable to present colleagues with a quick-fix solution, I want to assure them that we are dealing with the issues covid has brought to us and we will be announcing further funding in this financial year to help to deal with some of that backlog, but there are issues with the current dental contract that unless addressed will continue some of the problems Members have raised this evening.
Darren Jones
I thank the Minister for giving way one last time. Might I gently suggest that the advice the Minister has this evening given my constituents in Southmead and across Bristol and the south-west who cannot get access to an NHS dentist is to call 111—they have tried that; it has not worked—to try to find a local NHS dentist, which they have tried too, and has not worked, and to wait for reform of the NHS dental contract, which has been in place since 2006 and this Government have been in office since 2010? They have been waiting for many years for that and I am not sure they are going to see it any time soon. I have constituents who are in pain waiting for dental care, and children who are not being seen. What are the immediate interventions the Minister can make? She has not offered any this evening.
Maria Caulfield
I would strongly disagree with the hon. Gentleman. He wants to work in a constructive way to deal with the issues facing his constituents, and he has already said that he wanted to meet the Minister, but he has never made an approach to meet me ever—
Maria Caulfield
I will not give way any further; I think the hon. Gentleman has made his points fairly clear. I have said to him that we are issuing a range of help. I have said there will be announcements later this week about funding in this financial year to help patients to be able to access dentists. I have also said that we are—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
A point of order at the end of an Adjournment debate?
Darren Jones
It is for clarification and for guidance, which I think is a point of order, if I may, Madam Deputy Speaker? My question to you is: the Minister suggested I had not been in touch with her to arrange an appointment, but it was the previous Minister. I wanted to ask if I was able to clarify that on the record.
Madam Deputy Speaker
That is not a point of order for the Chair, but I understand why the hon. Gentleman wanted to clarify that. [Interruption.] Order. We will not have any more shouting from people who are sitting down.
Maria Caulfield
I think it is very disappointing for the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) to say that there is no point in meeting or that it would be a pointless meeting. That is the sort of constructive engagement that Labour MPs in Bristol have. I have been very constructive and very open in offering to meet—my very first line in the response to this debate was that I was willing to meet—the hon. Member for Bristol North West to discuss that. If he was not serious about it, it is a shame that he has not been more constructive this evening. However, I am very clear that we are offering a range of options for patients. I have put on record and I have not shied away from the fact that patients are struggling to see their dentist. I have not shied away from the fact that dentists are not happy with the current contract, and we are instigating contract reform. I have not shied away from the fact that, with the current infection control measures, restrictions are still in place. However, as the Minister responsible for dentistry, I remain committed to playing my part to ensure patients can access NHS dentistry no matter where they live.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Competition Appeal Tribunal (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2022
(2 years, 3 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (James Cartlidge)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Competition Appeal Tribunal (Recording and Broadcasting) Order 2022.
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, and to start so punctually. The draft order grants the Competition Appeal Tribunal a permanent power to broadcast its hearings to the public by either audio or video technology. This draft order is to be made under section 32 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 with the concurrence of the Lord Chief Justice and Lord Chancellor. This order will replace the temporary order, which will expire on 25 March 2022. The decision to broadcast is subject to judicial discretion, should the judge have a reason not to allow a hearing to be broadcast.
For Members who are not familiar with it, the Competition Appeal Tribunal, more generally known as the CAT, is a specialist tribunal whose principal functions are to hear and decide cases involving competition or economic regulatory issues, including appeals of decisions by the Competition and Markets Authority and other economic regulators. The CAT is sponsored by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, but, as the power to make this order is conferred on the Lord Chancellor, it has therefore been drafted and laid before Parliament by the Ministry of Justice.
As hon. Members will be aware, during the pandemic courts and tribunals moved to hold hearings remotely using audio and video technology. To ensure open justice was maintained in these circumstances, a temporary provision in the Coronavirus Act 2020 allowed most courts and tribunals to transmit their proceedings to remote observers who had specifically requested access.
The CAT was not included in the Coronavirus Act 2020. To ensure that the CAT could continue to hold its hearings, a temporary statutory instrument under section 32 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013 enabled the CAT to broadcast its proceedings via a link on its website. This has worked very successfully; in a recent case concerning Newcastle United football club, around 33,000 individuals from over 50 countries were interested in watching the hearing, with around 4,000 observers doing so at any one time. The current temporary SI—I suggest that it may not have had quite the same viewing figures—will expire on 25 March 2022, when the Coronavirus Act is also due to expire. Given the success of broadcasting in this tribunal, we are seeking to make permanent the CAT’s ability to broadcast its proceedings.
This statutory instrument reproduces the existing temporary order, and it has two additional provisions. One is provision to revoke the temporary order. The other mirrors provisions in other statutory instruments under this power in relation to the Court of Appeal and Crown court, and requires any use of CAT footage to be fair and accurate. The footage cannot be used for party political broadcast, advertisement or promotion, light entertainment or satire. Additionally, the CAT has guidance to accompany each hearing listed for broadcast containing a warning that it is not permitted for any person to record a livestream hearing, and that breaching this requirement will constitute contempt of court.
This order will strengthen the principle of open justice. It will ensure that those who are interested are able to watch the CAT’s proceedings from the comfort of their homes or offices, when it is appropriate to do so and at the judge’s discretion.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again, Mr Rosindell. I thank the Minister for outlining the purpose of this order so clearly and concisely. Like him, I will not delay the Committee very long. He mentioned the Newcastle United case. It is a shame that the Competition and Markets Authority did not share the views of many Newcastle supporters, but we will leave that to one side. I am not particularly a Newcastle fan. It is a north-east team and I would support it, but I certainly support the Middlesbrough team.
Labour Members pride ourselves on campaigning and working for open justice and access for broadcasters to show the world what we and the courts are up to. It is now 32 years since broadcasting of the Commons began. Although many of us might say at times that we would like to see more publicity, there is no doubt that television, radio and online commentators have driven a huge increase in the coverage of our proceedings. Perhaps we will even see more of it with today’s great news that ITN and ITV will extend their evening news programme from 30 minutes to an hour.
I think we have been too slow in opening up the courts and tribunals to such scrutiny, so I welcome another step forward with today’s order, which will offer the public an insight into yet another tribunal taking decisions that affect them. The Opposition believe firmly in the principles of open justice. We believe that the public should have a right to witness proceedings unless it is in the interests of justice for them not to do so. That is why we supported clause 166 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in Committee, although we expressed concern about the fact that regulations could be made only if the Lord Chancellor agreed, and that no external stakeholder would be consulted in that process.
One particularly sensitive aspect of the decision-making process is how regulations will impact on the privacy of court users. During proceedings on the Bill, the Legal Education Foundation explained that if regulations were introduced without input from external experts, they could have serious unintended consequences. Can the Minister outline what risk he foresees for those who take part in proceedings in the Competition Appeal Tribunal, what consideration he has given to unintended consequences and how they might be mitigated? With that, I confirm that we will not be opposing the order.
James Cartlidge
It is always good fun to participate in proceedings with the hon. Gentleman, who has revealed where his loyalties lie in north-eastern football. I remember the glory days of Middlesbrough when Juninho and others were playing. Perhaps now the players know they have such powerful political backing, they will once again to seek to scale great heights in the football world.
My main substantive point is to reiterate that a quirk has led to these measures not being included in the Coronavirus Act, and it is necessary to extend them. We have been very successfully holding proceedings in the Competition Appeal Tribunal in this way, so I do not foresee any particular adverse consequences; we would have heard of any such consequences already. I believe the draft order is necessary as it will allow the CAT to broadcast its hearings, and that will strengthen the principle of open justice in relation to this particular tribunal. I commend the hon. Gentleman; with his journalistic background, he has been stalwart on the principle of open justice in our exchanges to date.
I have outlined the safeguards we have in place to ensure that broadcasting in the manner prescribed in the order does not hinder the proper administration of justice. That, alongside judicial discretion, should reassure the Committee that broadcasting will take place only when the judge considers it appropriate. This order replaces and builds on the success of the temporary order, which has been in place for more than 18 months and has been well received by the CAT and its stakeholders. I therefore commend the draft order to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Westminster Hall
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Throwline Stations
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
Before we begin, 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 remind Members that they are asked by the House to have a covid lateral flow test before coming on to the estate. Please give each other and members of staff space when seated, and when entering and exiting the room.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 575967, relating to throwline stations around open bodies of water.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani.
In May 2018, Mark Allen was out with his friends on a hot summer’s day. He was a bright and funny young man, who wanted to be an actor. The water where he and his friends had congregated was welcoming. Like many young men, and some girls, they did not register the danger. Feeling hot and sticky, the clothes came off and in they went. I am pretty sure that if I had been there, aged 18, I would have done the same. I have swum in the sea a thousand times, so what it is the difference?
In they all went. No doubt, they screamed with laughter and pain when the cold hit them. They probably splashed each other in the water, like we all do. Apparently, these boys got out, but they decided to go back in. Unfortunately, Mark never swam again. Last week I met Mark’s mum Leeanne—a brave woman who told me her story. There can really be nothing like the pain of losing a child. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of Mark’s extended family and friends for their loss.
When someone dies so young, we have to ask why. It is a very tough question. When a family can take something positive out of such a tragic event, it does not remove the pain, but preventing others from going through the same experience may help to bring at least some sense to it. Mark’s mum made a promise to him that she would do all she could to stop this happening to other people, so that families like hers do not have to suffer a similarly tragic event. The petition started by Leeanne has reached 103,000 signatures, and 57 of my own constituents have signed it. It has huge support, and I am pleased to bring this debate here today. There has been similar campaign work on throwline stations and water safety education over the years, and I would like to recognise the work of those campaigners.
Hundreds of people die each year in water, and the statistics prove that it is mainly young boys and men. Figures have shown that over the last eight years between 80% and 90% of those who suffer fatalities in natural water have been male. What is happening? It appears that boys and men are less risk-averse than girls, so that is the first point that needs addressing. The second point, which I believe to be the most important, is that many of the deaths are not down to poor swimming capabilities. Just because someone can swim, it does not make them safe; it is the shock of the cold water that kills so many. It is not like jumping into a swimming pool, which is often heated. It is not like someone running into the sea and then running back out again until they get used to it. It is the jumping in that does it. The third point to raise is that there are no lifeguards to help anyone in trouble.
So what is the answer? This debate is about throwlines. Some people believe that having throwlines at all open water spaces could be the answer and would help an awful lot, but it is not completely the answer. The problem is that if I saw safety equipment around a stretch of water, it might suggest to me that this is a safe place where I can go in. David Walker of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents—a professional in the field—said to me that when he sees this equipment, he is pretty sure that there has been an incident. In other words, what shouts “safety” to me and many members of the public actually shouts “danger” to a professional.
Having spoken to David, I am convinced that there needs to be a three-pronged approach. Education must be the first part. A 20-minute session with every child once a year would be a wonderful start, and we must ensure that boys engage with the lessons. Secondly, mandatory risks assessments of all waters—natural or manmade—must be carried out. The RoSPA will help with those, and although many of the larger water companies and councils already perform them, it appears that too many are just a paper exercise; they do not really carry out a thorough assessment or act fully on their findings, and that should be addressed. Finally, equipment such as throwlines must be put in place only with sufficient warnings stating, “This equipment is not a signal that the water is safe—far from it—and no matter how many times you have swum before, it could be your last.”
We will never stop young people doing risky things, since it is part of growing up. It is fun and makes us who we are. We learn from those actions: “That was a good thing to do”; “That was not so good.” I am a believer in taking risks, but those risks must be calculated. If our young people are not fully aware of the dangers, it is our job to correct that.
I ask the Minister for Levelling Up Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), to address three points. First, I believe that the previous Education Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), was looking into the education element, so will she ask current Education Ministers to do the same? Secondly, will the Government make risk assessments of all bodies of water mandatory? Lastly, if and when any equipment is installed, will warning signs be placed everywhere that say, “This water is not safe. Do not enter”? We will never bring Mark back, but we can help Leeanne to fulfil her promise to her son, and at least reduce the number of families who have to go through similar fatalities.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
I must say that my experience of the Minister means that she will be able to cover all issues. She is normally competent across many issues and Departments.
Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for introducing it on behalf of the petitioners and for making some good suggestions about how to improve the situation. I also thank Leeanne Bartley for being present, and for her tireless work campaigning to improve water safety. I spoke to Leeanne ahead of the debate, and I know that she made a promise to her son, Mark, after he died, to change things for the better. Today’s debate is a testament to her hard work in keeping the promise that she made to her beloved son.
Mark was well known and well liked in Gorton, where he lived with his dad. He had taken his GCSEs at Wright Robinson College in my constituency, and was studying drama at Shena Simon College. He had big dreams of becoming a professional actor. When we spoke, Leeanne shared stories of the joy and laughter that Mark brought to a family holiday in Paris, his love of watching wrestling, and his generosity to those less fortunate than himself. In June 2018, Mark was enjoying the hot weather with his friends on the edge of Gorton lower reservoir. Wanting to cool off, and unaware of the incredible dangers of open water, Mark jumped in. The freezing water took his breath away. His friends were unable to save him, and he tragically died.
If a throwline had been available on the shore of the reservoir that day, Mark may have survived. Throwlines are basic equipment. They are essentially a bag containing a rope that can be thrown to a swimmer in distress, allowing the rescuer to pull them safely to shore. Since Mark’s death, thanks to campaigning by Leeanne, and Mark’s family and friends, with the support of the local community in Gorton, I am pleased that Manchester City Council, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service and the reservoir’s owner, United Utilities, have installed three throwline stations at Gorton reservoirs. They are dedicated to Mark’s memory.
There is no reason why throwlines cannot be installed wherever there is a risk of drowning. They are not expensive and they save lives—they should be as common as defibrillators. The petition is absolutely right to call for Mark’s law. I hope that the Minister will update us on progress in making open water safer.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
May I say how pleased I am to see you in the Chair, Ms Ghani? I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on his opening speech, and thank the Petitions Committee for securing the debate.
The petition was initiated by a constituent of mine, Mrs Leeanne Bartley of Ruthin, who is present in the Chamber, and it was prompted by the tragic death of her son, Mark Allen. As we have heard, on 5 June 2018, Mark, who was then aged 18 and living with his father in Gorton, Manchester, was with a group of friends in Debdale Park, one of the largest public open spaces in that city. It was a hot day, and Mark decided to cool off by swimming in the nearby Debdale reservoir—a large body of water managed by United Utilities. It would appear that he scaled a fence to climb up to a platform and dive into the reservoir. The water was bitterly cold, and, sadly, he immediately got into difficulties. His friends attempted to rescue him but were sadly unable to do so, and he disappeared under the water. Mark was a young man and talented drama student with his life ahead of him. He is severely missed by his family and friends.
United Utilities told the inquest into Mark’s death that there were a number of signs around the edge of the reservoir warning of the danger of the water, and pointing out that it was extremely cold and very deep in places. Since the incident, however, the company has installed a number of throwlines around the reservoir. I am afraid that it is frequently the case that throwlines appear after such an incident has occurred. Mrs Bartley’s view is that the authorities responsible for the management of large bodies of water should be proactive in the installation of throwlines, rather than reactive, as they are at the moment, sadly.
About 260 deaths from accidental drowning occur in the United Kingdom each year, and that is without taking into account the number of British citizens who die in drowning accidents overseas. Mrs Bartley believes very firmly that that number could be significantly reduced if there were a requirement to provide throwlines at every large body of water in the country. Clearly, everybody would agree that it is highly desirable that the number of deaths by drowning should be reduced. The provision of throwlines would be a move in the right direction.
Most reservoirs are owned by the major water companies. The Environment Agency is responsible for the management of rivers, and the Canal and River Trust is responsible for managing the canals around the country. Those entities have a responsibility for the safety of the bodies of water that they manage.
The Royal Life Saving Society UK is one of the leading charities in this field. It helps people to enjoy being on, in and around water safely. I commend its website, which is a tremendously valuable resource, which provides a huge amount of information about water safety and a catalogue of the risks associated with open water. As we have heard, those risks include: the shock of cold water, which can make swimming difficult even for the strongest swimmer, and can increase the difficulty of getting out of the water; the lack of safety equipment and the increased difficulty for rescue; the depth of the water, which changes frequently and is unpredictable; and strong currents that can sweep swimmers away.
Evidence given at the inquest indicated that the water in the reservoir was extremely cold. In fact, one of the witnesses said it was freezing. No doubt, the low temperature was at least a contributing factor leading to the difficulties that Mark got into. The coroner at the inquest remarked that Mark’s death was caused, as he put it, by “the impetuosity of youth”. He said:
“We think we are bulletproof. We do what comes naturally to us and never think about the risks.”
It is possible that, had throwlines been provided at the reservoir, more could have been done by Mark’s friends to avoid this dreadful tragedy. It is also probably true that if throwlines were more widely available on bodies of water across the country, there would be far fewer fatalities of this sort. In their response to the petition, the Government have pointed out that landowners have a
“responsibility to assess and act on the risks posed by open bodies of water on their land.”
That is certainly true. I ask the Minister, when she replies to the debate, to explain what actions landowners should take in response to those risks, and whether she agrees that throwlines, which cost about £250, should be more widely available. Perhaps she could indicate if the Government are prepared to legislate, as urged by Mrs Bartley.
Dr James Davies (Vale of Clwyd) (Con)
My right hon. Friend and constituency neighbour is making some excellent points. I have had 566 constituents sign the petition—a significant number. Does he agree that any guidance or legislation that comes forward following the debate needs to apply to Wales as well as to the rest of the United Kingdom?
Mr Jones
I believe so. There has, in fact, been a debate on the issue already in the Welsh Senedd in Cardiff. When one considers that the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 is a national piece of legislation, I would very much hope that the Minister will indicate what national legislation she has in mind, or at least what the Government are prepared to do to provide stronger guidance to those who manage large bodies of water.
Finally, I commend the work of the Royal Life Saving Society UK. I have spoken to Mr Lee Heard of that organisation, who told me that the RLSS is always happy to assist landowners by advising what sensible precautions they can take to minimise the risks associated with bodies of open water on their land. It is a hugely valuable resource and I encourage all landowners to make use of it.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
No doubt the Royal Life Saving Society UK will be in Hansard twice because of your contribution.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, as always, Ms Ghani. I thank the Petitions Committee for selecting the topic and my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), for leading the debate.
It is truly heartbreaking to hear about Mark, who lost his life at just 18. I give my thanks and condolences to his family and friends. I also thank Leeanne for setting the petition up, so that others have a chance to speak and hopefully not go through the horror that she went through. It is deeply upsetting, and it makes me angry that, had basic safety equipment been available, his life may have been saved. What makes it even worse for me is that Mark’s story is not an isolated incident.
According to the National Water Safety Forum, 242 accidental deaths took place in water in 2020. The debate provides a valuable opportunity to reflect on all of those tragedies and what more might have been done to prevent them. In May 2021, my constituent, Sam Haycock, tragically drowned in a local reservoir. Sam was just 16 years old. He was a talented judo competitor, who competed at a European level, and he really had a promising future ahead of him. Throwlines were available at the reservoir, and Sam’s friends tried desperately to save his life, but with the throwlines having been padlocked to prevent vandalism, his friends were unable to access them in time. Procedures should not hamper access to protective life-saving equipment, given that the difference between life and death is a matter of seconds, but unfortunately they do.
I want to paint you a picture. Just try to imagine that your friend is drowning and you are panicking. First, you have to locate the throwline. Then you have to call the emergency services to get an access code. Then you have to give them the access code. You have to remember the reference number that they give back to you, memorise the code and enter it—all the while, you can hear your friend crying for help. It is clear that this is about not just providing the equipment, but ensuring that it is easily locatable and accessible.
We must also confront the real reason why the throwline that might have saved Sam’s life was behind a padlock. Mindless vandals who damage or steal life-saving equipment are placing lives at risk, and we must ensure that the law acts as a sufficient deterrent. Since Sam’s death, his parents, Simon and Gaynor, have been campaigning for Sam’s law, which would do just that.
I worked with colleagues in the other place to table an amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill that would create a specific offence of destroying or damaging life-saving equipment, including lifebelts, lifejackets and defibrillators. The amendment was debated in Committee and on Report but, regrettably, was not pushed to a vote. Speaking for the Government on Report, Lord Wolfson argued that the amendment was not needed because endangering a life through intentional or reckless damage to property is already an offence under the Criminal Damage Act 1971. That may be the case, but it is clearly not enough, and more needs to be done to prevent this sort of vandalism.
Several examples show clearly that existing legislation is failing to provide sufficient protection for life-saving equipment. After life-saving equipment was damaged at Salford Quays just days after being installed, Salford City Council was forced to resort to a public spaces protection order to deter vandalism. In Uckfield in Sussex, a defibrillator was rendered useless by vandals. Each act of vandalism on life-saving equipment could ultimately lead to a death, and the law needs to reflect that. Lord Wolfson acknowledged that
“if the law is not enough of a deterrent, we must focus on those responsible for water safety, health and safety, and law enforcement to come together to find out what is not working and identify workable solutions that might include sign-posting more clearly on the equipment the consequences of damaging that equipment.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 January 2022; Vol. 817, c. 1123-1124.]
That is a welcome commitment—but with lives at stake, it must have real urgency. I urge the Minister to bring forward a strategy that will ensure easy access to life-saving equipment, strengthen public information about water safety, and ensure that punishments for damaging or destroying that equipment recognise the devastating consequences to which that can lead.
If we are to save lives, we need to take action now. We need provisions that require local authorities, private landowners or whoever is responsible for a body of water not just to provide and signpost lifebelts and throwlines, but to ensure that they are properly maintained. There must be more education for all about the dangers of open water swimming, particularly in schools. Sadly, many of those who die in open water are children, who must be taught about water safety from the earliest age. We can prevent other families from suffering as Mark Allen and Sam Haycock’s families have, but it will take urgent and consistent action from the Government to ensure that our legal framework, infrastructure and education are up to the task.
Mrs Natalie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on his opening remarks and the Petitions Committee on securing the debate. I thank all those who petitioned to bring this important matter to us.
The tragic death of Mark Allen highlights the dangers associated with open water. I send my prayers and best wishes to Leeanne and Mark’s family and friends, and to Sam’s. His death was so sadly and effectively described by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), whom I thank.
In this context, I would like to talk about the terribly sad death of my constituent, Lucas Dobson, from Deal. Lucas was only six years old when he fell into the River Stour in Sandwich and drowned. Lucas was excitedly enjoying a barbecue and a day out with his dad at a privately owned jetty. While his father was checking an engine nearby, Lucas tried to jump on the boat by himself. He missed his footing and plunged into the water. He was instantly swept away by the strong tidal currents. He disappeared for four days. During that time, thousands of community volunteers and police searched high and low on the river for Lucas. Tragically, he was found dead on Wednesday 21 August 2019, some four days later.
The inquest heard that on that day neither Lucas nor his friends were wearing lifejackets while they played amid the boats on the jetty. That is why I support Lucas’s family—his mother, Kirsty Furze, grandmother Donna Kentfield and cousin Zoe Alldis—in their calls for a new law, Lucas’s law, which echoes and builds on Mark’s law, which is being discussed today.
Lucas’s law has three parts. It would make it compulsory for young children to wear lifejackets on and around boats. It would require more life-saving buoyancy rings and lifelines to be installed near rivers, lakes and seas, and would start a new safety awareness campaign for parents of young children, including encouraging them to use float suits and swim vests when the children are playing near water, particularly on hot days. It can take only a moment for an accident to happen that can take a young life.
Children’s float suits and swim vests can be inexpensive and cost as little as £10. Like cycle helmets and seatbelts, it just makes sense to be water safe. Yet more people die from drowning each year than from cycling, so we really need to start doing something about it.
I have been working alongside Lucas’s family to raise awareness of this incredibly important issue. I have called on the Royal Yachting Association, as well as other water safety organisations, to back these life-saving plans. In the year that Lucas died, the RNLI helped about 40,000 people in the water to safety. I thank the RNLI and Her Majesty’s Coastguard for all the work that they do to help keep people safe in my constituency, which is a coastal one.
However, I am disappointed that organisations such as the Royal Yachting Association and others, who should have water safety in their DNA, are not backing calls for new safety laws around water and compulsory lifejackets for young children. It is essential that such provisions extend to private boat owners and private jetty owners, and that they take legal responsibility and appropriate action for ensuring the safety of young people.
There have been changes in other areas of privately owned transport such as the car, and it is time for action on privately owned boats and jetties. Many other countries, including America, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand already have mandatory lifejacket laws. It is about time the UK put in place basic life-saving laws to protect young children near water.
Like Mark Allen, who also lost his life by drowning, Lucas Dobson might have been saved if the right safety processes had been in place and been followed. The tragedy in both those cases, and that of Sam, is that they were accidents that might have been avoided with better water safety support. We must now do what is right to stop accidents from resulting in drowning and death.
In my coastal constituency, water safety is an extremely important issue for me and my constituents. I look forward with hope that in the next year we can see Lucas’s law, Sam’s law and Mark’s law move forward together. There is a need for a comprehensive strategy in this place.
I want to end by paying tribute to Lucas’s mother, aunt and grandmother. Since the death of their child, the years have been tough for them. I commend them for pulling together and campaigning for better water safety to ensure that no other families go through what they had to go through, and to ensure that no further lives are lost in water unnecessarily.
At a time when enhancing all aspects of public safety is seen as an important function of Government, safety, especially of the young, around bodies of water must not be a poor relation in the safety debate. That such tragedies happen rarely is not a justification for inaction. There is a responsibility to tackle water safety with a rigour that befits an island and water nation. The challenge must be to stop avoidable deaths by drowning happening at all: to educate, to legislate and to save lives.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke). I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and the Petitions Committee for bringing forward this important debate.
This petition was signed by 606 of my constituents in Southport. I am all too aware of the tragic case of Mark Allen; I send my condolences to his family and friends and join my colleagues in calling for throwlines to be installed to prevent such needless loss of life in the future.
Landowners have a duty of care to those on their land. By speaking in this debate, I want to suggest that that duty should be strengthened, with further legal requirements for landowners to assess and act on the risks posed by open bodies of water. I welcome the fact that, since the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Government have enforced legal requirements to prevent employees and other people from coming to harm during work activities. However, the 1974 Act has well-known limitations; under the legislation it is not possible to enforce simple solutions such as a duty to provide throwlines near all bodies of water, for example.
In a modern, 21st-century country such as the United Kingdom, it is unacceptable that drowning continues to be one of the leading causes of accidental death. It is estimated that a shocking 44% of drowning fatalities happen to people who had no intention of even entering the water. Drowning in the United Kingdom is reported to account for more accidental fatalities annually than fire deaths in the home or cycling deaths on the road. Men are the most at-risk group in every age group, accounting for eight in 10 of all deaths.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
I apologise for coming in late—there was traffic, I am afraid.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that people, particularly very small children, can drown in very shallow water? There are areas—in caravan parks or places like that—that people think are safe, but which are not safe for very small children. There have been terrible occurrences and deaths of children drowning in only a foot or so of water.
Damien Moore
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. That is why it is incredibly important for landowners to carry out risk assessments around open bodies of water, particularly where children are concerned, so that protections such as throwlines can be put in place.
In Southport, the sea rarely comes in, but when it does it is rapid and all too often deadly. Our local rescue services go above and beyond in their duty to warn and protect; I welcome the opening, last week, of Southport’s new £1.4 million lifeboat station. The Southport Offshore Rescue Trust, which is independent from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, was founded by Kath Wilson after her son passed away in 1987 while fishing off the Southport coast. Southport Lifeboat is crewed entirely by volunteers and has helped to safely return more than 5,000 people since it was founded. I am sure that we all want to congratulate Kath and her excellent team of volunteers on their amazing work.
I also want to highlight that the RNLI has some excellent videos and explainers about what someone can do if they are in trouble in the water, including dealing with cold water shock, and I encourage all hon. Members to share them with their constituents. If those watching take anything away from this debate, it should be the three extremely important words provided by the RNLI: “Float to Live”.
I am sure that many of my colleagues are aware of the tragic incident involving Ben Smith-Crallan, who fell into a lake in Southport’s Botanic Gardens and sadly died following complications from an infection. Following the “Make a change for Ben” campaign, led by my constituent David Rawsthorne, tens of thousands of pounds have been raised for improvement works to the gardens, including the installation of an aeration fountain at the end of the lake to ensure that water is oxygenised, and potential measures to stop people falling in. I would add throwlines to the list of safety measures that need to be included.
The UK drowning prevention strategy acknowledges the difficulty caused by the fact that responsibility for managing water risks is dispersed among a number of organisations. While many, such as the Southport Offshore Rescue Trust and the RNLI, do excellent work, further efforts should be made to unite their various responsibilities to ensure that resources are effectively used, responsibility is clearly defined and individuals are best protected.
Let us start with the simple solutions. We should heed the calls of this petition to implement throw bags and throwlines around open bodies of water and go further by expanding opportunities to learn how to swim and spreading awareness around water safety. When the UK drowning prevention strategy was published in 2015, it called for accidental drowning fatalities in the United Kingdom to be halved by 2026. The latest data shows that we are halfway there, with a 25% decrease since the strategy was published. We should maintain that progress—even speed it up if we can—and ensure that we all do everything we can to prevent senseless tragedies, such as that of Mark Allen, from ever happening again. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to do everything she can to help prevent those tragedies from occurring in the future.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and the Petitions Committee on this afternoon’s debate. I have come along as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on water safety and drowning prevention. We are ably served by the Royal Life Saving Society UK. It is a great pleasure to be able to speak to some of the issues of concern that I have. However, I would first like to start, as many others have, by giving my condolences to Mark’s family, and indeed to those of all the people who have died as a result of drowning.
As has already been said, drowning occurs in this country on about 400 occasions each year. To put that into context, that is about one drowning every 20 hours. Within the time we have been awake, one person will have drowned. That is something that we simply must stop. It has also been mentioned, by the hon. Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra), that that figure is in excess of the number of people who die from fires in the home or in cycle accidents. Those 400 people’s deaths are preventable.
We also know that many people who do not die as a result of drowning still end up in a persistent vegetative state. We do not have the numbers for those people who then go on to need care for the rest of their lives. Drowning is about not only the number of people who die, but the accident as a whole and the impact on both the NHS and the emotional—and, on occasions, economic —welfare of our constituents’ families.
The second reason why I came along today is that I have been interested in water safety for many years. I am—I suppose—still a qualified lifeguard. I was a lifeguard for many years, in two pools that I can remember and on five beaches in Cornwall, where I grew up. I not only have my bronze medallion, but can go into the water with a reel and line, or with a paddle board and my torpedo tube. Some of us remember our former colleague Charlotte Leslie, who I worked with on the beach at Bude.
The whole issue of water is very important but, in addition to that, I am an active sailor in this country. I also like to scuba dive and surf. I sea-kayak and canoe, and have a paddle board. I think you get the point, Ms Ghani: I am either, on, in, or under the water on many occasions.
However, it is not at those times that we see people drowning—or even having problems in the water. As has been said, most people who actually drown end up in the water without expecting to. They could be running along a canal path, for example, could simply trip after a night out, or could be pushed in as a simple prank. That has happened on many occasions. Also, the popularity of activities such as wild swimming—something else that I do—and paddle boarding is leading to more and more people having problems in the water.
With paddle boarding, the problem has been people being pushed out to sea and we see problems around that in parts of the United Kingdom. A throwline initiative would not help with that, but it certainly would with wild swimming and we must identify places where people regularly swim. The issue of wild swimming, and indeed water quality, is very much on the mind of the Government following the Environmental Audit Select Committee—I will give it a small plug—report on the quality of our rivers, which is very important.
I mentioned people actually going into the water. Two weeks ago, I went to Waterstones in Covent Garden—other bookshops are available, of course. I was saddened to see a poster about a missing person called Harvey Parker. Two days later, I was watching the London news and it said that Harvey’s body had been found in the Thames. Harvey, who was not a constituent of mine, had been to the Heaven nightclub. I presume that he had been drinking and he found that he was simply in the water, not realising that he would end up there.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
Order. That may be an open case. We must not reflect too much on that situation.
Dr Offord
I certainly will not; I take your advice, Ms Ghani.
There is also the case of James Clark, to whom the same thing happened. He was at a nightclub in Kingston upon Thames, but he was not among his friends when they all left. When they got home, they realised that he was not there—in fact, it was the next day when they realised that James had gone missing. A few days later, his body, too, was found in the Thames. On both occasions, these guys did nothing wrong. They had been drinking, but that is not a crime. In the end, they found themselves in the water and, sadly, expired.
That is why I welcome the RNLI’s initiative. The RNLI station here at Westminster, on the embankment, is the busiest station in the United Kingdom. We may find it hard to believe that an inland water body is actually the busiest. The RNLI has worked with organisations including Nicholson’s, the pub partnership, and throwlines are now being supplied to other pubs, including the Horniman at Hays, just down by HMS Belfast. Some of the bouncers on the door there say that they feel more empowered. When people leave, they have often been drinking and they will be quite likely to hang around or stay near the railings; sometimes they even decide to stand over the railings if it is a warm evening. On those occasions, people have been known to fall in, so the bouncers feel that it is a great initiative to have a piece of equipment that they are able to use to help and save some of these people.
There has been mention of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. It is true that that legislation is necessary for companies and employers that are responsible for waterways, but most of the waterways in the United Kingdom are actually used by recreational users, so they are not covered by the Act. Therefore I would particularly like throwlines to be installed in a greater number of places in the United Kingdom—across Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as England.
The National Water Safety Forum, in its drowning prevention strategy, has come up with a target to halve—reduce by 50%—the number of drownings by 2026. I would certainly like that target to be more ambitious, but most of all, I think it could make a valuable contribution to preventing untimely deaths. When anyone goes into the water, it comes as quite a shock, but that shock is nothing compared with that of the friends and relatives of the person who no longer comes home at night.
Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)
Thank you, Dr Offord, for that very serious contribution, although you did also give us a kaleidoscope of all your water activities and all the time you have for that as well.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
Thank you, Ms Ghani, for chairing this sitting this afternoon. I also thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and the Petitions Committee for ensuring that this issue has been brought to the House for debate. It is incredibly important that we debate it, and the debate is very timely. My thoughts are with the family of Mark Allen—I applaud their bravery and tenacity in taking this issue forward and bringing it here today. Hopefully some change can be brought about to ensure that other families do not go through what they have gone through.
In Scotland, we have a pretty specific situation in relation to open bodies of water: we have lots of open bodies of water, and our open bodies of water are very cold. We have seen in the course of the pandemic, as was mentioned, an increase in the number of people wild swimming, paddle boarding and canoeing. I cannot claim to do any of those. I have tried sea kayaking and I am never going again—I was so seasick it was ridiculous. I did not expect to get seasick while sea kayaking, and it is not a thing that I will carry on with.
The increase in the number of people going out and enjoying the water and having a good time in the water in Scotland is brilliant, but we need to ensure that we increase the education as well. We need to ensure that, when people are going into the water, they are doing so while understanding the risks and what they need to do should they get into difficulty. The RNLI’s incredibly important “Float to Live” campaign was mentioned. It does not matter how strong a swimmer someone is and how many times they have been in that water before, hitting the water and getting the shock of the cold can mean that they freeze up, are unable to rescue themselves and get into real difficulty. It is really important that we ensure that as many people as possible are aware of that campaign.
In Scotland, we had our own response to the drowning prevention strategy in 2018. It included a number of things, but one of the key measures was to develop and promote water safety education and initiatives in primary and secondary schools. Given that in Scotland we have a different education system and a different police and fire system, as well as having a massive number of bodies of water, there needs to be a unique strategy, and we are taking that forward in Scotland in an attempt to make a difference.
In July last year we saw a doubling in the number of fatalities in Scotland’s waters, which is a big issue. As a result of that, particularly around Loch Lomond, the amount of safety equipment has massively increased. Several organisations, including the council, have worked together to increase the number of throwlines and safety signs and to increase the presence of the lifeguard boat at that side of the Loch to ensure that people can be saved, should they get into difficulty. That should not happen only after the fact. It should not take those fatalities for us to realise the issue.
We should increase the amount of education and safety equipment. We should ensure that people know how to use that safety equipment and that it is kept up to date and looked after. All of those are incredibly important. By 2026, we will hopefully see the number of people drowning in open water reduced. We all want to get there, and we are all pushing in that direction, but I think we particularly need to see education in schools.
I have young children aged eight and 10. As we quite often do in Aberdeenshire, whenever I go to a harbour, I am terrified that either my or somebody else’s children are going to fall into the water. My children probably do not realise, but I am hyperaware of it. When they hit 14 or 15 and go out by themselves, they will not have the same level of terror about the water as I have when they are near it. As a parent, I think schools need to ensure that young people are educated and have a reasonable awareness. It is okay to go into the water, but they need to have awareness of the danger it can pose, so that we see fewer fatalities and so that people can enjoy the outdoors safely in Scotland, England or Wales.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
It is a particular pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Ms Ghani. I congratulate the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), on behalf of the Petitions Committee, on bringing forward this debate. I was a member of the Committee in the past, and I know how important these debates are.
The hon. Gentleman introduced the subject with a gravity and comprehensiveness that did justice to a serious set of issues. He particularly dealt with the pain that has been represented in all today’s speeches. Most of all, I express my admiration for the campaigning that Mark Allen’s mother, Leeanne, has done. When I was researching this issue, I was struck by the impact that the campaign has had in garnering support. A magnificent number have signed the petition, not just here but in Wales. I hope that all of that will lead to change, and that is the purpose for which we are here today.
We have heard powerful speeches from around the Chamber. What struck me was that every single one reflected a tragedy for families and constituents. The roll-call of names is very sad indeed. I was struck by the comments of the right hon. Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones), who represented his constituent very effectively. I thought his point from the coroner’s report was quite striking. We all think we are bulletproof, do we not? I suspect we can all look back on occasions in our own lives when we have done things that, on reflection, were probably not wise. Mostly, we get away with it, but occasionally we do not. That is the key to trying to find a way to make our fellow citizens’ lives safer.
I was struck by the comments from my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). It seems almost indescribable that people could be vandalising safety equipment, but that is the world we live in, unfortunately, and I thought she made strong points about the need for action on that. The hon. Member for Dover (Mrs Elphicke) mentioned the sad situation of Lucas, and a strong series of points were made, to which I hope the Minister will listen closely. The hon. Member for Southport (Damien Moore) spoke of Ben. On it goes, it seems. Important points about the RNLI were also made. The hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) can at least come to our rescue as a lifeguard. He made a very positive contribution as well.
I was also struck by the fact that this is not the first time that the issue has been debated in this place. There was a debate last July that was slightly more education focused, but in which more sad cases were recounted and the same points were well made that it is not just about swimming; it is much more about an awareness of the dangers, and the need for that message to be put forward effectively in schools.
I ask the Minister what impact that discussion—I think it was raised by one Member in the debate—has had on the Department for Education? I know that the curriculum is crowded, but what has the Department been doing to ensure that these important issues are raised, because the number of deaths is striking? A number of us have been involved in transport over the years. Of course, we work hard to improve cycle safety and road safety, but to have so many people dying from drowning each year rather makes the point that we need to do more about it.
I contacted the water company in my area, Anglian Water, and was grateful for its guidance on quite a complicated subject in terms of the advice from the National Water Safety Forum and the Visitor Safety Group on when and how to use public rescue equipment. Although I am grateful, I also could not help noticing over the weekend the amount that the water company has paid out in dividends to shareholders over the past few years. Resources could be made available by a number of water companies to help us with this exercise in public education. I think the right hon. Member for Clwyd West asked what advice the Government expect landowners to be taking and what they expect them to be doing. What assessment have the Government made of the effectiveness of the panoply of measures that supposedly ensure safety, and what conclusions have been drawn from it? I also ask the Minister to outline what actions have been taken following last year’s petition and debate.
I noticed that there appeared to be a slight delay in responding to the Petitions Committee. I remember that during my time on the Committee we had many complaints about Government replies, but not always delays. I wonder why that was. The response seemed to me to be an account of the current layout, but I am unsure that that quite amounts to a response. I would be grateful if the Minister could produce a response, rather than just an account of the current landscape. Given the roll-call of Mark, Sam, Lucas, Ben and so many others, we need to make some progress, and I hope that the Minister can give us some assurance.
The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for securing today’s important debate. I offer my condolences, and those of the whole Government, to Leeanne Bartley, who is with us today. There is nothing more horrific than losing a child. It is something that we all pray that we never see. I pay tribute to her for her tireless campaigning since her son’s tragic death in 2018. It is impossible not to be moved by this tragedy. It is heartbreaking to hear that Mark Allen drowned after jumping into a freezing reservoir on a hot day and that there were no throwlines in sight, and to hear similar stories of Sam, Lucas and so many of our young constituents.
It is also heartbreaking to learn that a similar tragedy apparently also took place the same year at another reservoir not a mile away. Dwayne Thompson, I am told, drowned aged just 20 after encountering similar freezing temperatures at Audenshaw reservoir, so there is clearly a problem that needs looking at. Leeanne Bartley, Amanda and Stephen Thompson, and Kirsty Furze have all shown tremendous courage, channelling their grief and using a platform that no parent should ever wish to have to press for change. The fact that Mrs Bartley’s petition garnered more than 100,000 signatures and is being debated in the House is testament to her efforts not being in vain. United Utilities, which owns both reservoirs, has installed new throwlines at both sites, as has been discussed, and these throwlines may one day be the difference between life and death for somebody else.
However, I acknowledge the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley and others that these things seem to occur only after the tragedy. I was struck by his point that it is not just about having the equipment, because what screams safe to us may scream unsafe to safety professionals. The company is now running hard-hitting campaigns targeted at teenagers, using TV, print and online media, to warn about the dangers of swimming in reservoirs and highlight the risks, as well as collaborating with the fire service.
I will answer a few of the questions raised in the debate, and then talk about what we are doing to protect people and ensure they are able to enjoy the waterways safely.
Many Members asked what the Government are doing on this issue, and I assure them that we are committed to protecting people in the weeks and months ahead. It was interesting to me that this issue does not sit within one Department. I am responding from a local government perspective but, as others have mentioned, the Department for Education is involved, as is the Cabinet Office, in terms of convening. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has a role for some waterways, and even the Department for Work and Pensions is involved, because it runs the Health and Safety Executive. When many Departments are looking at something, it is often not that straightforward to get a co-ordinated response, which is why we tend to answer questions specifically on the particular issues afforded in our remit.
The Cabinet Office is currently reviewing coastal water safety. We will explore with all our partners across central and local government what more can be done to raise awareness of water safety, and to increase the provision of throwlines and other vital lifesaving equipment near open bodies of water.
Members asked what landowners can do. Providing them with information is clearly required, and that means ensuring that businesses, landowners and councils are conducting up-to-date and thorough risk assessments. The Local Government Association’s water safety toolkit is an invaluable resource for councils in those cases where the local authority has a role. I am committed to working more closely with the LGA on ensuring that that is being properly publicised and used by local authorities across the country. People need to know about water safety, and we need to do more to publicise that.
Many Members asked about mandatory legislation. That is not where we would start. It may or may not be the answer, but we need to look at the various issues first.
The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) raised an important point about throwlines being present but not usable, and a lot of work needs to be done to discover the right way to resolve those issues.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Natalie Elphicke) raised issues about compulsory lifejackets and better education. That does not fall within the remit of my Department, but I know that officials will have taken that point away.
We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Dr Davies) and from the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman). Despite my Department covering only England, we need to ensure we have whole country coverage and work together with the devolved Administrations to provide a comprehensive view. I look forward to working with colleagues from across the House on this issue.
There are 40,000 lakes in this country and no matter where anyone is in the UK, they are no further than 70 miles from the coast. Between 2019 and 2020, searches for “wild swimming” increased by 94%. The pandemic has increased the number of people wild swimming. We do not want to discourage people from wild swimming as full-water immersion boosts the immune system, reduces inflammation and has many other health benefits, but we need to ensure people understand the risks involved, especially as more people carry out the activity.
In the past few years we have enjoyed very hot weather, but our waterways remain cold. They remain northern European, even if the weather is becoming Mediterranean. That is one reason why we must ensure people know the risks of wild swimming are just as real as the benefits.
The tragic deaths of Mark, Dwayne and other young people we have mentioned should have been unique accidents, but they were not. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) stated, in 2020 alone there were 254 accidental drownings and 631 water-related fatalities in the UK. Combined with the surge in interest in wild swimming, this tragic loss of life highlights and reinforces the responsibility of landowners, whether they are local or not, to properly assess the safety requirements of bodies of water on their land. The Government’s No. 1 priority is to keep people safe, and we expect landowners to act in the same way.
Sarah Champion
First, I thank the Minister because she was clearly listening intently to my speech and to the whole debate. One thing that contributed to the death of Sam was that the equipment was overgrown—most of the places where we put throwlines are in areas of dense vegetation. I have a two-part question, thinking about how local authorities assess, and ensure the maintenance of, life-saving equipment for dangerous situations. We have identified that open bodies of water are dangerous, so could the Government say that there have to be so many throwlines for however many metres of waterfront, but also ensure that local authorities go in and make sure regular checks are being done? In the case I mentioned, that meant vegetation being cut down; in others, it may be that the equipment deteriorates in bright sunlight. Doing those things would ensure that, if the equipment is needed, people can access it and it is fit for purpose.
Kemi Badenoch
That is a really good point. It is exactly the kind of thing that I would expect the Local Government Association’s water safety toolkit to contain. If it does not, it is probably worth us mentioning it to the LGA when we next meet. I will ask officials to take that point away.
I was going to talk about the 30 different navigation authorities that manage regulated inland waterways, but I will mention just two: the Environment Agency and the Canal & River Trust, which some Members might have heard of. The Canal & River Trust is a charity that owns about 2,000 miles of inland waterway, and the Environment Agency is an arm’s length body of DEFRA that manages 630 miles of waterway. Both bodies are responsible for ensuring that waters are safe, and they have to undertake public safety assessments to work out where public rescue equipment such as throwlines should be on the waterways, so some work is done on that. Those bodies know waterways back to front and know the best places to install throwlines—the busiest locations, particularly where there have been previous safety incidents, or places of high risk, such as waterside parks. Those organisations run proactive public safety campaigns to raise awareness of the risks.
It is clear that we need to keep redoubling efforts to make as safe as possible the unregulated inland waterways and bodies of water that are not covered by charities and arm’s length bodies. The responsibility for providing water safety equipment rests with those organisations but in larger urban areas it rests with local authorities. Local authorities tend to work with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the Royal Life Saving Society UK and the National Water Safety Forum, which have been mentioned. Those groups do a great job of warning people, through campaigns, of the dangers of getting into cold water, which can lead to panic, water inhalation and, in serious cases, cardiac arrest.
We all know that the best rules and guidance are redundant if people do not know how to swim to begin with. My hon. Friends the Members for Don Valley and for Southport (Damien Moore) and the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) were right to draw attention to the critical role of education in all this, and I will speak a bit about what people are being educated on. It goes without saying that swimming is a truly vital life skill, and that is why swimming and water safety form compulsory parts of the physical education curriculum at key stages 1 and 2. As part of the curriculum, pupils are taught to swim at least 25 metres competently and confidently using a range of strokes, and to perform safe self-rescue.
As part of our efforts to help children to catch up on learning and activity lost as a consequence of the pandemic, DFE organised for sports facilities at 101 schools to reopen their pools or extend their swimming offer in the last academic year. DFE has also been working closely with Swim England, the Royal Life Saving Society UK and Oak National Academy to support pupils in returning safely to swimming and to promote water safety education. DFE Ministers were very keen that I mention those points so that people would know what they are doing.
Although education has an important role to play, and the bodies I have mentioned continue to undertake proper risk assessments and put safety mitigations in place, there are other practical steps that each of us should keep in mind when we want to enjoy our waterways, and I will state them for the record as a reminder.
As part of her campaign, Mrs Bartley has really pressed home the importance of talking to children about cold water shock and the dangers of open water. She is absolutely right to stress that it takes a whole different set of skills to swim in open water than in a swimming pool, so what we are doing in schools is critical, but it is not all that needs to be done. The National Water Safety Forum advises swimmers to wear wetsuits and allow their bodies to acclimatise to the change in temperature, instead of jumping straight in. Another essential factor that people should consider before they go swimming in open water is the location, because the safest places to swim will always be supervised beaches with lifeguards and outdoor pools. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution also recommends that people check the weather forecast and sea conditions before a swim on the coast so that they can avoid the potential danger of getting caught in a strong comment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) spoke very eloquently and with much expertise—far more than me—about these issues. Safety in the water is about not just safety equipment but understanding and being aware of the danger. United Utilities, which owns the reservoir where the tragic death of Mark Allen occurred, has now made sure that its signs make clear the risk to life. On its website, it has set out guides for parents, highlighting how a cold shock can affect even proficient swimmers. The advice of the RNLI is:
“If in doubt, don’t go out.”
Sarah Champion
I wonder whether the Minister is able to comment on something or pass it to her colleagues in Education. When I was at school, we had swimming lessons. I hated them and they worked, because I have never been near water again, so they have kept me safe. I went to a local authority school, and many local authority pools have now been shut down and many schools are now academies. Is it compulsory or recommended in education that children, particularly primary school children, still have swimming lessons? If not, is it something that the Minister could raise with her colleagues?
Kemi Badenoch
Yes, it is part of the key stage curriculum, but I will get DFE Ministers to write more comprehensively to the hon. Lady on this issue. I would not want to say something that is inaccurate, because it is not in my portfolio.
Mr David Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way before she concludes. As I understand it from her remarks, the Government are yet persuaded that legislation is the appropriate answer to the problem that we are debating, and she wishes to carry out further assessments. When does she anticipate that those assessments will be complete? Although I appreciate the point she makes about education and understanding the risks of the water, which are obviously correct, may I remind her what the coroner said? It was the impetuosity of youth—we all think that we are bullet-proof. Frankly, had there been a throwline there that day, it might well be the case that Mark Allen would be alive today. Will the Minister give serious consideration to legislation?
Kemi Badenoch
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. We will give serious consideration to all the options. We need to make sure that this is absolutely the right pathway to go down. I understand the points that everyone has made. I do not want to be standing here for another debate when another child or young person has lost their life, so I want my right hon. Friend to know we take this issue very seriously. He has been in government and he knows that it is never a matter of making a statement in Westminster Hall. All sorts of people need to be consulted, and we need to work out which Department would start looking at this issue, but I have committed that we will come back with a response. We should be able to do that in a reasonable amount of time.
I reiterate that we all share the same ambition of making our waterways as safe as possible. There is more that can be done to educate people on the risks, but I know that the bodies charged with keeping people safe take that responsibility seriously and will be upping the ante in the months ahead to prevent deaths such as Mark’s in the future. I take this opportunity on behalf of the Government to urge every landowner, council, agency and charity involved in our waterways to find new and engaging ways in the months ahead to teach people about how to enjoy the water safely. We are here to support them in whatever way we can.
Finally, I want to thank again Mark’s mother, Leeanne Bartley, for bringing the petition forward and inviting us to debate this important issue. We are very grateful.
Nick Fletcher
It has been a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Ghani. I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response. I would also like to take the opportunity to thank Mark’s mum, Leeanne, for being here today and for bringing the petition forward. I hope she is pleased that it has been a thorough debate, and I thank all Members who have taken part. This is obviously a really big issue. Every death is a death that should not have happened, and we should do all we can as parliamentarians to try to stop such deaths.
We have spoken about the need to educate people, whether they are young people or landowners, through risk assessments and local authorities. We should also take the time to listen to the advice of professionals. Sometimes we like a quick fix, when really we should take on board what the professionals say. If they say, “The equipment should be put there,” then it should be put there, but if they say, “No, it may cause a further problem,” we should look at that. On what the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) said about maintenance, the risk assessment should state the frequency of inspection.
An awful lot of these accidents happen in the summer months, so one thing that we can all do as parliamentarians is use our social media to get good, positive messages out there prior to the summer and prior to bank holidays, to let parents know, and perhaps to remind teachers who are dealing with children around water, that if they are teaching children to swim, “Yes, this is a fantastic safe place, it’s warm and you’ve got lifeguards, but out there it’s a different world.” I really think that there is a massive education piece, and we should all do what we can to try to keep all young people safe.
The last statistics I looked at—the figures I have from the Library include both “natural water” and “other water”, so we need to be careful which figures we quote— showed that 82% of accidents last year involved men. Everyone needs educating the same, but when I was a young man, sometimes I did not listen. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) said, we think we are bullet-proof—I know I did. We really need to get this message over, because no one should have to go through such tragedy. Once again, I thank everybody for coming to the debate today.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 575967, relating to throwline stations around open bodies of water.
Covid-19: Requirements for Employees to be Vaccinated
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Ian Paisley (in the Chair)
Before we begin, I remind Members that they should wear a face covering when not speaking in the debate. That is what the House of Commons Commission would like Members to comply with. I also remind Members that they are asked by the House authorities to have a covid lateral flow test before coming on to the estate, and to give Members and staff space when they are seated and entering and leaving the Chamber. I call Martyn Day to move the motion.
Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 599841, relating to requirements for employees to be vaccinated against covid-19.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. This might be one of the more interesting debates to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic. It has implications for health and business, and there are serious ethical questions.
The concept of mandatory vaccination is not new. Historically, children were required to be vaccinated against smallpox in the mid-19th century by the Vaccination Act 1853, which made it compulsory. Now, following on from mandatory vaccination for care home staff in England by 11 November, frontline health and social care workers in England will need to be fully vaccinated by 1 April, which means that they will need to have their first jag by 3 February.
Several countries have taken harsh stances on requiring vaccinations, such as Italy, which is requiring all over-50s in the workforce to be vaccinated. Given these recent developments, this is not some theoretical or abstract debate; it has considerable real-world implications for us here and now.
The petition was started by Ryan Karter. It has already gathered more than 175,000 signatures, and it still has several months to run until it closes on 1 May. The Government responded on 25 November, and I will comment on the response in due course. I am grateful to the creator and all those who have signed it, as the scale and speed with which it is being signed is a clear measure of the public interest in the issue.
The petition states:
“Make it illegal for any employer to mandate vaccination for its employees.”
At its heart is support for the principle of informed consent. In speaking to Ryan prior to this debate, he made me aware of several reasons he had for starting it, not least of which was the concern that mandatory vaccination for frontline health and social care workers will lead to a loss of workers, increase the pressures of staff shortages, and be unfair and disrespectful to essential workers. That is a theme I will expand on later.
Ryan also has concerns over vaccine safety, the evidence of their efficacy, and the failure of current policy to account for natural immunity to covid. The petition goes on:
“All British people should have the right to bodily autonomy and must never be coerced into receiving a medical intervention they may not want.”
That does not seem a particularly radical position to advocate, especially as the principle of consent is an important part of medical ethics and international human rights law. It is highlighted on the NHS website, which states:
“Consent to treatment means a person must give permission before they receive any type of medical treatment, test or examination.”
It adds,
“This must be done on the basis of an explanation by a clinician”,
and,
“Consent from a patient is needed regardless of the procedure”.
That is a position I find comforting and reassuring.
What do the UK Government say? In responding to the petition, the Government make a number of points. On the efficacy of vaccination, the response states:
“The vaccines are the best defence against Covid-19 and uptake of the Covid-19 vaccination has been very high across the UK. Vaccination reduces the likelihood of infection and therefore helps break chains of transmission.”
I assure the Minister that in that aspect he has my full support and agreement, and the weekly publishing of the covid-19 vaccine surveillance report evidences that fact. However, it should be noted that the reports state:
“Vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease with the Omicron variant is substantially lower than against the Delta variant, with rapid waning. However, protection against hospitalisation remains high, particularly after 3 doses.”
The Government’s response to the petition states:
“Government has identified limited high risk settings where there is strong public health rationale for making vaccination a condition of deployment. The Government has recently announced that health and social care services will need to ensure that workers who have direct face to face contact with service users have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, following consultation.”
It should be mentioned that within the NHS there is an existing, long-standing precedent requiring vaccination against hepatitis B for those undertaking exposure-prone procedures due to the potential health risk involved. Having said that, the expansion of this position to cover covid-19 is on a very different scale.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful to the hon. Member. Does he recognise that the requirement to have a hepatitis vaccination is only in the public heath green book? It is not mandatory in statute.
Martyn Day
I thank the hon. Member for making that very good point. As I say, it is on a very different scale. It also takes no account of the fact that vaccines do not prevent viral transmission or infection.
The Government’s response puts the position in England out of step with the other UK nations. It is probably the most contentious part of today’s debate, and it is where I find myself very strongly in agreement with the petitioners. By contrast, the Scottish Government have pursued an “educate and encourage” strategy in their vaccine roll-out—a strategy that has resulted in a higher vaccine uptake to date. In Scotland, the covid vaccine is entirely voluntary, and the Scottish Government have no plans to change this position for healthcare staff or anyone else. The Scottish approach advises companies to bring staff along with them and to encourage vaccination rather than require it.
I mentioned earlier the deadline of 3 February for NHS workers in England to have their first vaccination in England in order to become fully vaccinated by 1 April. This is imminent, and I believe there is an impending staffing crisis.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
The biggest issue facing the NHS has to be the backlog of operations and appointments. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that sacking 100,000 NHS workers can only make that worse—certainly not better?
Martyn Day
The hon. Member has read my mind. She makes a well-put point, which I was just about to come on to. I have a slightly different figure, but the principle is the same: it cannot help the situation.
In November, a Department of Health and Social Care impact assessment found that as many as 73,000 NHS staff in England could lose their job as a result. I do not think we will split hairs over a few thousand; we will not know the exact number until we find out how many people have had their first dose by 3 February. These Government policy job losses would come on top of the long-standing staff shortages experienced by the health service. Some estimates put the figure at 99,000 current vacancies in NHS England. If we do the maths using the figures I have just quoted, we could be looking at 172,000 vacancies in England come April. That position is not going to help the NHS provide care at this time of great pressure. It presents a very real threat—one which may put patients at risk and place further pressure on a significantly depleted workforce.
There are growing calls for this policy to be, at the very least, delayed. Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has said:
“We are calling on the Government to recognise this risk and delay a move which by its own calculations looks to backfire… To dismiss valued nursing staff during this crisis would be an act of self-sabotage.”
His reference to self-sabotage is very well put. Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has said:
“We are in the middle of an NHS staffing crisis, borne not only from covid absences, but also long-term problems that need long-term solutions. Now is not the right time to introduce more bureaucracy.”
The BMJ has highlighted that recruitment agencies are concerned about the effect of the policy on their ability to place staff, as well as the additional bureaucratic burdens of processing documentation, which is likely to take around 45 minutes per locum. I hope that the UK Government will listen to those concerns and the petitioners, look at the example of the devolved nations and think again, before they do serious damage to workforce levels and capacity in the NHS.
On requirements by other employers for staff to be vaccinated, the Government’s response states that
“an employer who proposes to introduce a requirement for staff to be vaccinated will need to consider the existing legal framework, including the law on employment, equalities and data protection. Whether or not it is justifiable to make COVID-19 vaccination a condition of deployment will depend on the particular context and circumstances.”
Some UK businesses have declared that all employees must be vaccinated or face a review of their contracts. The legality of that has been disputed by employment lawyers and trade unions, although, of course, it may be legal if it is written into contracts. For most of the UK, power over employment law is reserved to Westminster; only in Northern Ireland is it devolved. Decisions over companies’ requirements rest with those businesses.
On legal protections for workers, the Government response states:
“In addition to contractual and common law protections, there are relevant statutory frameworks, such as the Equality Act 2010, which provides protection against unlawful discrimination. The Employment Rights Act 1996 provides various general protections, including against unfair dismissal and unlawful deductions from wages. In addition, collecting, storing and using information about workers’ vaccination status will engage the law on data protection. Employers will need to ensure that they have acted in accordance with their legal obligations when making decisions on requiring a COVID-19 vaccination.”
That sounds like a potential minefield of complexity if ever there was one.
Last April, the Equality and Human Rights Commission said:
“Employers are right to want to protect their staff and their customers, particularly in contexts where people are at risk, such as care homes. However, requirements must be proportionate, non-discriminatory and make provision for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.”
From an employment law and non-discrimination perspective, the safest route is to encourage vaccination, not to mandate it.
As I draw my remarks to a close, I note that there are so many points that could be made in this debate but limited time to make them. I have only scratched the surface while setting the scene, and I look forward to hearing what other right hon. and hon. Members have to say. I reiterate my main point that an “educate and encourage” strategy would be a better approach and that there is still time for the Government to change tack on mandatory covid vaccination for England’s NHS workers.
Ian Paisley (in the Chair)
I am not going to set a time limit. If Members stick to no more than six minutes, they will have ample time to get everything in and it will allow everyone to have a free-flowing debate.
Margaret Greenwood (Wirral West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this evening, Mr Paisley. The petition calls for it to be made illegal for any employer to mandate vaccination for its employees. It states:
“This should apply to all public sector (including the NHS, armed forces, care workers), third sector and all private sector.”
At the time of this debate, more than 218,000 people have signed the petition; of those, more than 44,000 have done so in the last four days, which shows what a live issue this is and how strongly people feel about it.
As we know, it is the Government’s intention to make covid-19 vaccination a requirement for all health and care workers in England from 1 April 2022. I would like to state at the outset that I believe it is incredibly important for people to get vaccinated against covid-19 to protect themselves and those around them. However, if people are hesitant or frightened, they should not be pressured into receiving the vaccine. The Government should be doing far more to tackle misinformation and promote the benefits of taking up the vaccine to NHS and care staff who are concerned about it. The Government should focus on driving up vaccination rates through persuasion, education and support.
Forcing the vaccine on people is coercive and will do nothing to build the trust that is needed. It is an issue of employment rights and—more than that—of human rights. It is about freedom of choice—a basic fundamental principle.
There is already a staffing crisis in the NHS. The latest figures show that there are more than 90,000 full-time equivalent vacancies in England’s NHS. The Government’s impact statement on making vaccination a condition of deployment in the health and wider social care sectors estimates that 88,000 NHS and independent health sector workers, and 35,000 workers in domiciliary care and other care services, will not have fulfilled the condition of deployment by the end of the grace period.
The warnings from the sector have been clear. The Royal College of General Practitioners has described compulsory vaccination for health professionals in England as
“not the right way forward,”
and it said over the weekend that there will be “massive consequences” for the NHS if unvaccinated staff are taken out of frontline roles by 1 April. I hope the Government are listening. The NHS Confederation has said that mandatory vaccination will reduce frontline NHS staff numbers even further and lead to more gaps in capacity, at a time of intense pressure and patient demand. I know what a serious issue that is, having spoken to members of the Royal College of Nursing about the pressure that they are under due to the lack of staffing.
The Government are making a major crisis even worse by making it mandatory for NHS staff to be vaccinated. A number of constituents who have written to me are dedicated NHS staff with many years of experience. One wrote of how she had worked throughout the pandemic, at times with inadequate personal protective equipment. Sometimes she worked 60 or 70-hour weeks, and she feels greatly aggrieved about how the Government are now treating her.
Nurses facing a choice between losing their job or having a vaccine that they are worried about taking have written to me about their sleepless nights and the huge stress that the situation is putting on them and their families. Some say that they are supportive of the vaccine but, for medical reasons, are fearful of having it; however, they find that they do not meet the exemption criteria. One constituent expressed her concern that the Government website states:
“The clinical decision on your medical exemption is final. You can’t appeal the decision.”
I would be grateful if the Minister could let me know whether the Government will revisit that on behalf of my constituent and others in her situation.
Ministers really should listen to the voices of the hundreds of thousands of people, including hundreds in my constituency of Wirral West, who have signed the petition that we are discussing. The Government should not be pursuing policies that could potentially put more than 120,000 health and care staff out of work, exacerbating the already desperate situation in which the NHS and the care sector find themselves. Nurses, care workers and doctors are highly dedicated professionals who are trained in infection control. Their sense of vocation and selflessness during the pandemic has been, and continues to be, inspirational. Will the Government change course, protect these professions and respect the human rights of working people?
Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I put it on the record that I am massively pro-vaccine. It is the right thing to do, and it is the right way for us to move on from this pandemic and to protect ourselves. However, I agree with what the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) said in opening the debate about the importance of bodily autonomy and education, as opposed to forcing people to take the vaccine. I certainly do not think that businesses should be forcing existing staff, and I cannot imagine how seeking to do so would benefit their attractiveness as an employer or their viability as a business.
I want to focus my remarks on public services. As a county council leader, I am directly affected by this issue as someone who has to deliver social care services. Although staff made an incredible effort over Christmas to try to mitigate the massive staffing pressures that exist in the sector—my thanks go out to them all, because it was an incredible effort to do that and to protect those services and vulnerable people as far as possible—the impact has been huge.
As a county council, we have already gone, in just a few months, from having no waiting list for social care provision to having 400 on the waiting list. It is hugely important that we are not further hit by additional staffing issues. Care plans are regularly handed back to my director of adult social care at 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon for the council to pick up, because care services cannot deliver them over the weekend. We are just about managing so far, but further issues, including mandatory vaccination, will continue to hit us.
We have lost some staff already, and we are set to lose more. Overnight, hospitals and NHS trusts put out figures on how many staff they are set to lose. My local hospital is set to lose around 200 staff from 3 February. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) said earlier, that can only be detrimental given the continuing backlogs and the challenges of existing of NHS pressures.
I did not vote for mandatory NHS vaccines. In hindsight, I would not have voted for care sector vaccines, either, but unfortunately I cannot go back in time. The Government still have time to rethink, and that is my plea to the Minister. The wider debate about the importance of bodily autonomy and our rights and freedoms is hugely important, but it is also the case that, in this instance, the health argument does not stack up.
As we move out of the pandemic—touch wood—and beyond the period of most intense risk, I cannot see how it can be okay for these staff to have worked throughout the riskiest time of the pandemic, when transmission was at its highest, only for us to sack them now, as it falls away and the risk recedes. We know—the evidence suggests it—that omicron is less impacted by the vaccine. We have argued, when it comes to vaccine certification, which I also did not vote for, that it is okay to have a daily test and that that mitigates the risk of not being vaccinated, but we are not making that case for NHS or care staff. I do not see how we can argue both positions at the same time.
As we have touched on, there are 73,000 or 80,000 staff to go across the NHS and big numbers across the care sector. That can only make things worse when we have backlogs and waiting lists in both sectors. I do not know how getting rid of 80,000 staff across the NHS chimes with our commitment as a Government to 50,000 more nurses or doctors, or whatever it was. It is nonsensical.
I totally understand people’s wish to choose a vaccinated carer over an unvaccinated carer, but truth be told, that is not the choice; it is an unvaccinated carer or no carer. If it were my elderly relative being looked after, I would certainly prefer them to have somebody rather than nobody. Listening to Radio 5 this morning, I heard a GP making the same argument about a colleague in his practice who had been there for many years and had managed to work throughout the pandemic quite successfully, as far as access to GPs goes—that is another matter that we could debate for hours—but who now faces no longer being able to see patients over the next few weeks. How is that better than having an unvaccinated GP?
There is still time for the Government to reconsider. I really think we need to delay the 3 February deadline, hopefully with a view to reconsidering this measure altogether in due course. I recognise that there are probably significant legal implications of reconsidering the decision for the care sector, with people already having lost their jobs in that sector, but still, this is not a good plan and it will not help us to deliver these services. I call on the Government to reconsider. The evidence does not make a strong enough case, from a health point of view, to override those freedoms, to override bodily autonomy or to exacerbate the staffing issues that already exist, so I call on the Government to think very hard over the next week or two about whether this is something they really want to do. I certainly do not think it is.
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I thank the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) for introducing this debate and for making his case with such eloquence. I also draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I begin by acknowledging the immense debt of gratitude that I and all my constituents owe to Dr Mantgani and his Birkenhead vaccination team. Throughout the pandemic, they have consistently outperformed all other teams in the north-west, and even today, from their base in the Birkenhead medical centre, they continue to work tirelessly to encourage the vaccine hesitant to come forward and have their first jab. The vaccine remains the most powerful weapon that we have in the long fight against covid, and I implore any of my constituents who have not yet had their first jab to get it as soon as possible, without fear of judgment or ridicule.
However, as the Government start speaking of a future beyond covid restrictions, we must confront the uncomfortable fact that many people in the country still refuse to get vaccinated. For those of us who have proudly had our boosters, their reasons may sometimes seem unfathomable. Some have fallen prey to the online conspiracy theories and scare stories that the tech giants have failed miserably to stamp out, some have legitimate health concerns or suffer from deep-seated phobias, and others distrust established authority, with varying levels of justification. All of them deserve to be treated with compassion—and so, as we ask ourselves whether employers should be allowed to make vaccination a condition of employment, my answer is a loud and resounding no.
The recent vote to introduce a vaccination mandate in the NHS highlights some of the issues that we face. To defy the party Whip is never an easy decision, but I voted against that motion, and resigned from the Front Bench in the process, because I could not in good conscience condemn so many of our healthcare heroes to the dole queue. Now, 80,000 healthcare heroes face the grim prospect of unemployment in the midst of a once-in-a-generation cost-of-living crisis.
Experts were quick to make their objections known. The Trades Union Congress warns that without a delay to its implementation, the vaccine mandate could compound an already acute staffing shortage and lead to a “staffing nightmare”. The Department of Health and Social Care’s own equality impact assessment makes it clear that black, Asian and minority ethnic workers, young workers and women are likely to be disproportionately affected. Meanwhile, the Government seem to have run roughshod over the concerns of the trade unions in their haste to drive through the policy.
NHS staff need only look to the care sector to see the consequences of enforcing such a mandate. Following the introduction of a “no jab, no job” policy in care homes last summer, many dedicated workers have been forced out of the profession they loved. Unison is warning of a “catastrophic” staffing crisis in a sector that was already in desperate need of no fewer than 100,000 additional staff.
Of course, service users have every right to feel safe in their hospitals and care homes. Every effort must be made to protect them and to convince those who care for them of the need to get a jab. But we must never forget that it was only two years ago that these very same health and care workers were asked to enter clinical settings that the Government had so utterly failed to make safe. Nor should we ignore the far more fundamental role that shortages of PPE, tests and staff continue to play in jeopardising patient safety. We should never stop holding the Government to account for their monumental failure to engage with the alternative and effective safety measures that have been set out by the trade unions.
It is not just clinical settings that have been affected. In the last few weeks alone, a score of major retailers, including IKEA, Next and Ocado, have announced that unvaccinated workers will be forced to survive on the pittance that is statutory sick pay should they be forced to self-isolate. What a shame. It is not safety that has motivated this decision; it is profit, pure and simple.
I urge the Minister to consider the implications of the Government’s actions. I fear that this draconian and punitive strategy will do nothing but harden the minds and strengthen the convictions of the vaccine hesitant. The only way to win minds and get jabs in arms is through compassion, engagement and understanding. That will do far more than vaccine mandates ever will in bringing us closer to winning the long war on covid.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), who opened the debate, and to all the petitioners.
Like others who have spoken, I am hugely supportive of the vaccine—it works. Office for National Statistics data from November shows that, throughout 2021, the death rate was 28 times higher among the unvaccinated than among those who had been double-jabbed. It is utterly clear that the vaccine is our way out of this, and we should stand behind the evidence and encourage people to take it. But to compel people is utterly illiberal, utterly wrong and a challenge to our freedoms.
The petitioners rightly challenge us to consider how we treat our fellow citizens who are not yet vaccinated. Some are not vaccinated for good clinical reasons, and we know that they are covered, but others are hesitant—not resolutely opposed, but hesitant. Some are resolutely opposed, and a smaller number will be those who spread information that we would perhaps term “fake news”, which has a huge impact because it can lead to and feed the hesitancy of a much larger number. But for liberal, compassionate and practical reasons, we must agree with the petitioners and oppose compulsion.
Treating the unvaccinated members of our society as second-class citizens is utterly wrong. It is an attack on freedom and, as has just been mentioned, it is hardly going to win over hearts and minds. My challenge and ask of the Minister is: what are the Government going to do to step up their efforts to educate and inform, to tackle the common objections, and to answer them rigorously and regularly through challenge? Changing hearts and minds will take skill, patience and persuasion. I am certain that compulsion will do the opposite of what the Government think it will achieve.
Forcing people to be vaccinated who have chosen so far not to be will, understandably, turn hesitant people into hostile people. It will solidify resistance to the vaccine. It will give the small minority who wilfully spread misinformation the status of martyrs, making the whole exercise utterly counterproductive.
As has been mentioned, compulsion will have a particular and appalling impact on our health service at every level. We reckon that in my local hospital trust, which has three hospitals in the Morecombe bay area and more further north in the rest of Cumbria, at least 94% of NHS staff are already vaccinated, and that figure is growing by the day. To explode that by introducing compulsion is wrong on so many levels.
This might be a high estimate, but staff in the trust estimate that up to 800 staff across those three hospitals and in other parts of the NHS in our community could lose their jobs. If they are not vaccinated in a week and a half’s time, they will be on a trajectory to be out of a job by 1 April. That is an insult to those people, who have served us, kept us well, saved people’s lives and put themselves and their families in harm’s way over these two appalling years. Ministers clapped them, and now they will sack them. That is utterly wrong and ungrateful, above all else. As we have said, 3 February is just a few days away, so a U-turn now is urgent. This will cause colossal damage in our health service in a matter of days and weeks.
In our communities in south Cumbria and north Lancashire, at times, more than 50% of people diagnosed with cancer are waiting more than two months to get their first treatment. We know that for every four weeks that someone waits for cancer treatment, there is, on average, a 10% decrease in their likelihood of surviving that cancer. Thanks to figures provided by Macmillan, we know that through the pandemic, 740,000 cancer screenings were missed, and 60,000 diagnoses were missed. There are 60,000 people out there with cancer who do not know it, or who were not diagnosed until probably far too late.
That is a snapshot of the kind of pressure that our health service is under just when it comes to cancer, yet we are just weeks away from the Government potentially cutting the workforce by at least 5% in one go. That is unconscionable and wrong. Of course people must get vaccinated—I will plead with people to get vaccinated—but to compel them is an insult, an assault on liberty and counterproductive to the effort to increase vaccination. It will hugely undermine our national health service just at the moment when we need it the most.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank all the petitioners, including 354 from my constituency of York Central, for enabling us to have this important and timely debate just days before legislation will mean that hundreds of thousands of NHS workers will lose their jobs. Before I begin, I must declare my interest as a former head of health at Unite and a senior clinician for 20 years, working in acute medicine.
The Government know that they have to withdraw the mandatory vaccination regulations. They have no choice. We are heading for such a serious NHS and social care crisis that no one will ever forget that the Tories broke the NHS and spun it into this unnecessary crisis, delaying operations and sacking vital NHS staff after all they have done to serve us, even at a time when they were very much forgotten. We are already around 100,000 staff down in the NHS. According to Government figures, another 88,000 people could be sacked if they are not vaccinated by 3 February. That is just days away. People are already having to hand in their notice. Many already have, which is putting pressure on our service.
If a Health Minister were present—I have to say that I am perplexed that one is not—they would know that the exodus of staff will not only seriously exacerbate the covid crisis but place incredible stress on the staff who have to remain, and therefore break them too. We already know about the very fragile mental health of the staff, who have been so traumatised by covid. As for social care, which is already unable to meet demand, the most vulnerable will be left without vital care. Delayed discharges will fill our hospitals, blocking the back door as well as the front door.
Just think: 115,000 staff who are in work today will be sacked—gone, no longer serving, in the dole queue. It is negligent and illiterate to not remove the regulations. I trust that Labour has also seen the light and understood the risk, and that it too will call for the immediate withdrawal of the regulations. Labour cannot be complicit in the sacking of hard-working health and care workers, or in bringing our NHS to its knees.
I want to make it clear that I want everyone to participate in the vaccine programme. Covid remains a killer disease. To date, 1.3 million have been left with debilitating symptoms of long covid. The public inquiry has never been more needed, with devastating mortality and infection rates—and excess deaths on top—in our country. We must get on top of that. More than 1,000 people are continuing to die each week. The Government’s inconsistency in their application of the public health measures is at the root of many of those deaths. It is a complete scandal.
However, it is also a complete scandal to sack our NHS and care staff. The foresight of scientists to embark on the development of the vaccine, with taxpayers’ money, and that being rolled out through the NHS, has saved so many lives. As the professional bodies in the NHS—such as the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Nursing—say, the regulations must be withdrawn. As all of the NHS and social care trade unions say, the regulations must be withdrawn. I have talked to NHS and social care staff, and they are resolute that they will not be bullied into a vaccine. They have very real concerns, and they are resolute.
The NHS constitution, and the whole health system, is dependent on informed consent. The vaccine does not remove the risk of transmission or sickness. Government statistics sent to me by the Health Minister, the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), state that vaccine efficacy depletion against omicron is reduced to between 40% to 50% in 10 weeks. It helps for now, but there is no long-term plan. By April, efficacy will be below 50%, which means that the risk of transmission remains unless other measures are taken. The Health Minister knows that we cannot keep vaccinating every eight to 10 weeks, but she has not produced a plan for what we will do next. Higher-grade PPE will help, and regular testing will of course make us safer, but what is the plan?
The Government recklessly removing all restrictions, as covid continues to rip through our communities, is placing lives at risk. At the same time, they will put more pressure on the NHS because people will be sacked. That is illiterate, inconsistent and dangerous.
Staff are intelligent; they have analysed the data and come to their own decisions. It is through support that they will make their final decisions. That is why that supportive conversation—with a health professional with the right competencies, rather than a manager—is essential. I trust that the Minister will move on that point too.
There have been 431,482 reports of vaccine side effects on the yellow card system, up to 5 January, so of course health professionals are analysing that data—that is what health professionals do. There is no longitudinal study about the impact on long-term fertility—why not? That is the reason why many women are not getting vaccinated. Many staff have had covid and have antibodies. Why did they get covid? It is because the Government failed to provide PPE in those early days. Remember that? The Government were not sacked, yet today they will sack NHS staff. Well, I say no.
It is time to climb down, withdraw the regulations and respect our exhausted, stressed and traumatised NHS and care staff. It is time to work with them, not against them. It is time to say sorry for putting them under such pressure through these regulations. It is time to withdraw.
Paula Barker (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on securing this incredibly important debate and on his superb contribution.
We are sleepwalking into a crisis. The motives for making vaccination mandatory for NHS staff may have come from an honest and sincere place, but one issue is not properly resolved if that inadvertently creates a bigger problem elsewhere. So polarising is this debate that we often find ourselves qualifying our support for the vaccination programme. I am double-jabbed and boosted, and I encourage my constituents who are staff in the NHS to get vaccinated if they have not done so. However, this can be done through encouragement and consent; it does not have to be mandatory.
I laid out my concerns to the Health Secretary when the statutory instrument was considered in the Chamber. I said then that it would cause a workforce crisis; I said then that such a practice should not be applied to the law, as it was in the case of hepatitis B, as hon. Members have already mentioned. Increasing vaccine uptake should be built on consent and negotiation with those who have not yet been jabbed. I also said in December that forcing people to get vaccinated when they have already given blood, sweat and tears during the most dangerous periods of the pandemic is not only immoral but illogical.
The founding principles of the NHS were built on consent. This legislation flies in the face of that. We clapped for the workers on a Thursday evening at the start of the pandemic. Those brave souls put their lives at risk because most of them did not have the appropriate PPE—the Government failed them on that, yet again. A variation of either delaying, pausing or scrapping this move entirely is the position of the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Nursing, the British Medical Association, Unison, Unite the union and other organisations that represent most NHS staff. Like them, I know that creating a workforce crisis when our NHS can least afford it, in its 74-year history, is reckless. It will be on this House if such a crisis comes to pass.
What is really interesting is that the Health Secretary believes that these people are such a danger to the public that, in December, he did not want them to immediately be moved from the workplace. No, he wanted them to get us through the Christmas crisis in the NHS and then he would thank them by sacking them on 1 April. It is morally reprehensible.
We do not know what the impact of losing up to 8% of its workforce will be on the NHS, because the final number is yet to be revealed. The House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee raised credible and critical concerns that have had no impact whatsoever. There has been no thorough impact assessment from the Department and there is a lack of clarity on whether the benefits of this measure are proportionate to the NHS losing up to 126,000 staff members and then spending over a quarter of a billion pounds on recruitment to fill the resulting vacancies.
I did not come into politics to sack thousands of health workers on the back of an unprecedented public health disaster, but that is what this Government are going to do—this Government who disregarded their own rule book throughout the pandemic; who had “bring your own bottle” parties; who are led by a Prime Minister who claims he did not know whether it was a party or not, and who has come to this House and circumvented answering the most precise questions, while the rest of us obeyed the rules and while care and NHS workers worked tirelessly to save people’s lives. Those health workers are now going to be sacked. It is absolutely disgraceful.
Opposition parties should play no part in taking this sledgehammer to our national health service—and that is exactly what this will be. It is morally reprehensible and I implore the Government to change course on this, because it is not too late.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am very pleased to be here, Mr Paisley. I think this is my second consecutive Westminster Hall debate under your chairmanship—you will soon be here as much as I am, at this rate.
Jim Shannon
I jest. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on setting the scene so comprehensively. In the light of the contributions from hon. Members, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that there is a clear case to make on behalf of workers, and I will speak about that as well.
On 7 December 2020, 90-year-old Margaret Keenan—a grandmother originally from County Fermanagh—rolled up her sleeve at University Hospital Coventry and took her place in history. Each of us remembers that day exceptionally well. I know that we do, Mr Paisley, because she was from Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, but I believe that she was an inspiration to every one of us who took our jabs and boosters.
Mrs Keenan became the first person in the world to be vaccinated against covid-19. Since then, almost 10 billion doses of the three main vaccines have been administered around the world. We thank our Government, and the Minister, for that incredible initiative. I have absolutely no doubt that many people are alive today because of the vaccine roll-out. It is just unfortunate that others did not get that chance. There is no doubt that all those who quickly followed in Mrs Keenan’s path helped to create the turning point in the first pandemic in living memory. In countries that quickly rolled out the vaccine programme, it has had a major impact on cutting hospitalisation and death rates.
I do not think anyone can ignore the fact that more than 200,000 people have signed the petition. Although that shows how many people felt moved to sign it, my interpretation of petitions is that they reflect only a small proportion of overall support, because many people who would have agreed with a petition’s intent and wording did not get to sign it.
I heard in the news today that Israel is considering a fourth dose of covid vaccine for the over-60s. The evidential base indicates that a fourth dose seems to make the over-60s resistant to many other diseases as well. Maybe that is something that our Government should be looking at to ensure that our people are safe in the long term.
To date, 9.87 billion doses of the vaccine have been delivered worldwide, and 4.09 billion people—52.5% of the world’s population—are fully vaccinated. We should recognise that as a remarkable undertaking and an achievement of human effort and medical science since that very first dose just over a year ago in December 2020. It has been achieved purely through voluntary effort and by successfully persuading people that getting vaccinated was the right thing to do not only for themselves, but for the people around them. I use the word “persuading” because that is what the Government should be doing rather than coercing or strong-arming people into doing things that they feel strongly about.
We must recognise, however, that vaccination has not eradicated covid-19. We have not vaccinated our way out of the pandemic, however much that might have been intended. New variants have emerged, and people are talking about the B.1s and C.1s, so people have become re-infected and have continued to transmit the virus—that was mentioned on the radio today. I am a supporter of the vaccine programme. I am triple-vaccinated because I chose to be vaccinated, as has just over half the world’s population, but I strongly believe that being vaccinated against this virus should remain a personal choice.
How life changes. I bet that a year ago every one of us in this room was out clapping for our NHS staff on Thursday nights—I know that my family and I were, because we recognised what those in the NHS were doing. Yet a year later we have a different policy, as if none of that mattered any more. It mattered a year ago, and we were prepared to say so; it should matter now, too. I am not sure whether the Minister is deputising for someone else, or maybe I have got that wrong, but in any case, I am concerned that Government policy seems to be to coerce and strong-arm people into getting a vaccine. I have to stand by those who come to see me about this matter.
Mr Paisley, you and I have discussed the nurses, NHS care staff and other staff who routinely work on wards making things happen. They have chosen their vocation and made a commitment. Many of them have shed tears about the Government following through with a policy that will take their jobs away from them. In her invention, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) rightly mentioned the figures. Where will we be with cancer and cataract operations, or treatment for heart disease and strokes? We all know the conditions for which there are now long waiting lists, and those lists will just get longer if we pay off 80,000 staff, 115,000 staff, as the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk said in his opening speech, or 175,000 staff, as others have said.
It is a foundation principle of medical ethics that consent must be given for any medical procedure. Making vaccination against covid-19 a requirement for employment is opening the door to imposing penalties on those who, for their own reasons, do not comply with the law. As I have said, I have been contacted by many constituents who work in healthcare and have expressed very real concerns that mandatory vaccination for covid-19 will lead to a two-tier workplace—yes, it will—that will see vaccinated employees rewarded by financial incentives over those who choose not to be vaccinated. That is happening across the world.
Every one of those staff has dedicated themselves to their excellent work. We all know that our healthcare workers are driven by their duty of care and commitment to their chosen field while being in the most underpaid, under-resourced and overworked profession. If we lose that number of staff from the healthcare sector in February because they have made a personal choice, waiting lists will get longer and diagnostic investigations will not take place in the timescale that we hope to see.
I commend the healthcare workers who choose to come forward to be vaccinated. We need to make the distinction between vaccine refusal and vaccine hesitancy. Hesitancy is based on trust, and is something we can work on. Rather than directing health system resources and political muscle towards imposing penalties for non-compliance, we would do better to invest further in education and more efforts to facilitate meaningful conversations between concerned people and healthcare professionals.
We cannot and should not become a society or Government that penalises or sanctions people for making a personal health choice. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) made an excellent point about libertarianism. It is a policy of his party that I share—by the way, I do not share all Liberal Democrat policies; just this one. This is about liberty, freedom and choice, and about people following the vocation they love without being penalised for that choice.
When we make legislation for the workplace, as for anywhere else, we must always balance public objectives against individual rights to freedom of choice and freedom from discrimination. We must recognise that trust is a major factor for people from some ethnic and religious groups, some of whom will have a problem with vaccination from a religious point of view. Should they be penalised because they work in the NHS? The Government would do better to build confidence in the vaccine programme and see vaccination rates increase, instead of creating a legal requirement for the workplace.
Let us use this Westminster Hall debate to build trust in the vaccine programme and respect choice, because choice is not only part of the informed consent process, which we should all adhere to, but a valued and inherent sign of respect for the person. To pursue compulsory vaccination flies in the face of all that is key and core for our NHS workers, including doctors, nurses, care staff and others. I believe that we must stand by them.
Ian Paisley (in the Chair)
Before I call the SNP spokesperson, I thank all Back Benchers for self-regulating their time during the debate, which has landed perfectly for everyone. Thank you for doing that without me having to set a time limit.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Paisley. I thank all the petitioners who signed the petition. I believe this shows our democracy in action, which is why I always like to come along to petition debates.
E-petition 599841 calls upon the UK Government to prohibit employers from asking their employees to be vaccinated before starting employment, a hugely impactful decision with consequences that stretch across many sectors and industries. Enforcing the vaccination of employees, according to the petition and the petitioners, violates the concept of informed consent. I find that hard to disagree with. We do not live in a totalitarian society, and we should not expect individuals to be punished or persecuted for refusing vaccinations.
Mandatory vaccination in the workplace is, in my opinion, fundamentally and morally wrong. Instead of using—for want of a better word—force, the Scottish Government believe that we should educate and encourage individuals to receive vaccines through persuasion rather than coercion. With the idea of mandated vaccinations being mooted, I believe that more employers will act to reduce statutory sick pay for unvaccinated employees who are forced to, for example, self-isolate.
Companies such as Morrisons, IKEA and Next have already moved to implement such policies, and it is only a matter of time before more follow. Perhaps instead of introducing mandatory vaccinations, the Government should consider enacting legislation to prevent employers from altering their sick pay policies in relation to unvaccinated workers. A pandemic should not be an opportunity to lessen employment rates. As a morally just legislature and legislators, we should simply not allow that to happen.
Given the Government’s requirements for healthcare workers to be fully vaccinated by April, it is important to understand that healthcare professionals feel a duty of care towards their patients, but mandatory vaccination is not the answer. If there was overwhelming evidence that the vaccine prevented someone from passing the virus to others, it might be justified or compelling. Unfortunately, we know that vaccines, amazing as they are and have been, do not work in that manner, and I do not see how we can justify such moves. The health unions agree, and have criticised the policy, pointing out that it might result in the loss of up to 10% of staff at some hospitals in England when it comes into effect. With an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 NHS workers in England who have not yet been vaccinated, the consequences could be irreversibly damaging.
At the weekend, we witnessed frontline health workers join in the many anti-vax protests in the streets. The conflating of both groups is of real concern. With a workforce that is already depleted across the NHS and other sectors, I am concerned about and resist in the strongest terms any “no jab, no job” policy. The NHS cannot afford for employees to be absent from work. It would be a form of self-sabotage to terminate the contracts of valuable, hard-working healthcare workers now.
Unlike the UK Government, the Scottish Government have not mandated vaccination of care home or NHS staff in Scotland, instead relying on an educate and inform strategy that has resulted in a higher vaccine uptake to date. A constituent who works in University Hospital Monklands spoke to me recently about how his day-to-day experience over the duration of the pandemic—seeing at first hand the effects of covid-l9 on the unvaccinated and on treatment options—was the greatest first-hand insight that he and his colleagues could gain in convincing them to take the vaccine. There was no need for any forced-hand approach; seeing and learning about the effects of the virus was all the education required.
The covid vaccine is entirely voluntary in Scotland, and the Scottish Government have no plans to change that for healthcare workers or anyone else. The Scottish Government have put public health and welfare at the forefront of their coronavirus response, and will do so for the duration of the pandemic. Scotland’s first and second vaccine uptake rates are the highest in the UK, and Scotland’s booster campaign is second in the world, behind only Chile. All five of the UK’s most vaccinated regions are in Scotland, with Argyll and Bute topping the list with a vaccination rate of 99.8%.
There are several reasonable and fully acceptable reasons why people prefer not to get vaccinated. Some persons are unable to receive vaccinations due to underlying or pre-existing medical problems. Trypanophobia, a severe and overpowering fear of needles, accounts for up to 10% of vaccine phobia in the United Kingdom. Many people are hesitant to obtain the vaccine because they believe in simple vaccine myths that conflict with their religious convictions, such as the belief that vaccines perhaps contain aborted foetal cells.
Explaining why vaccines do not violate religious or moral precepts, as well as answering honest and sincere questions about assisting individuals with needle phobias, is a considerably more successful means of increasing vaccination uptake. Educate, educate, educate—we have heard that many times within these walls over the years. Forcing vaccination will not help people to overcome their fears, which are frequently the result of trauma. In fact, doing so may well exacerbate such fears. Support and encouragement is the best way to get people who have fears vaccinated. Mandates would cause more harm than good to any individual, but also to us all in society. Why would we allow for such legislation, when the outcome is significantly negative?
When it comes to employment, the law is ultimately decided here in Westminster, which has the final say on which laws companies must follow. As a result, any questions about the legality of companies requiring vaccination are left to Westminster and, latterly, to the courts. Legal experts have already noted that making vaccination mandatory could result in civil cases under the Equality Act 2010, given its potentially discriminatory nature. For example, employers who belong to a religious group that opposes all medical treatments or vaccines, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, may be able to claim indirect discrimination. The law is not clear on vaccination mandates and must be addressed by the Government. From the standpoint of employment law and non-discrimination, it is safer to encourage immunisation than to mandate it. I urge the UK Government to reconsider their position and adopt the Scottish Government’s approach of allowing individuals to have freedom over what they put into their own bodies.
To conclude, I urge the UK Government to reconsider their position and adopt a strategy that we have seen work for the Scottish Government by educating communities, educating religious leaders and allowing individuals to choose what they put into their own bodies. Lastly, I urge everybody, if they can, to get vaccinated.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on his introduction to the debate. As he set out, the petition calls on the Government to make it illegal for any employer to mandate vaccination for its employers, including those in the public sector, the third sector and indeed the private sector.
This is a timely debate, coming at the start of the week when the current coronavirus restrictions will be reduced and many people who have been working from home will be planning to return to the office. Employers will also be contemplating how some of the changes, including the removal of the requirement to wear masks, will affect their employees. It will be a period of uncertainty and anxiety for people who are vulnerable. Although we see the number of daily infections falling from its peak earlier in the month, it is still at a higher level than we have seen throughout most of the pandemic. Sadly, the number of daily deaths also remains extremely high. This reminds us that the pandemic is not over yet, and it is likely that there will continue to be pressure on the NHS, as well as some level of disruption, due to high levels of staff absences across both the NHS and the wider economy.
As we know from the Confederation of British Industry, companies have been struggling with staffing issues for several months, even before the rise in covid cases and the increased levels of absence that that has produced as a result of labour shortages across the economy. As has been reported over the weekend, businesses of all sizes are debating the vaccine question, and whether to distinguish between vaccinated and unvaccinated members of their workforce. As has been mentioned, some well-known high street names, such as Morrisons, Next, IKEA and Ocado, have already changed their company’s sickness policies, and will be treating vaccinated and unvaccinated workers differently. That may well be because the rules surrounding isolation for vaccinated and unvaccinated people are different, but there is no general law requiring employees to be vaccinated, nor any law requiring employers to mandate vaccination of their staff.
Regardless of whether staff are vaccinated, supporting them to self-isolate is entirely the right approach. It is consistent with the prioritisation of public health, as has been the case throughout the pandemic. I therefore agree with the approach that John Lewis has taken, which is to treat all its staff the same, regardless of vaccination status. However, the issues play into wider concerns about the totally unacceptable level of support for many of those who have had to self-isolate. From the shockingly low levels of statutory sick pay to the fact that millions of people do not even qualify for it, this is an area where much more could have been done from an early stage of the pandemic.
On vaccines, let us be clear that, as many Members have said, having the vaccine is the right thing to do—not just for oneself, but for other people. We thank the NHS staff and the many volunteers who have rolled out the vaccine and the booster jabs. It has been clear in recent weeks that the booster uptake has slowed. Areas such as Birmingham, Manchester and Northampton have had relatively low booster uptake in recent weeks. I know that the Minister is not the Health Minister, but if he can set out anything about how the Government intend to improve uptake levels, that would be appreciated.
The real substance of this debate is about the impact on the NHS workforce. Every Member has talked about their concerns in that regard. In particular, there was strong representation from hon. Members from my part of the world, who showed their commitment to and concern for the NHS. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood) said, we entered the pandemic with a staffing crisis in the NHS already. She highlighted the contribution that NHS staff have made over the last two years, and brought home very well the anxiety that many of them feel about the position that they are in.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) rightly paid tribute to his local vaccination team, who have done an excellent job. He raised the fact that people have different reasons for declining to have the jab; it may be a lack of trust, a conspiracy theory they have read on the internet, or health concerns. Those are all legitimate concerns in the minds of those individuals, and the best way to deal with them is through engagement.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead showed commitment to his principles by resigning from the Front Bench because of this issue, as did my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who has huge experience in the NHS and has a long-standing commitment to the workforce. She laid out in startling detail the impact on services that the removal of so many staff will have, and described how the royal colleges and trade unions are resolute in their position on this. She also raised the important point that there is no long-term plan on vaccinations from the Government. If we are required to have another vaccine or a booster every three to six months, and the mandatory proposal continues, that will leave a lot of NHS staff on a knife edge. We certainly need greater clarity from the Government on what their strategy on vaccinations more generally is going to be.
The hon. Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) spoke about the impact from a local authority perspective. He raised an interesting question about how the Government are going to meet their pledge to have 50,000 more nurses in post. It is important to mention that, because over half of that pledge is generated through greater retention levels. Clearly, as Members have expressed, the ability to retain staff is going to be severely compromised by this proposal.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Paula Barker) gave a passionate speech about the issue, saying that we are sleepwalking into a crisis, and rightly describing the debate as polarising. Sadly, many issues today are polarising. She also described how so many health workers were failed by the Government, with their failure to provide PPE in the first place, and was right to point out that the timing of this proposal sets out a confusing and conflicting message about the importance of getting vaccinated.
As Members have said, in recent days more bodies have joined the call for there to be a delay to the compulsory vaccination of NHS staff, with the Royal College of General Practitioners being the latest to add its voice. I accept that the Department of Health and Social Care is not the Minister’s Department, but it has said that its view is that the policy continues. The Prime Minister said last week that it is the right thing to do to protect patients and that there is a professional responsibility to get vaccinated. That seems clear enough, but he also said:
“We will reflect on the way ahead.”—[Official Report, 19 January 2022; Vol. 707, c. 340.]
That led to various reports that a U-turn is in the pipeline. I know the Prime Minister is rather preoccupied with his own job at the moment, but it is no understatement to say that thousands of people’s jobs are dependent on his reflections. Those comments should not be ignored, because they have been seized upon by many who do not wish to be vaccinated as a reason not to go ahead with a vaccination.
Those who are resistant to a compulsory vaccination have noted that the restrictions that were voted on by this House last month have been dropped, with the exception of the compulsory vaccination. They are questioning why this requirement is still in place if the worst is now over. I accept that the Minister here today is not the correct Minister to address this point to, but there needs to be clarity and a definitive statement one way or the other; that statement needs to be made this week. There are 10 days to go until the first deadline for vaccination. We do not want another inquiry, or a kicking of the can down the road. We need a clear common position, agreed with as many of the stakeholders, the royal colleges and the trade unions as possible, so that they can all have certainty.
If the decision is to press ahead, that needs to be accompanied by a credible plan for engagement with staff that also sets out how the inevitable staffing shortfall that we have heard about tonight will be dealt with. If the decision is to halt or pause, that needs to be accompanied by clear assurances that patients and service users will not be at any greater risk from unvaccinated staff. In either scenario, the scientific advice and professional opinions must be released simultaneously, so that there is no room for doubt that the decision has been taken for the right reasons, based on the most up-to-date advice available, and not for short-term political considerations. I accept that the Minister may not be able to answer all those points, but that is a very clear message that we would send to those who will make the decisions. We need clarity and we need it now.
I have spoken to a number of constituents who are currently unvaccinated and are required to receive a vaccination as part of their job. Regretfully, I have been unable to persuade them so far that it is the right thing for them to do. They are often young and may already have had a mild covid infection. They are well versed in the need for PPE when dealing with vulnerable people, but see little benefit for themselves individually, or collectively, in taking the vaccine. They are also well versed in the principles of informed consent, which we have touched on. Most are not covid deniers and do not dispute the importance of vaccines more generally, but they simply do not believe that there will be a reduction in risk for anyone by vaccination, and see this as an issue to take a stand on to the extent that they are prepared to lose their jobs over it.
Frankly, I find those conversations troubling. Those people have had 12-plus months of information fed to them that has been allowed to go unchallenged. To expect stretched employers to turn that around in a week or two in a meeting with the human resources manager, who may not have the same level of knowledge that these people have, will be a tall order, particularly when there is evidence, as we have heard, that persuasion is usually a much more effective tool than coercion. More support should be given to employers to deal with the very tricky situation in which they find themselves.
Many in the care home sector, when provided with information of this nature, chose to be vaccinated. That was certainly a reason for some support on this matter, but, as has been alluded to, the mood music is different now. Restrictions are coming off. The worst of the predictions for omicron did not come to pass, so the task to persuade people is that little bit harder. I urge the Government to put on a united front with employers, the unions and the royal colleges, to persuade people that this is the right thing to do.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the Petitions Committee on securing the debate, and the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day) on the way that he presented it on the Committee’s behalf. Clearly, this is an issue that can divide opinion, with people on both sides holding very strong views. I am grateful to everyone who contributed. As many Members will know, I sat on the Petitions Committee for a number of years. Now, as a Minister, I am sitting on the other side of the fence, accounting for the Government’s position, so I understand how invaluable the work of the Committee is.
As we all know, today’s debate was prompted by an online petition to prohibit employers from requiring staff to be vaccinated against covid-19. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) asked why I was present, and whether I was substituting. Although the petition referenced the public sector and the NHS, I am afraid that it is because of the wide-ranging wording of the petition that he has got me. However, I will clearly touch on many of the issues that have been raised, because the debate has been focused on the NHS, and understandably so. The petition has been signed by more than 190,000 people, which goes to show the strength of the issue.
There is concern among those who have signed the e-petition, and all MPs who have spoken, about the steps that the Government have taken to make vaccination a condition of deployment in certain settings. There is also concern more generally that some employers outside those sectors are seeking to mandate the covid-19 vaccines for their workforce. I will come to that, but the Government’s starting point, as I think all Members have said today, is that vaccines are our best defence against covid-19.
The overwhelming majority of us have taken the positive step of accepting the offer of vaccination. Some 79% of eligible adults in England have now had a booster, including over 91% of over-50s, who are more vulnerable to the virus. We are the most boosted large country in the world. Recent data from the UK Health Security Agency shows that around three months after those aged 65 and over receive their booster, their protection against hospitalisation remains around 90%. The vaccines work.
However, those vaccines do not just protect us and our loved ones against covid-19. It is because of the vaccines that we have one of the most open economies in the world, so if we are to maintain the collective protection that we have built up, we need everybody to choose responsibly and get vaccinated. That will ensure greater freedom for us all.
Jim Shannon
In my contribution, I referred to the fact that a year ago, we were clapping NHS workers across the whole of the United Kingdom. Everybody, including the Prime Minister and everyone in this room, did that. Does the Minister not understand—I say this very respectfully—the deep feeling of hurt that those people have? We clapped them, and now we are telling them that we no longer need them unless they do what they are told.
Paul Scully
I will come to the issue of NHS workers in a second, and show what we are doing regarding non-patient-facing NHS workers and the moves we are taking to help people get vaccinated.
Paula Barker
I am interested in what the Minister is saying, but he has just referred to an economic argument. Does he not agree that sacking up to 126,000 NHS staff would have a severely detrimental effect on our economy?
Paul Scully
My economic argument was not specifically about the NHS. It was about the fact that vaccines are the way out of this, to get back to a sense of normality—a new normal, whatever that normal is—and allow people to protect businesses, livelihoods and jobs around the country as best we can. Clearly, the best way to work with the NHS is to make sure we can work with those who are unvaccinated to get them vaccinated and, eventually, boosted.
Rachael Maskell
I want to come back to the response I had from the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Erewash, to a parliamentary question I tabled. It said that after 10 weeks the efficacy of the vaccine against omicron is depleted to between 40% and 50%. That clearly means that, first of all, the vaccine does not give us the protection that we would hope it would give; secondly, it does not give us protection against transmissibility. How can the Minister make the statement that the vaccine is the best way out of the virus when, in 10 weeks’ time, it clearly will not be?
Paul Scully
Preliminary evidence about the effectiveness of the vaccination against the omicron variant is still emerging, with data suggesting that vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection and hospitalisation both rise after a booster and, in the case of the latter, goes up to 88%.
For most people, whether to get vaccinated is a matter of personal choice, but there are some high-risk settings in which we believe it is proportionate to take further steps to protect the most vulnerable. Throughout the pandemic, the overriding concern for the Government, the NHS and the care sector has been to protect the workforce and patients. People working in health and care look after some of the most vulnerable in our society, and therefore carry a unique responsibility. Everybody working in health and social care with vulnerable people would accept a first responsibility to avoid preventable harm to the people they are caring for. That is why, following consultation, regulations were approved last year in the House that meant that from 11 November 2021, all people entering a care home needed to prove their covid-19 vaccination status, subject to certain exemptions. Following further consultations, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care announced that anyone working in health or wider social care activities regulated by the Care Quality Commission would need to be vaccinated against covid-19. That includes NHS hospitals, independent hospitals, and GP and dental practices, regardless of whether a provider is public or private.
That policy has two key exemptions: for those who do not have face-to-face contact with patients, and for those who—as we have heard—have not had a vaccination because they are medically exempt. Uptake of the vaccine among staff working in those settings over the past few months has been promising. Since the Government consulted on the policy in September, the proportion of NHS trust healthcare workers vaccinated with a first dose has increased from 92% to 95%—an increase of nearly 100,000 people.
Esther McVey
I have heard it said that the mandation policy is some sort of nudging exercise, a way to get as many NHS workers vaccinated as possible, but it will not be implemented. If that is true—well, even if it is not true—as distasteful a method as that is, it does provide the Government with a get-out, so please will the Minister take back to the Government all the powerful points that he has heard today and get this policy reversed, because it is not too late?
Paul Scully
Clearly, the Department of Health and Social Care will be listening to everything my right hon. Friend says here and in the main Chamber, and indeed all the contributions that we have heard today. But in terms of the policy, the NHS will continue—I will go through this in a second—to encourage and support staff who have not been vaccinated to take up the offer of the first and second doses.
The science is really clear about the benefits of the vaccination. It protects those at most risk from the virus and it has saved thousands of lives so far. Every unvaccinated healthcare worker increases the risk to themselves, their colleagues and the vulnerable people in their care. It is our responsibility to ensure that we give NHS patients and staff the best possible protection.
We recognise the concern about impacts on workforce capacity and the ability to deliver health and care services, particularly over the challenging winter period. I want to reassure hon. Members that the Government, in collaboration with the NHS and the adult social care sector, are taking steps to mitigate that risk and to continue to encourage workers to take up the vaccine. For example, we put in place a 12-week grace period, allowing time for workforce planning and for colleagues who are not vaccinated to make the positive choice to protect the people whom they care for and themselves. The enforcement of vaccination as a condition of deployment in health settings will not commence until 1 April, to assist providers over the winter period and to help to minimise workforce pressures. And we have increased the number and diversity of opportunities to receive the vaccine to make getting it as easy as possible.
Ben Bradley
I feel for the Minister to some extent, because obviously he is not a Health Minister; I am sure that he will forgive me for raising this point none the less. He talks about the work that is going on—loads of work is going on—to try to encourage people to be vaccinated. Many still will not be.
In the course of the debate, I have had the figures sent over to me from my county council. We lost 500 care home staff in November. We are currently set to lose 3,000 staff in the wider home care sector on 1 April. That is a huge proportion, 10%, of our workforce within the county. It will have a huge impact on our ability to deliver services: there could be up to 300 people whom we can no longer care for. We will do as much as we can to mitigate that, but will my hon. Friend take back to the Health Minister just how much of an impact it will have on our ability to deliver care services?
Paul Scully
I thank my hon. Friend. He talks about the impact, and we understand the concerns about that. That is why, apart from the measures that I outlined a second ago about making it as easy as possible to have the vaccine and giving the grace period and the ability to flex within that, the NHS is planning further increases in engagement with targeted communities, where the uptake is lowest. That includes extensive work with ethnic minority communities and faith networks to encourage healthcare workers to receive the vaccine.
We have obviously had an analysis of the equalities implications. That was published in the equalities impact assessment, alongside the consultation response. We are obviously engaging with colleagues such as my hon. Friend to hear about real-world results and impacts and respond accordingly. But as the chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, has rightly said,
“people who are looking after other people who are very vulnerable do have a professional responsibility to get vaccinated”,
so we remain committed to bringing these measures in on 1 April.
Outside these specific settings—health and care—it is fair to say that there could be some other circumstances in which it may be lawful for an employer to require staff to be vaccinated. There is no general “Yes, it is lawful” or “No, it’s not lawful” answer to that question. It will depend on the facts and details of each case. There is a lot for an employer to consider.
For example, what is the current evidence on the consequences of covid-19 both for the individuals and for the organisation? What are the employer’s reasons for imposing a requirement to be vaccinated? Given the particular work being undertaken, are those reasonable? And what are the circumstances of the individual employee? Are there Equality Act 2010 considerations in play? An employer would need to weigh the answers to all those questions and more before being confident that it was lawful to require employees to be vaccinated.
I should be clear that there is a difference between how an employer might treat those who are already employed and those who are not. When it comes to those who are not already employed, there is more scope for an employer to establish a requirement to be vaccinated, subject to the employer satisfying themselves that they can pass relevant legal tests, such as on discrimination. The employer might make such a requirement a condition in the contract; it then becomes more a matter of whether to accept the contract. It would then be a matter of personal choice, just as a prospective employee might consider a requirement to work a number of late or early shifts, or weekends.
For those already in employment, the issue is really about what might happen if they refuse to be vaccinated. After all, an employer cannot physically force someone to have a vaccination. There is the issue of the consequences of refusing to be vaccinated. Could an employee be suspended without pay, refused access to certain shifts, roles or tasks, or disadvantaged in some other way? Could they fairly be dismissed? Those are the key concerns that people will have. I do not believe that it is appropriate to make vaccination a special case. Such cases should be treated in the same way as other instances where an employee feels that they have been treated unfairly at work.
Employment law provides an extensive framework to protect employees from unfair treatment, including unfair dismissal. That framework applies to refusing to be vaccinated just as much as it does to other circumstances. This framework, rather than imposing a blanket set of prescriptive terms and conditions about when a dismissal is fair, allows the facts of each case to be weighed and considered, so that what is fair and what is not can be properly established in the light of any evidence, the employer’s situation and the business circumstances. I strongly believe that the legal framework for employers around the country allows for the interrogation of all relevant facts, provides the right checks and balances, and ensures that employers can take action as a result of someone’s refusal to be vaccinated, where that is appropriate.
I conclude by acknowledging that there is a fine balance to be struck. On the one hand, we obviously want people to recognise the benefits of the vaccine, and as a matter of choice, we want to ensure that they have all the injections and boosters needed to minimise the impact of the pandemic on them, their friends and neighbours, the health service and the economy. On the other hand, we want to ensure that vulnerable people are properly protected and do not face unnecessary risks. The employment law framework and the steps that we are taking to make vaccination a condition of employment in certain settings strike the right balance.
Once again, I thank those who contributed to the debate. It has been a valuable discussion. I also thank all the workers in the NHS, who have kept us safe throughout this period, and who continue to do so, despite the winter pressures. We will always make sure that we work with those valued workers, who serve our public so well.
Ian Paisley (in the Chair)
Mr Day, would you like a minute or two to wind up? I would like to put the Question, though; I think that is important.
Martyn Day
Thank you very much, Mr Paisley. It has been a great pleasure to take part in today’s debate. On behalf of the Petitions Committee, I thank everyone who came along to take part. We had a well informed, educated debate. The Minister said something in his summing up that I fully agree with: we need everyone to get vaccinated, but I hope that we can make that a choice for them, and can comply with the principle of informed consent.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) pointed out, if Argyll and Bute can reach the figure of 99.8% of people being vaccinated through a policy of education and engagement, that can be done without mandating. If we mandate, we risk what has been described as a serious act of self-sabotage. There are few policy decisions where we can look over the dyke and can see what is coming, but if we lose anywhere from 70,000 to 100,000 staff from NHS England, it will create a workforce crisis that could have been avoided. I hope that the Minister takes that message back to the Government.
Ian Paisley (in the Chair)
Thank you, Mr Day, and I thank the Minister for taking five interventions, making the debate go so well, and giving everyone the opportunity to raise valuable points.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 599841, relating to requirements for employees to be vaccinated against covid-19.
Written Statements
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Covid-19 Update
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
As part of our commitment to reducing the cases of hospitalisation and serious illness due to covid-19, the Government accepted the JCVI’s recommendation on the 29 November that all young people aged 12 to 15 years old should be offered a second dose of covid-19 vaccination a minimum of 12 weeks after their first.
To ensure that 12 to 15 year olds were able to demonstrate their covid status for international travel prior to the Christmas holidays, on 13 December, the Government launched the NHS covid pass letter service for children who are double vaccinated.
From 3 February, the Government will ensure that all children aged 12 and over will also be able to get a digital NHS covid pass for international travel to support our efforts to open up travel. The digital NHS covid pass will provide a record of covid-19 vaccinations received and will show evidence of having recovered from covid-19 up to 180 days following a positive NHS PCR test. The steps that the Government have taken ensure that families are not prohibited from travelling where countries require children over the age of 12 to be able to digitally demonstrate their vaccination status or proof of prior infection.
The covid pass will be available via the NHS.UK website for those aged 12 and over and via the NHS app for those aged 13 and over. To request an NHS covid pass, the child will first need to register for an NHS login, which will require them to verify their identity using their passport.
The Government have also sought to ensure that this solution can be used by children in both Wales and the Isle of Man. In Wales, 12 to 15 year olds will be able to generate a digital pass via NHS.UK. In the Isle of Man, they will be able to use both NHS.UK and the NHS app. Further information will be available shortly from the Department of Health for citizens in Northern Ireland. Paper youth passes are already available for citizens in Scotland and further information on the digital solution will follow in due course.
[HCWS556]
Immigration Rules: Statement of Changes
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary (Priti Patel) is today laying before the House a statement of changes in immigration rules.
The Migration Advisory Committee are undertaking a review into the impact of the ending of free movement on the social care sector. While the MAC are not publishing their full report until the end of April 2022, they felt they had sufficient evidence with which to make a recommendation in their annual report to add care workers to the Health and Care visa and the shortage occupation list. Their recommendation was made in the context of increased demand for adult social services, increasing vacancies and issues with staff retention. They have re-asserted their position of the underlying cause of recruitment and retention problems being mainly due to pay, terms and conditions, and lack of progression in the sector. This is now coupled with pay in other competing sectors—such as catering, retail and cleaning—catching up to the adult social care sector, due to the rise in the national living wage.
In light of the clear evidence which the MAC have presented and the important role the sector is playing in face of the exceptional situation during the pandemic, the Government announced on 24 December that we were agreeing to their recommendation. As recommended by the MAC, the salary threshold will be in line with the rest of the shortage occupation list—with a reduced minimum salary threshold of £20,480 in place—compared with a general threshold of £25,600 for non-shortage occupations—and applicants will need to meet all of the other requirements, such as having a job offer from an approved Home Office sponsor and meeting English language requirements.
Taken together with the wider package of support measures for the adult social care workforce announced since September—including the £462.5 million to help local authorities and care providers retain and recruit staff over winter, on top of the £500 million for workforce training, qualifications and wellbeing announced as part of the health and social care levy, they will help us ensure sustainability and success for our long-term vision for this sector.
As the MAC do not believe immigration can solve all, or even most, of the problems associated with social care recruitment, but can help to alleviate difficulties in the short term, we are therefore creating an initial 12-month application window whereby workers can apply for visas in this occupation. During this time, successful applicants will have all the same rights, benefits and obligations as other health and care visa holders—including the right to bring dependents and to settle permanently in the UK. This decision will be reviewed by Government later this year to determine the success of this change in relation to wider changes in the sector to attract and retain staff, the position with regard to the impact of the pandemic and whether it remains appropriate for this occupation to remain on the shortage occupation list.
This does not signal a departure from the RQF 3 threshold and the points-based system more broadly, which the MAC agree strike the right balance between access to international talent and resident labour. Employers must continue to invest in training, opportunities and wages for the resident workforce to ensure the UK’s hard-working care workers get the type of rewarding packages they deserve and which are common in other sectors.
[HCWS552]
High Speed Rail (Crewe-Manchester) Bill and Associated Documents
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Andrew Stephenson)
Today the Government will introduce the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill—a key part of building back better after the covid-19 pandemic. Alongside the High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Bill and accompanying Environmental statement, the Government are also publishing:
the Government’s response to the second Design Refinement Consultation; and
an update on the Strategic Outline Business Case.
The Integrated Rail Plan for the North and Midlands (IRP) set out the Government’s commitment to invest in rail infrastructure across the North and Midlands. Delivering the Western Leg of HS2 is a vital part of this commitment. This includes plans for the Crewe Hub and Crewe Northern Connection, allowing HS2 trains to call at Crewe and Manchester and enhancing connectivity to north-west England, Wales, and Scotland.
This next stage of HS2 from Crewe to Manchester will increase passenger capacity, improve connectivity, and reduce journey times. It is integral to delivering on the Government’s commitment to level-up the country. HS2 will join up the North, Midlands, and London by effectively halving the journey times between the centres of the UK’s three largest cities. The scheme will contribute towards sustainable growth in towns, cities, and regions across the country, spreading prosperity and opportunity more widely. It will act as a catalyst for job creation, the development of new homes and ultimately, the regeneration of major cities and towns along the HS2 route.
HS2 will help provide a cleaner and greener form of transport, offering significantly lower carbon emissions per passenger kilometre than long distance car journeys or domestic air travel. HS2 has the potential to deliver world-class low-carbon transport to bring our biggest cities closer together, spread opportunity and support the UK’s transition to a ‘net zero’ economy.
The Bill includes the powers necessary to construct and operate the HS2 route between Crewe and Manchester. It is accompanied by an Environmental statement which describes the railway, alternatives considered, the environmental effects that are likely to arise from its construction and operation, and the measures proposed to avoid or reduce the negative effects. It has been informed by the consultation on the working draft Environmental statement held in autumn 2018 as well as through engagement with stakeholders. An equalities impact assessment is also being published.
The Government’s response to the Western Leg Design Refinement Consultation is an important part of introducing this Bill. The October 2020 consultation set out four technical refinements to the Western Leg of Phase 2b: a new Crewe Northern Connection to support the vision for a Crewe Hub; changes to the rolling stock depot at Crewe; expansions to both Manchester Piccadilly and Manchester Airport High Speed stations; and a new train depot at Annandale in Dumfries and Galloway. Having considered the feedback from all the respondents, the Government have decided to confirm these four changes.
The update on the Strategic Outline Business Case (SOBC) sets out the clear, strategic case for the HS2 Crewe-Manchester scheme, together with up-to-date cost range for the programme of between £15 billion and £22 billion—2019 prices. This SOBC contains the first cost estimate that has been produced specifically for the scheme between Crewe and Manchester. As the project progresses in design maturity, the cost estimate will be further refined and will inform the full business case, which will be presented to Parliament in due course.
Copies of the Government’s response to the second Design Refinement Consultation will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and are also publicly accessible online through the www.gov.uk website.
[HCWS551]
Active Travel England
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)
I am pleased to inform the House that the Department for Transport is to create a new Executive Agency, Active Travel England, with its headquarters in York. This builds on the Government’s commitment to level up the country and locate more civil service roles outside of London and the south-east, as well as their commitment to boosting cycling and walking.
This Government are investing a record amount in active travel to help deliver our priorities for a healthy, safe and carbon-neutral transport system. Active Travel England will work to ensure that this, and wider transport investment, is well spent, and will help raise the standard of cycling and walking infrastructure.
Active Travel England will manage the national active travel budget, awarding funding for projects which meet the new national standards set out in 2020. It will inspect finished schemes and ask for funds to be returned for any which have not been completed as promised, or which have not started or finished by the stipulated times.
ATE will also begin to inspect, and publish reports on, highway authorities for their performance on active travel and identify particularly dangerous failings in their highways for cyclists and pedestrians.
In these regards, the commissioner and inspectorate will perform a similar role to Ofsted from the 1990s onwards in raising standards and challenging failure.
As well as approving and inspecting schemes, ATE will help local authorities, training staff and spreading good practice in design, implementation and public engagement. It will be a statutory consultee on major planning applications to ensure that the largest new developments properly cater for pedestrians and cyclists.
ATE’s establishment follows the Government’s unprecedented commitment of £2 billion for cycling and walking over this Parliament and comes in the wake of our ambitious “Gear Change” strategy to transform active travel.
The agency will become fully operational later in 2022.
I am also pleased to confirm the appointment of Chris Boardman MBE as the first Active Travel Commissioner for England. He will take the helm on an interim basis to spearhead the establishment of Active Travel England.
This underlines this Government’s ongoing commitment to boosting cycling and walking and to building back greener from the pandemic.
[HCWS553]
Draft Air Navigation (Amendment) Order 2022
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)
I have today published the draft Air Navigation (Amendment) Order 2022 and an accompanying explanatory memorandum. This draft instrument amends the Air Navigation Order 2016 (S.I. 2016/765) (“the Air Navigation Order”) to update references to Regulation (EC) No. 216/2008 on common rules in the field of civil aviation, which has been repealed and replaced.
The Air Navigation Order implements the UK’s obligations under the convention on international civil aviation and regulates aspects of aviation safety. It provides regulatory and enforcement powers for the Civil Aviation Authority needed in respect of retained aviation safety legislation. In a number of places, the Air Navigation Order cites provisions of the “Basic Regulation”, which is defined in schedule 1 to the Air Navigation Order as Regulation (EC) No 216/2008. However, Regulation (EC) No 216/2008 was repealed and replaced by Regulation (EU) 2018/1139, which has been retained in UK domestic law.
Therefore, the Air Navigation Order currently contains outdated references to repealed legislation, which need to be amended. The draft instrument published today will ensure that the Air Navigation Order is able to operate as intended, by accurately citing the correct retained legislation.
This instrument is an Order in Council and will follow the negative (annulment) procedure. Paragraph 14 of schedule 8 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 requires a draft of this instrument to be published at least 28 days before it is laid. This is because the Air Navigation Order was originally made under powers that included the European Communities Act 1972. The draft instrument and accompanying explanatory memorandum can be found on www.gov.uk.
[HCWS555]
Supporting Terminally Ill Claimants
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chloe Smith)
Today the Department for Work and Pensions is introducing an amendment to the Universal Credit Regulations 2013 and the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2013 to exempt people who are terminally ill from the requirement to accept a claimant commitment to be eligible for benefits.
A claimant commitment sets out what an individual agrees to do in return for benefit, including any work search requirements and a duty to report any changes in their circumstances. Anyone claiming benefits under the special rules for terminal illness would already be exempt from work search requirements. However, there is currently no blanket exemption for terminally ill claimants from the requirement to accept a claimant commitment more generally. This means that the requirement to accept a claimant commitment can only be waived on a case by case basis.
To streamline the process and provide certainty to those approaching the end of their lives, the statutory instrument laid on the 24 January will therefore create a specific exemption from claimant commitments for terminally ill people.
The regulations will apply in Great Britain and will come into force on 15 February 2022. The Northern Ireland Assembly intends to mirror the regulations and is in the process of putting this into place.
We are committed to ensuring the benefit system supports people nearing the end of their lives. Further to the changes we are making today, we will be bringing forward regulations shortly to replace the current six-month rule for determining eligibility for the special rules for terminal illness with a 12-month, end of life approach in universal credit and employment and support allowance with changes to personal independence payment, disability living allowance and attendance allowance being made when parliamentary time allows.
[HCWS554]
Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)
My Lords, Members are encouraged to leave some distance between themselves and others and to wear a face covering when not speaking. If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Afghanistan (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Anelay of St Johns
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the International Relations and Defence Committee The UK and Afghanistan (2nd Report, Session 2019–21, HL Paper 208).
Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to introduce our report The UK and Afghanistan. I thank the members of the International Relations and Defence Committee and our staff, including our specialist adviser Dr Weeda Meehran, for all their hard work in producing our report. It was published one year ago—when few others were either debating or writing about Afghanistan.
We noted that the UK’s prioritisation of Afghanistan had slipped over the previous decade. Yet the scale of challenges facing the country had not diminished during the period of the UK’s involvement there. Challenges to stability were—and still are—terrorism, drug production, drug trafficking and the fragile nature of the Afghan state. We noted the substantial level of aid dependency of the Afghan Government, with little prospect of developing alternative sources of revenue in the immediate future.
Against that bleak background, we praised achievements made over the previous 20 years, including progress on human rights, particularly for women and girls. However, we warned that the Taliban remained “ideologically opposed” to much of this progress and could seek to undermine it. The past few months have shown that warning to be prescient. We highlighted that the Hazara
“have a long history of suffering … persecution”
and pressed the Government to find ways to protect them and other groups from such persecution. We also warned that there was
“a real risk that the principal national security challenges still posed by Afghanistan, namely terrorism, narcotics and regional instability, could worsen, and the gains made since 2001 could be lost.”
At the time of our inquiry, peace talks had been launched between the Afghan Government and the Taliban in Doha. But we expressed our deep concern that the planned withdrawal of US and NATO troops would undermine the position of the Afghan Government in those talks and destabilise the security situation in Afghanistan. Despite our warnings, withdrawal plans were accelerated and the situation in Afghanistan rapidly deteriorated over the first half of last year. By mid-August the Afghan Government had collapsed and the Taliban took Kabul, declaring their control of the administration of the country, ruling by violence and intimidation. While events have overtaken some of the findings of our report, most of the challenges we highlighted remain and have been exacerbated by the Taliban’s actions.
In the integrated review the Government committed to
“continue to support stability in Afghanistan”.
This debate provides an opportunity to take stock of the situation now and ask the Government about their priorities and their plans to keep true to that commitment. The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has clearly worsened considerably since August and is dire. I am grateful to the director of the UK office of the UN World Food Programme for her up-to-date assessment of the situation. The UNWFP calculates that the number of people facing acute food insecurity—another description of famine—has risen to 2.8 million, more than half the population, and 3.2 million children are expected to suffer acute malnutrition by the end of this year.
It is now the harsh wintertime in Afghanistan, which threatens to cut off areas of the country where families desperately depend on humanitarian assistance to survive the freezing months ahead. It is vital that those countries that sought to bring stability to Afghanistan over the past 20 years do not turn away now. International support is needed more than ever to tackle the humanitarian crisis on the ground. Our report highlighted that Afghanistan is the most aid-dependent country in the world. According to the World Bank, grants financed 75% of public funding in 2018-19. The UN and aid organisations now warn that basic services in Afghanistan, including the health service, are at risk of collapse.
Of course, the Taliban takeover led to a pause in international aid to the country. It is not clear how much aid is able to get to Afghanistan and, when there, how much actually reaches those who are in desperate need. I welcome the Government’s pledge last August to increase official development assistance to Afghanistan to £286 million but that is still less than our commitment in 2019, before the crisis, and it is not clear how much of that has actually been disbursed. On 15 December 2021 the Government stated that £81 million had been disbursed within Afghanistan and £10 million to refugees in the region. About a month later, on 12 January this year, Minister Ford said that £145 million had been disbursed, but I do not seem to be able to find any other mention of that figure. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could clarify the position on that today.
Witnesses to our Select Committee told us of their concern about the time taken to disburse the funding and the extreme challenges of operating in the context of sanctions and the breakdown of the Afghan banking system. The UK played a vital role, of which we should be proud, in successfully negotiating UN Security Council Resolution 2615 last month. That should provide real support to aid operations in Afghanistan by reassuring banks that they can securely and lawfully offer the full range of financial services needed to facilitate humanitarian activities there.
However, NGOs such as the Norwegian Refugee Council and Christian Aid are concerned that the FCDO appears to be considering imposing new and burdensome restrictions on NGOs and the financial sector when the Government bring before Parliament the statutory instrument that should incorporate Resolution 2615 into law. It is feared that the provisions of the SI will undermine the very purpose of the UN humanitarian exception that was authorised under the UNSC resolution itself. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could give an outline of the SI’s provisions and give an assurance today that the statutory instrument will not have that chilling effect.
It is important that the UK works with international partners to halt the rollback of the progress that has been made on human rights, particularly on women’s and girls’ rights, which had been hard won over the past 20 years. We were pleased to hear from the Minister, my noble friend Lord Ahmad, about the work that he has done on that issue. Events since August last year prove that our concern that the Taliban remained ideologically opposed to the progress on women’s rights was well founded. The position is now infinitely worse for girls, who cannot access their previous levels of education nor hope that they will be permitted to work unless in the most menial of tasks. What discussions has the Minister had with Ministers of like-minded countries to bring hope to the youth of Afghanistan?
Last August, we all viewed from afar the horrors of the Taliban takeover in Kabul and the desperation of those who wished to flee for their lives. I congratulate our Armed Forces on their professionalism and courage in delivering thousands to safety during Operation Pitting. But there are many who remain in danger in Afghanistan—in danger, because they worked with western Governments and NGOs to bring the hope of a better future to their country. Now they face the reality of reprisals wreaked on them by the Taliban.
The ARAP and ACRS are indeed welcome, but it is disappointing that the Government narrowed the eligibility criteria in December, leaving many UK partners such as the British Council in considerable uncertainty about the fate of their colleagues. I am pleased that the Government have now provided a little more detail on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, which was launched earlier this month, but there is still much uncertainty and concern among NGOs about how it will operate.
Last year, our committee wrote to the Foreign Secretary requesting clarification about the position of women judges and journalists, who are particularly vulnerable. We were disappointed by the response we received. I would be grateful if my noble friend the Minister could clarify today how the ACRS in particular will help those remaining in Afghanistan, whose lives are clearly in danger.
Finally, it is important for the Government to look ahead and set out whether and how they could engage with the Taliban on a diplomatic level to address the following three challenges. The first is the extent to which any engagement should be conditional on the Taliban halting the reversal of human rights advances over the past 20 years, while taking into account the significant humanitarian crisis faced by the people of Afghanistan. The second is the extent to which the Taliban appears to be influenced by terrorist groups in the country. Our report noted the close links between the Taliban and the Haqqani network and al-Qaeda. We also noted the threat posed by ISIS-K. After the August withdrawal, American officials labelled that organisation as the most imminent terrorist threat to the US coming out of Afghanistan. The third is the extent to which the UK can or should work with partners such as Pakistan, Iran and other regional actors to reduce instability within Afghanistan and the region.
This is not the time for the international community to avert its gaze from the heavy challenges of securing stability in Afghanistan and the region. The humanitarian crisis within that country makes it more important than ever that the Government should maintain their commitment, given last year, to
“continue to support stability in Afghanistan”.
I look forward to hearing from my noble friend the Minister how the Government plan to do just that. I beg to move.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, who is a highly respected chair of the committee. I was not a member of the committee at the time, but I suspect that if this debate had been held last summer, there would have been unqualified praise for the quality and comprehensive nature of the report’s analysis and its recognition of the challenges faced. However, the report was published over a year ago, so much of the evidence must have been gathered over the previous year, since when—to adopt and adapt a parliamentary phrase—an amendment has been moved. Of course, the amendment is the events of August 2021 and the Taliban victory.
What were we trying to achieve by our intervention in Afghanistan? The aims of the UK Government are set out in paragraph 37 of the report. They were:
“to safeguard what it describes as the UK’s legacy in Afghanistan since 2001. It wishes to strengthen the gains made in this period, and defines its legacy in terms of improvements in human rights, particularly of women and girls, and the strengthening of the Afghan state since the fall of the Taliban administration.”
It is fair to say that the committee noted in the next paragraph that
“gains made since 2001 could be lost”,
but the options it considered did not include the collapse entirely of the Afghan Government.
The committee noted the considerable expenditure by the UK taxpayer in development aid—more than £3 billion over the period—the training and equipping of the security forces, the tragic loss of 456 UK troops killed in the campaign from 2001 to 2014, and the more than 600 British military personnel with life-changing injuries. However, despite all that expenditure and loss of life, the Afghan army speedily collapsed, surrendering its weapons, and the President fled with much of the Government. Poverty and hunger among the people have increased and would surely have a larger focus in the report if the committee were to consider the humanitarian situation today, which the noble Baroness mentioned.
So one is bound to ask: was it all a waste of time, resources and lives? What is, in fact, the legacy? What is left from that major allied and western effort? Is the report essentially now a historical document? Time will tell, of course, but many of the more educated and modern Afghanis have taken the opportunity to leave the country. There are major question marks over the plight of women and girls under the Taliban regime, but some of that taste of freedom might indeed linger and be capable of surviving when circumstances change, as surely they will one day.
Perhaps we should have had a more profound appreciation of history, such as the British history of intervention in the 1840s and 1880s as part of the great game, the Soviet intervention in the 1980s—what Gorbachev called the “bleeding wound”—a greater appreciation of the reality of Afghan society and the tribalism which apparently the Taliban are experiencing even now, and the intense localism I experienced when I visited Herat and heard that those trained were most reluctant to leave the immediate vicinity of their homes. Did we think that we could graft a western concept of democracy on a very different society? Are there lessons to be learned?
The report concludes that the US talks with the Taliban in Doha were about withdrawal rather than peace negotiations, and that the Afghan Government were sidelined and, indeed, undermined. It rightly points out that the UK and other allies very much played second fiddle to the US in the conflict, and that when the US left we had to leave, together with the European Union and other allies. Was this a reality check for us and the EU? Is it the Government’s view that the Taliban as a whole is in any way different from when it was last in power up to 2001? I would welcome the Minister’s views on whether the Taliban will encourage terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda and ISKP—the Islamic State Khorasan Province? Will there be an even greater transfer of narcotics to the UK? These are key questions, which it is perhaps premature to ask at the moment and to expect clear answers from the Minister. It may be more productive now to reflect on some of the geostrategic consequences of the Taliban victory.
First, with the experience in Afghanistan and Iraq, will the West be a little more cautious about intervention? Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, with his experience, will say something about this. Will nation-building be less high on the agenda and spreading democracy now be less favoured? Is there a danger that the correction will go too far in the opposite direction and be very cautious about intervention?
Secondly, the credibility and trustworthiness of the West has been damaged worldwide. It happened before, of course, given the US defeat in Vietnam, but then the US was very much the dominant hegemon and China was not the rival it is today. Taiwan and Ukraine will be especially worried. Countries in the Middle East and Africa will hedge their bets and seek to make peace with China. The UK and the European Union will be similarly affected. Perhaps, as a result of what has happened in Afghanistan, the integrated review needs now to be revisited.
Again, terrorism throughout the world, from Mozambique to the Sahel and Iraq, even in Pakistan, will exult and be emboldened. Is it likely that more such groups will find a safe haven in Afghanistan? What is the Government’s judgment in this respect?
China will, of course, take advantage of the US humiliation and seek ever closer links with Pakistan and the Taliban in Afghanistan, including mining concessions, particularly in respect of rare minerals. In short, the West will need to rebuild its credibility globally and it will take some time for this to happen. Perhaps China will, over time, overreact in Africa.
Positively, however, we in the UK need to have a period of soul-searching in respect of Afghanistan and make our priorities clear: for example, how to get aid to its suffering people and whether some of the assets need to be unfrozen. There is also how to get the aid there without channelling it through the Taliban. We need to reverse the cuts in our own aid and develop areas where we are a superpower, such as in soft power. We need to know ourselves better, avoid any pretensions to great-power status and rely massively on what remains as our major advantages globally.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, as one of, I think, 12 members of today’s Committee who are former or current members of the International Relations and Defence Committee, I too commend our chair for suggesting that the committee conducted our inquiry and then for chairing it and introducing this debate so well. I do not think it is acceptable that it has been a year since we concluded a prescient report, which had constructive requests of the Government and of the whole House, and that it has taken so long for us to debate this.
As has been said, the intervening period has confirmed the benefit of such a committee report if the conclusions are not only read but acted upon, because we took a wide view. We took evidence as to the very mixed nature of human development in Afghanistan, specifically over the last decade. Certain parts of Afghanistan had seen negative human development, while there was positive human development in others, especially for women’s rights and children.
In some measures, we looked at the regional impact, which has become so obviously important, whether for Qatar and the UAE, from differing perspectives, or for Pakistan and the other neighbouring countries. We looked at how relevant they have become and took that into consideration. We also looked at the likely impact of the aid and development cuts. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, was absolutely right when she indicated that, from 2019 to 2020, UK funding was £240 million but, in 2021, went down to £168 million. Therefore, in many respects, what is being committed over a three-year period will only regain territory lost. That cannot be right, given the scale of the humanitarian crisis that Afghanistan is suffering from.
As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, indicated, the committee wished to be fair to the Government in agreeing with what they considered to be their own legacies as far as Afghanistan is concerned. The report states that the Government
“defines its legacy in terms of improvements in human rights, particularly of women and girls, and the strengthening of the Afghan state”.
Clearly, these have been failures since August. As we said:
“There is a real risk that … the gains … could be lost.”
Now we know that those gains have been lost, what is the way forward?
It is 20 years since the start of the American operation termed Enduring Freedom. Published just two weeks ago, UN OCHA’s planned humanitarian response for Afghanistan makes for profoundly depressing reading. I quote the foreword of the humanitarian response plan after 20 years of the operation:
“We go into 2022 with unprecedented levels of need amongst ordinary women, men and children of Afghanistan. 24.4 million people are in humanitarian need—more than half the population. Years of compounded crises and under-investment have resulted in nearly four times the number of people in need of lifesaving humanitarian assistance compared to just three years ago.”
That appeal has been matched with a funding appeal for the plan of $869 million, but, according to OCHA, there is a shortfall of $105 million. The UK has responded to the plan with $21 million, but that is behind Sweden, Germany, Japan, France and Denmark. Why are we behind those countries for this humanitarian response plan?
Our wider support is welcome. The UK has committed £82 million for the separate wider humanitarian appeal. However, as the noble Baroness indicated, a concern has been raised that, of the totality of the £286 million that has been announced over a three-year period, only around half—the figure of £145 million has been reported—has actually been allocated. I, too, want clarity on the distribution and allocation of the funds. Obviously, concerns have been raised among the charity and NGO sectors that if the remainder of the funding is not dispersed to the field before the end of this financial year, the Treasury will claw back any unallocated and undispersed funding. I hope that, in summing up, it will be a straightforward job for the Minister to state categorically that this will not happen; that no funds previously allocated to Afghanistan will be clawed back if they have not been distributed.
Urgency is key, of course, but there has been some degree of sympathy for the point made by the noble Baroness about the use of the Taliban for the distribution of certain funds. The Minister was categorical when he gave evidence to our inquiry and has been consistent to this day—he deserves credit for that—that funds will not be distributed through the Taliban. However, as we hear in some of the discussions with the UK envoy and in the discussions that Norway is now facilitating, there are areas controlled by the Taliban that, by necessity, UK funds will have to be distributed through.
That is why it is so important that charities and NGOs know with absolute clarity what the Government’s legislation will be on the use of sanctions. There are, of course, UN sanctions, but there are separate UK sanctions. Therefore, clarity and whether we will be in a position openly and substantially to debate the statutory instruments that will come through on this will be very important. Charities and NGOs have said to me and others that clarity is important for them, not just for now but to have ongoing security with a regime that is unlikely to change.
My second point was also raised by the committee: it is with regard to UK capacity and administration. A very brave Foreign Office whistleblower highlighted in a devastating report the lack of integrated IT, language skills and individual computers for staff; the 5,000 unanswered emails and the block-flagging of unread emails to show that they had been read; disengaged political and head of department leadership; and the complex decision-making which was set aside, notwithstanding the very hard work of certain officials in our Armed Forces and Civil Service. I do not cast any aspersions on our Minister’s work, but it is clear that some lives were lost. The Foreign Office spokesman said at the time that we could not help everybody but our support for those people was enduring. As my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham and others will no doubt say in this debate, in many respects the meagre and confused resettlement schemes have not been an illustration of our enduring support as referred to by that press spokesman.
Finally, I shall pick up a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. Coincidentally, Losing Afghanistan: the Fall of Kabul and the End of Western Intervention, edited by Dr Brian Brivati, was published today. It raises difficult questions about the future of intervention, given the context of Afghanistan. My essay in the collection offers a slight degree of optimism but redefines what intervention must be. Only 16 months separated Operation Noble Anvil—the bombing of Serbia—and Operation Enduring Freedom. It is probably clear to many of us that one of those operations has been sustainable and more successful than the other. We need to redefine what intervention is. We need to look at the tools open to us and our allies and partners and be free to allow them to be used when we recognise that a regime that we sought to defeat and deny access is now in place. This is not a time for timidity, even though the circumstances and a humanitarian crisis are there. Reports such as this one and others from charities and NGOs have to be listened to.
Retired General Sir Jack Deverell, former Commander-in-Chief Allied Forces Northern Europe, said this about the book, and I think it is worth closing on it:
“Above all the book poses a question: how can we in the West claim we know so much yet demonstrate in Afghanistan that we understand so little?”
If we do not debate reports such this one and others, we will continue to understand so little at a time when the people of Afghanistan, especially the women and children, demand of us that we understand more.
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, the Minister will perhaps not be surprised that I want to raise a number of issues concerning the Afghan civilian interpreters who worked with the British military. I should declare an interest as a member of the former MoD assurance committee on locally employed civilians, which monitored the application of the intimidation policy for interpreters and others.
I was pleased to see the recommendation at paragraph 49 of the report:
“The UK Government should ensure that all Afghan interpreters who worked for the UK military, including those now resident in third countries, are aware of, and able to access the provisions of, the ex-gratia scheme.”
This was a positive and welcome response from the committee to written evidence submitted by my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup and me. We made a number of points, and I am grateful to the committee for taking the point about third-country residents.
Of course, as with other aspects of the report, events have overtaken the situation facing the interpreters and the remedies available to them. I have a series of questions for the Minister about the Government’s response to the committee’s recommendation, as well as on the evolving circumstances facing interpreters, and some other points that my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup and I made in our submission but which were not reflected in the report.
I understand that the Minister may well not have with him today all the data that I am about to ask him for, as some of it will no doubt rest with the MoD or the Home Office. If this is the case, I should be grateful if he would undertake to write to me afterwards and to place a copy in the Library.
At the time of the committee’s report, the schemes on offer for the interpreters were the ex gratia redundancy scheme for those who qualified and the intimidation policy. In April 2021, the latter was replaced by the broader scheme, ARAP, and, shortly after, following the Taliban takeover, the ACRS was also introduced.
Up to the point at which the Taliban took over last year, the number of interpreters and family members whom we had relocated to the UK was, I think, in the region of 5,000. I would like to know what the current figure is. I would also like to say on record, as I have done on previous occasions in your Lordships’ House, that although the redundancy and intimidation schemes sometimes left significant room for improvement in flexibility and generosity, this level of relocation, as well as the assistance provided in country, is to be commended and puts the UK at or near best practice among all our allies in their treatment of former interpreters.
What I would like to know now from the Minister is: how many interpreters were awaiting clearance for relocation to the UK under the ex gratia scheme or ARAP at the time of the Taliban takeover? How many had already been given clearance but had not yet travelled? How many wives and children of these two groups were involved? How many from each of these groups have managed to relocate following the Taliban takeover? On the assumption that not all will have successfully relocated but did have prior clearance or were very likely to secure it, what measures are now in place for locating and then relocating the remainder? Are our former interpreters eligible under ARAP or the ACRS, or both? Given their status and former role, is any priority being given to interpreters and their families?
On third-country residents, I was told by the noble Lady, Baroness Goldie—and it was echoed in the government response to the committee’s report—that “administrative difficulties” effectively prevented consideration of requests from former interpreters whose experience of severe intimidation had already driven them to flee to a third country; I believe that they are not eligible under ARAP either. However, she did say that discretion could and would be applied on a case-by-case basis. How many individuals have benefited from such discretion and how proactively are the Government acting to locate, communicate with and offer discretionary help to interpreters in a third country?
Two other issues were raised in the submission from my noble and gallant friend Lord Stirrup and me in evidence to the committee, on which the report is regrettably silent, so I would like to press the Minister for some comment at least and, even better, some commitment for further action.
First, contracting out to a private company the employment of the Afghan interpreters worsened their terms and conditions of employment, including their protection against intimidation. We do not believe that sufficient due diligence was done before awarding the contract and, although too late for those Afghan interpreters, we believe that handing over legal responsibility to a private company should not absolve the Government from the moral responsibility in the short or long term for the safety of interpreters. It is crucial to get this right to avoid serious risks to future military operations. Can the Minister say whether, and, if so, how, the private contractor is providing any assistance in locating former interpreters who may be in hiding but still wish to relocate to the UK?
Finally, I have spoken with the Minister several times before about the wider issue of protection for civilian interpreters in conflict zones, of which the case of the Afghans is a good example. An international campaign has, for some years now, been trying to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution to mirror Resolution 2222, agreed in 2015, on the protection of journalists in conflict zones. The case for interpreters, I would argue, is even stronger, as journalists are usually able to go home to a safe country when their assignment ends, whereas interpreters are left to face potential intimidation and violence in their own communities. Such a resolution would pave the way for the Geneva conventions to be updated, and would send a powerful message that the UK and others value the vital role of interpreters and will honour their moral and practical obligations to them during and after the conflict that they are helping us to resolve. I hope the Minister can update us on where this issue currently stands within the Security Council and that he will undertake to follow up on it.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, I join everyone in welcoming the report and thanking our chairman for producing it. I also echo the problem that we have with it being more than a year old. This is not a government problem. This is a problem because the House of Lords cannot manage to organise its business. We really need to send a message to the leadership of this self-governing House, as we are called, that when effort is put in to producing reports of the stature, elegance and erudition of this one, we expect the House authorities to table a debate in reasonably short time, certainly not after a year, and a year in which there have been momentous developments. I hope that message will be carried to the leadership of this House.
We have to look at the lessons for the future and the lack of strategy. The most relevant matter is in one of the briefings I received that quotes Professor Michael Clarke, former director-general of RUSI, who identified
“only one overall strategic driver, dated 2001: to support the US, regardless of whether its strategy was sound or not.”
I cannot disagree with that. A barrister called Frank Ledwidge was also quoted as saying:
“I have asked eight Defence Secretaries what our strategy was … I have not been able to identify a national strategy.”
I am afraid that equates with my own view of where we have gone wrong. Part of our problem, which was classically demonstrated in Afghanistan, is that we are bit players, not major players. The moment the Americans decided to leave, Joe Biden put down the phone, put a tea cosy over it, did not call anyone and said, “We’re off”. At that point, all the rest of the NATO group had to leave. There was no way in which we as NATO without the United States could mount any mission whatever. We were out behind it. I think we did a reasonable job in getting out our supporters and the people who had assisted us, but let there be no doubt that out was the only destination we had, because one of the biggest lessons we have to learn is that we have repeated the same mistake in Afghanistan for 150 years. We never learn, and it is about time that we did.
The second thing I would like us to learn is that you cannot have a policy based on bombing people into submission and then sending aid to rebuild the place. This is not a strategy. We may have to face the fact that in some parts of this great world of ours there are people who do not share our values, and we cannot force them to share our values. What Afghanistan has demonstrated is how quickly the castle can disappear into the sea because it is just a sandcastle. We have many people from Afghanistan now in Britain and in other western countries, but we had to pull them out because we had not built any structures that would survive for even a very short time.
I received, among other things, a rather good briefing from the BBC. It has got most of its people out. It has clearly done a good job there. We need to continue to support the BBC. But I find it bizarre that the funding for the World Service comes out of exactly the same pool as “Would I Lie to You?”, which is a programme on the BBC—it is not Prime Minister’s Question Time, incidentally. I really think that we need to see the World Service as a protected species; in other words, we need to make sure that it is protected, because it is the one body that is universally respected. I have travelled all over the world in my career and it is the one body that is always mentioned to me as something that people are very proud of and listen to and trust. We need to somehow pull the BBC World Service out of this mélange of BBC funding. It needs to be looked after.
What are the lessons for the future? Some 20 years ago, when this was just starting, I accompanied a Russian general around a museum of the Afghan war. In that museum there were letters from soldiers—their last letters—and various artefacts that had been in Afghanistan, and I always remember something he said to me: “You won’t win either and your enemy is much better armed than ours was in the beginning because your enemy has been armed by the Americans. They’ve armed the Taliban and it’s their arms that are now going to be used against you.” We need to look at things and say: “What can we actually do?”
A little closer to home, at the moment we are getting ourselves in a complete mess in Ukraine. Germany is refusing to let Estonia hand over its weapons. We cannot get overflight of Germany. But we need to reflect, as the German foreign office does, that we cannot do anything militarily in eastern Europe. If you talk to people at the German foreign ministry, that is what they will tell you. They will say that all you are doing is stoking up trouble. No one has ever won a war against the Russians. We are not going to be starting it. But we need a much sounder policy when we look at the lessons to be learned from Afghanistan. I think the lessons are that we can export western values through an aid and support programme and through helping with education and women’s rights—all the good things that we do—but we can do that only when we have fertile ground in which to sow our seeds. Self-evidently in Afghanistan we did not.
My conclusion on this excellent report is that we should use it as a series of signposts as to what we should not do again. That is the most important thing that comes out of it. I read it and at various points thought, “Hmm, maybe not. Better be careful there.” If we can get one good thing out of it, it should be realism in British foreign policy.
Baroness Blackstone (Ind Lab)
My Lords, there are few countries with a more tragic recent history than Afghanistan. It has endured long periods of war and internal conflict; its Governments have been weak and mired in corruption; a high proportion of its population has lived in extreme poverty. The long-term weakness of its economy has led to heavy dependence on international aid. For many years, the main cash crop has been opium-producing poppies, associated with criminal gangs exporting opiates.
The earlier takeover of the country by the Taliban led to a grotesque retreat into extremist values, viciously repressing women, the denial of basic rights of free speech and free assembly, and the torture and killing of those who challenged the human rights abuses which had become commonplace. All this led to large numbers of Afghans leaving the country as refugees.
At the turn of this century, Afghanistan was perceived to be a serious threat as a breeding ground for terrorism and a source of regional instability. Following the collapse of the Taliban after the invasion by the West and the restoration of an elected Government, progress was made in human rights and the provision of public services, supported by NGOs. There were improvements, especially in Kabul, in basic rights for women to an education and employment in government and the professions. The continuing presence of small numbers of NATO forces, primarily but not exclusively involved in supporting and training the Afghan military, reinforced the Government, although they remained weak, and further helped protect basic human rights, although abuses remained.
The decision by the Trump Administration to withdraw from Afghanistan, leading to negotiations between the USA and Taliban representatives in Doha, has implications for the UK and our policies towards Afghanistan. In these circumstances and against the background of a terrible recent history, it seemed very appropriate for the International Relations and Defence Committee to launch an inquiry into the Government’s policies on Afghanistan. I am very grateful to our chairman for agreeing to this.
The evidence the committee received led to a report which pointed to the danger of the USA’s approach and our support of it. Select Committees do not always get things right and come to the right conclusions. On this occasion, most of the committee’s analysis and predictions have turned out to be correct. Indeed, if anything, it understated the disastrous outcomes of western policy. We argued that US and NATO troops should stay in Afghanistan until a negotiated settlement between the then Afghan Government and the Taliban was reached. There was a failure of diplomacy by the US Government in early 2020 because they made a unilateral agreement with the Taliban to withdraw their troops without adequate conditions. This agreement undermined the Afghan Government in their talks with the Taliban which followed. Since the US was going to leave regardless of the outcome of the talks, we said that this would be likely to destabilise the security situation—and so it did.
Do the Government regret their decision to support the US-Taliban agreement? Were decisions by NATO allies to withdraw made collectively rather than more or less imposed on NATO by the USA? The response of the Secretary of State for Defence at the time of the withdrawal suggested that at least he did not support it. In saying this, perhaps I should remind the Minister—I do not suppose he has forgotten it—that the numbers of US NATO troops remaining in the country were minimal and the costs therefore very small compared to the vast expenditure of the earlier war.
Following the appalling planning of the mechanics of withdrawal and the consequent chaos that followed last summer, the Prime Minister admitted that the situation in Afghanistan was “bleak”. The priorities that he set out were to work with our international partners in providing humanitarian support; to evacuate Afghans who had worked with the UK; and to establish a plan agreed by the international community to deal with the Taliban regime. I will deal with each of those in turn.
As soon as the country was overrun by the Taliban and they were back in government, NGOs providing development aid had to leave. Given that foreign aid accounted for 60% of government income with no prospect of it being replaced by domestic revenues, it should have been obvious immediately that a humanitarian crisis would follow. It has. So why were the UK and the international community so slow in devising and then implementing a scheme in which humanitarian aid would be increased, ring-fenced and then delivered by UN agencies?
As has been said, many children have already died from malnutrition. We are now in the depths of winter and a high percentage of the population, especially in rural areas, is suffering from acute hunger, many of them at risk of starvation. Does the Minister agree that it is not just food aid that is required but basic public services, notably in health and education? What increases are the Government making in our aid funding to Afghanistan through targeted subventions to UN agencies following the disastrous cuts to our aid budget—referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis—in a context where, despite promises to reverse them, no date has been provided for when that is going to happen?
I know the Minister will have come armed with figures on the number of Afghans who worked for the UK who have been evacuated or subsequently given asylum to settle here, but it is hardly surprising that in the shambles of last summer many of those with a legitimate claim to come here were unable to leave and were left at risk of horrible Taliban reprisals. I am particularly concerned about recent stories of locally-engaged British Council staff who appear to have been largely forgotten under the ARAP scheme for resettlement in the UK.
I welcome the decision to open a new scheme, the ACRS, to cover not just those who helped the UK with our work in Afghanistan but other vulnerable groups too. These should include lawyers, academics and journalists, especially women in all three of those categories. How many from such groups have been able to resettle here, and how many is it planned to provide for over the next 12 months? Could the Minister respond to criticisms of the narrowing of the criteria for ARCS that was announced last month? Does he accept that the changes made renege on earlier promises? Does he agree that they will have a retrospective effect, crushing the hopes of some Afghans hoping to escape the country who believed that they were eligible for resettlement?
I turn to the third of the Prime Minister’s priorities last August. Where do the Government now stand on how to relate to the Taliban Government? When responding on this, I ask the Minister to report on a meeting apparently being held under the auspices of the Norwegian Government to consider these issues. What position are the UK Government now taking? Clearly the return of the Taliban as the Government of Afghanistan has had disastrous consequences, setting back the earlier improvements—even if limited—made by the previous Government?
There appears to be a lack of unanimity and conflict within the Taliban regime. Moreover, there is evidence that the Government are not controlling many of their adherents, who are committing atrocities at ground level that go unchallenged. What assessment have the UK Government made of the Taliban leadership? Do they believe that there are more progressive elements to whom it may be possible to reach out, or not? Is there not a case to be made, as Rory Stewart and others have said, for dialogue taking place with the Taliban, not just in respect of the delivery of humanitarian aid?
To conclude, without such dialogue, leading possibly to the eventual recognition of the Taliban Government providing certain conditions are met, it is hard to see anything other than continuing security challenges, as well as a bleak future for the people of Afghanistan. Its tragic history, which I described at the beginning, will not be reversed. Without economic development, the rule of law, stable government and basic human rights, those Afghans who can will seek to escape, and the flow of refugees to neighbouring countries and the West will go on and on.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, under the notable chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, who opened the debate so well, and with the assistance of a terrific secretariat, the International Relations and Defence Select Committee undertook a rigorous and thorough examination of the UK’s role in Afghanistan and explored what the future might look like. I agree with others who have said that it is quite wrong for a report of this importance, and which was clearly so urgent, to have been consigned to the long grass for so long. Referring to the report when Parliament was recalled on 18 August last to debate the unfolding and appalling chaos in Afghanistan, I said that the failure to debate its prescient recommendations and findings had been negligent. I repeat that today.
One year ago, the report excoriated the Government for showing
“little inclination … to exert an independent voice”
and it criticised the United States for “undermining NATO unity”. It insisted that troop withdrawal
“runs contrary to the UK’s objective of securing a durable negotiated settlement”
and had
“the potential to further destabilise the security situation in Afghanistan”.
So let no one say it was impossible to foresee the disastrous debacle that was coming.
Among the long-term consequences that we now have to deal with is a weakened America—or at least the perception of American weakness—emboldening a host of aggressors who threaten the liberal world order. The ill-thought-out abandonment of Afghanistan damaged alliances and networks, and had a chilling effect on vulnerable people bravely upholding human rights and the rule of law in fragile states. I have seen what has happened to judges and lawyers, some of whom I met earlier today with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, and to public servants, journalists and teachers abandoning their homes and fleeing for their lives from Kabul. They ask: will they be next? Bullies retreat when met by strength and resolve, and advance when they sense weakness. Of course, the abandonment has emboldened the Taliban, which, along with all its other distortions, would probably apply to Afghanistan the words of Ernest Hemingway in For Whom the Bell Tolls:
“If we win here we will win everywhere.”
One of the inquiry’s most authoritative witnesses was Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former distinguished ambassador to the United States. While Kabul was being taken by the Taliban, he said that
“what is happening in Kabul will not stay in Kabul. Radical Islamists, armed with the powerful narrative of driving out two superpowers through jihad, will challenge the American-led order across much of the Muslim world”.
When our admirable Secretary of State for Defence, Ben Wallace, appeared before the Select Committee in October, I asked about the findings of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy that
“recent events in Afghanistan suggest the NSC and the cross-government machinery that supports its work are inadequate to the task”,
a point referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. How have we addressed what it identified as “groupthink”—
“reluctance by Ministers and/or senior officials to engage fully with the realities of information presented to them”—
and the
“failure of diplomacy to bring forward an alternative NATO coalition on the ground”?
I have a number of other questions. Just a few days ago, on 17 January, a group of United Nations-appointed distinguished experts reported that the Taliban is attempting
“to steadily erase women and girls from public life”
by
“institutionalizing large scale and systematic gender-based discrimination and violence against women and girls”
including trafficking and forced marriage. As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, the Select Committee’s report warned that this would happen. In evidence to our committee, we heard that, since 2001, women had begun to enjoy their basic human rights, including the right to education. They were able to enrol in higher education and pursue careers, including in the judicial system, politics, medicine, the police and the armed forces. The committee found
“considerable improvement in the participation of women in Afghan society, politics and the economy since the fall of the Taliban administration in 2001, particularly in urban areas.”
The Taliban often uses a metaphor about clocks and time. As the clocks are now turned back in Afghanistan, will the rights of women be a priority for any engagement on Afghanistan? As the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, implied a few moments ago, in negotiations currently under way in Norway, will the position of women as a priority be a pre-condition for any kind of recognition? For us in the UK, will it also be a priority to ensure that any money sent through our aid programmes does not end up lining the pockets of corrupt men?
The committee also raised Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its insistence on freedom of religion or belief. In his evidence, the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon—said that the Taliban’s “ideological philosophy” needs to be addressed. He is right, of course. We asked for further information and were told that the then Afghan Government were seeking
“to create space for moderate Islamic scholarship and ulema.”
What will happen to that now? We were also told about the Minister’s welcome Declaration of Humanity, especially its call
“for multiple faiths and beliefs to unite in a common front to challenge damaging societal norms”.
What is the FCDO doing to prioritise the declaration?
Last week, for the first time in 20 years, Open Doors ranked Afghanistan in its World Watch List as the most dangerous place in the world to be a Christian, reporting:
“Men face ridicule, imprisonment, torture, sexual abuse and potentially death because of their faith. Men and boys also become targets for militias seeking to coerce them into joining their fighter groups … women … can be sold into slavery or prostitution, beaten severely, forced to marry a Muslim (in an attempt to re-convert them), or sexually abused.”
Since the Taliban came back to power, their community has had to flee or go into hiding, with the remnant living in acute danger and the Taliban actively hunting them down. Ali Ehsani said that the Taliban was merciless when it found out his family were Christian:
“One day, I came home from school to find that the Taliban had destroyed our home and killed my parents.”
The plight of the Hazara Shias is no better. The committee’s written evidence found that the Shia Hazara minority were
“regularly subjected to targeted killings, violence, and discrimination based on their ethnic and religious identity … The response from the Afghan government and international community has been largely inadequate or missing altogether.”
Subsequently, in August 2021, Amnesty International published a report shedding light on the mass killings of the Hazaras by the Taliban. Around the same time, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum published a statement on the risk of crimes against humanity, even genocide, against the Hazaras. I hope that the Minister can tell us whether the Government have carried out their treaty obligations under the convention on the crime of genocide to conduct a risk assessment of genocide from the moment that such a danger is known to exist. Such a risk assessment is a matter not for the courts but for the FCDO.
Furthermore, even in 2020, the Taliban’s affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan Province, was responsible for at least 10 attacks against Shia Muslims, Sufi Muslims and Sikhs, resulting in 308 civilian casualties. Subsequently, in a chilling report about the Hazaras, Amnesty described
“a recent resurgence of attacks ... Hazara schools and religious sites have been bombed, medical clinics targeted, and Hazara civilians murdered by the Taliban or ISIS-K.”
The Select Committee’s report called for an urgent review of the Home Office failure—unlike other Five Eyes countries, such as Canada—to include IS-K on its list of proscribed terrorist organisations. Can we have an update on this, please?
Through emails and questions, I have regularly drawn the plight of the Hazaras to the attention of the FCDO. Last September, I sent reports of ethnic cleansing of Hazaras in Daykundi who were sent letters telling them to leave their homes within three days. They left with only their clothes and bare necessities; their homes were given to Taliban fighters. Our committee report recommends:
“The UK should publicly champion the rights of minority communities, such as the Hazaras.”
How do we intend to do that when those persecuted on the grounds of their religion have been given no priority in the response to this terrible tragedy? Is it any wonder that such cruelty has led to a massive exodus of refugees, adding to the 84 million people displaced worldwide?
The committee’s report highlights the immense challenges faced by Afghan refugees. The UN estimates that some 3.5 million people are internally displaced, 80% of whom are said to be women or children. Millions of others are dispersed throughout the region and the rest of the world. On 25 October, in a Parliamentary Question, I asked the Government what assessment they had made of the World Food Programme estimates that 22.8 million now face acute food insecurity, 8.7 million face emergency levels of food insecurity, and 3.2 million children under five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of 2021. Can we now hear from the Government whether they agree with those estimates?
In their response to the committee’s report, the Government said:
“Afghans remain in the top 10 nationalities for irregular migration into Europe and the UK. Irregular migration is facilitated by criminals operating along well-established routes, with migrants often suffering some form of exploitation during their journey.”
Other than repelling them from our shores, as some drown in the English Channel, what are going to do to give them practical help? The Minister knows that a day does not pass without him and Ministers at the Home Office receiving emails—there were more from me today—about desperate Afghans still fleeing for their lives. Some belong to the persecuted religious minorities. Some have worked for the allied forces or western organisations. Some are gay; some are journalists; some are judges and lawyers; some have family in the UK. They are scared. They are desperate, fleeing and fighting to survive.
I welcome the official opening of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme but what provision is there in it for religious minorities facing existential threats? How many of the 20,000 who we say we will help are already settled in the UK, and how many will actually be new cases? My noble friend Lady Coussins has raised the issue of Afghan interpreters in third countries, where they often remain at risk. I hope that the Minister will respond to what she said about that.
I have some short, concluding points. At paragraph 187, the committee reminds its readers:
“Afghanistan is the largest source of heroin in the world”
and, at paragraph 279:
“Opium remains the main source of income for the Taliban, accounting for up to 65%.”
The report warns that
“terrorism, narcotics and regional instability, could worsen, and the gains made since 2001 could be lost.”
In January 2021 the committee said:
“The Government should seek to reinforce the need for a multinational approach, and be precise about its aims, including regional stability, counter-terrorism and countering narcotics production and trafficking.”
In sharp relief, we can see the consequences of failing to do those things but, undoubtedly, although heightened and made even more difficult to address, the same challenges now apply as they did in January of last year.
Baroness Fall (Con)
It is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton. He asked many important questions and I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say later. Like others, I welcome the chance to reflect on the report that I and my fellow members of the International Relations and Defence Select Committee published nearly a year ago just as we witnessed President-elect Biden take the oath. I want to thank the excellent secretariat, my colleagues on the committee, many of whom are here today, and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her brilliant chairmanship.
Whatever one’s view of President Trump, being his friend and ally on the world stage was complicated—his presence being irregular and erratic—which is why I, like many others, welcomed Biden’s return to a more multinational approach to solving the world’s problems. Last year, we saw an immediate change of course—the decision to rejoin the Paris peace accord, for example—which is why I hoped that, at the very least, President Biden might pause and reflect on making the decision to press ahead with the withdrawal from Afghanistan. It made the fact that he went ahead with such speed all the more disappointing.
By the time I started working in No. 10 under the David Cameron Administration in 2010, we had already been one decade in Afghanistan. British lives were still being lost and it was beginning to be uncertain what success would look like. A rethink was on the cards. It became clear that there was little support for the continuation of a large deployment of troops, but there is a big difference between a drawdown and the chaotic exit we saw last summer.
In recent years, with a small number of troops, we were able to bring—or help to bring—stability to the country, train the Afghan army and police, and support aid operatives doing so much good on the ground. However, when President Trump announced the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he did so with no discussion with his NATO allies and with no apparent concern that this undermined any chance of success at the peace talks. It was clear to us on the foreign affairs Select Committee, reviewing the fragile state of affairs at the time, that it would be impossible to deliver peace with no leverage, and that leverage must come from the ongoing presence of US and NATO troops. This was never a peace plan; it was an exit plan, and it turned out to be a disastrous one at that.
The decision to withdraw and the way in which it was done undermined US moral authority and western credibility globally, just when we need leadership so desperately as we face huge challenges such as Covid, climate change and the ongoing clash between China and the West. The events of the summer were grave days for all of us to witness, the good intentions of 20 years lying in tatters. Those many British and Afghans who risked, and in some cases paid with, their lives to bring stability and hope to Afghanistan deserved so much better. I think we all agree that this was not the endgame that any of us would have wished for.
As we try to pick up the pieces, there are still many unanswered questions. First, the speed and efficiency of the Taliban campaign seemed to surprise everyone. Why? This must have stemmed from either a failure of intelligence or a failure of leadership. We still cannot really tell which, amid the noisy blame game that has followed, but we should not allow that truth to be buried.
I pay tribute to all those who worked so hard to get friends and allies out of Afghanistan, but what of those left behind, as others have mentioned? I fear, as we all do, that many have been abandoned to their fate. Like others before me, I ask the Minister to report on recent numbers in the resettlement scheme.
Secondly, of the many people we let down, the terrible impact on the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan weighs heavily. We learn of hardship and threat to life every single day. What does that say about us and our values when we talk about human rights globally?
Thirdly, what does that tell us about our relationship with our closest allies? It is extremely disappointing, to say the least, that we were unable to exert more influence over the Americans. The NATO alliance is under pressure again, this time from Putin, and its ability to respond cohesively and effectively matters too much to allow NATO to dissipate as a relic of the last century.
Fourthly, our neglect is to the gain of others whom we do not call our allies, such as China, Iran and Russia. We have already seen the Chinese make inroads to Afghanistan and we are yet to know exactly how regional stability will play out. Twenty years on, we have simply delivered the very thing we were trying to avoid: a Taliban-run Afghanistan, a country which is likely to harbour terrorist groups and store up CT problems for us in the foreseeable—the very reason we went in there in the first place.
Fifthly, Afghanistan was already one of the most aid-dependent countries in the world before Covid and our withdrawal. With the effects of both, we are now looking at a humanitarian catastrophe worsened by the bleak winter and further waves of Covid. This was our mess in the creating, and I urge the Minister not to turn our backs on the people of Afghanistan; others have said this today. Whoever their masters may be, we must support them. I commend efforts to provide aid through UN agencies as well as other trusted NGOs and urge that this continues.
Those, like many of us in this Room, who ponder the withdrawal from Afghanistan should not forget why we went in there in the first instance. It was a NATO-led deployment in response to Article 5 after the devastating attacks of 9/11. However, it is often the case that the unified purpose of an intervention is far easier a task than to bring such a mission successfully to its end. No one wants forever wars. Perhaps we should put more strategic energy into thinking about what our mission is and what we owe to those who have supported and served with us on the ground.
Afghanistan seems fated to play a pivotal role in the 21st century, as it did in the century before and the one before that, from the advent of the great game to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the precipitation of 9/11 and the abrupt exit of this summer. The people of Afghanistan once again find themselves paying a heavy price for global politics. We should acknowledge our debt to them and continue to help where we can.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, few individuals and no organisations emerge unscathed from last August’s debacle in Afghanistan, and I regret to say that our House is among those institutions, having failed to find time to debate our committee’s report, so ably introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for more than year—a momentous and tragic year for Afghanistan and for Britain’s involvement in that country. If our conventions are responsible for that delay, there is something seriously wrong with the way they are being operated. It is beyond parody. I make the rather unusual request to the Minister that he convey to the usual channels the unanimous view so far in this debate that this sort of thing should not be allowed to happen again.
I add, with some regret, that the Government do not seem to emerge very well from that debacle. Just look at the bland complacency of their response to the report or the evidence that Ministers gave to the committee before we wrote it. In neither was the slightest sign of awareness of the disasters that lay a few brief months ahead. Could that debacle have been avoided? I rather doubt it, once President Trump signed off on a deal with the Taliban in February 2020, a deal that totally ignored the views of the elected Government of Afghanistan and made withdrawal in no way conditional on the Taliban’s performance. Clearly, the Biden Administration made some major tactical errors, but the die was cast by President Trump. Our own Government have deplored the way this was handled, and I would like the Minister to tell the Committee what representations the Government made over that when the Trump deal was being negotiated in early 2020 and what representations were made to the Biden Administration when they were shaping their Afghan policy in early 2021.
That is enough history. What can be salvaged from this shipwreck? First, we need to help the long-suffering people of Afghanistan—faced with starvation, draconian and inhumane social policies and the loss of much of women’s and girls’ education and job opportunities—as best we can. That means funding UN and other international agencies which are capable of getting food, medicines and development assistance through to those who need it. It also means assisting any of our NGOs which are capable of continuing to operate in Afghanistan and, in particular, assisting them to convey funds to their Afghan employees who are carrying out this essential work. I hope the Minister will have something to say about that. It also means a generous approach to supporting refugees and receiving asylum seekers who are fleeing in well-justified fear for their lives. What are the Government’s policies on the ground and in practice on these three points? I know what has been announced, but it is not always what is happening.
Should we be recognising the Taliban in any way beyond the inevitable extent needed to assist our humanitarian efforts? I do not believe so and I welcome that that also appears to be the view of the Government. What is the case for recognition of a group which has seized power by force, refuses to share power with representatives of many sections of the population and flouts the provisions of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights—itself an integral part of UN membership?
We, in close concert with the US and the EU, surely need to find ways of working with Afghanistan’s neighbours, most obviously Pakistan, but also Iran, China and Afghanistan’s northern neighbours. Whatever our other differences with these countries, we share many broad objectives; for instance, avoiding Afghanistan again becoming a base for terrorist attacks—which could be a serious problem for Pakistan, China and Iran—ensuring that it does not remain contagiously unstable, and reducing the flow of illicit drugs. Again, this is an objective we share with many others.
Even if we have different views on the best road to take to achieve those objectives, we share quite a lot of common ground and should overcome any hesitancy about dealing with these matters in concert with others. The recent UN Security Council resolution on humanitarian aid was very welcome in that respect. What prospect is there of building on that with a wider UN approach which could underpin the pursuit of those objectives?
Clearly, we must not turn a blind eye to the lessons from the debacle in Afghanistan, but nor should we draw too sweeping and unjustified conclusions from it by flinching from the challenges we face around the world—not least from China and Russia—and from the need to address collectively the problems of state failure, of gross abuses of international humanitarian law and of the consequences of climate change.
I hope I may be forgiven for concluding on a rather personal note. It is now a little over 60 years since my wife and I, a recently married couple, drove up to the gates of the British embassy compound in Kabul, whose Curzonesque splendour was more a reminder of Britain’s imperial past than its present state. We had travelled by Land Rover from Tehran. Even in my wildest dreams—let us be honest, nightmares—I could not then have imagined the circumstances in which today’s debate is taking place. The Afghanistan of 1961 was an often overlooked but peaceful backwater in the Cold War—the safest place on earth to be, as I thought a year later during the Cuban missile crisis. The last 40 years have turned Afghanistan into a horrendous reminder of the mayhem and human suffering that can result from political miscalculations—miscalculations by Afghanistan’s own rulers, by its meddling neighbours, and by the two great superpowers of the day, the Soviet Union and the USA. One can only hope that President Putin has that in mind as he ponders his next moves on Ukraine.
Lord Boateng (Lab)
My Lords, a debt of gratitude is owed to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and the whole committee for the work that has gone into this report, particularly to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her persistence in seeking to get the Government to respond to it and find time for this debate. They have done so, as numerous other noble Lords have pointed out, only belatedly. A particular debt is also owed to the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who has given a lifetime of service to this country and the diplomatic corps for his reflections on the debacle—as he described it—that Afghanistan represents.
The Minister has an undoubted commitment to human rights and to the values that we all share in our House. He is the Minister for Reassurance, when it comes to foreign and international development policy. He carries out that role with great skill and eloquence. But even he will fail to be reassuring in this instance, because there is nothing in this whole sorry saga that gives us any cause for comfort, let alone the complacency that I fear is sometimes shown in the departmental response to what has occurred in Afghanistan.
For me, the most powerful message from the committee’s report is the conclusion that
“despite the scale of the UK’s involvement”
in Afghanistan
“both military and economic, over recent years, there were few traces of a coherent overall policy approach.”
That is undoubtedly true, but it is also undoubtedly true that there has been no trace whatever of a coherent overall policy approach in relation to everything that has occurred after our withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The challenge for the Government at this time is to come up with such a coherent approach, because one is desperately needed, as the situation in Afghanistan during these winter months reveals so starkly. Millions of people face literal starvation. That is beyond a shadow of a doubt. If we claim to have their interests at heart and to be upholding the values that we hold dear, we have to have a better answer than has so far been forthcoming in relation to how we will, through our overseas development aid, meet the scale of the humanitarian crisis that Afghanistan faces.
It simply will not do to say that we have to be careful in case aid falls into the wrong hands. The reality is that aid to Afghanistan has been falling into the wrong hands for many years. The previous Government in Afghanistan were corrupt, beyond a shadow of a doubt, yet we continued to make them a major beneficiary of our development aid. What is the justification now for failing to take some risk—yes, there is a risk—to ensure that women and children, the elderly and the dispossessed have at least some hope of seeing this winter through, and that Afghanistan’s economy has some hope of beginning to recover? It is very hard to justify and explain how a nation that purports to be concerned about the role of women in the country and economy can do what we have done, in circumstances that undermine any possibility of women engaging in, for instance, the carpet trade and continuing to earn a basic living from a trade when it depends on exports, which have been made absolutely impossible by the policies adopted by ourselves and, above all, the United States of America.
If we are concerned about women being active participants in the economy, as I believe we should be, then we have to do something to create an enabling environment in which that is possible. At the moment, frankly, the stance that we are taking in relation to sanctions on Afghanistan makes that impossible. I ask the Minister to give us some indication that that policy is being re-examined.
I would also like a response from the Minister to the points made by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, in his evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee in the other place. He pointed out that we have adopted a policy after our defeat—his word—in Afghanistan which makes it that much more difficult to secure that country in terms of stability and international safety in relation to a possible resurgence of terrorist activity in that area by the stance that we have taken. He said:
“My own view is that we now need to accept our defeat, which is what it is; we need to work with our eyes wide open with the Taliban—engage with them. The whole issue of recognition is, I think, a distraction at the moment. We need to engage with them, influence them through a combination of carrot and stick … and preserve life in the short term, but influence into the longer term, and try to work with those Taliban who I think we should take at face value.”
If a former Chief of Defence Staff who has himself fought in Afghanistan is able to come to that conclusion then, frankly, who are we to gainsay him? What insight and understanding do we have that are better than his? I simply do not see it.
It is likewise in relation to the former Secretary of State for International Development, Rory Stewart, who in evidence to the same committee pointed out the implications of our current policy. Again, I draw his words to the attention of noble Lords and the Minister:
“The first thing to understand is that the Afghan Government is going to be bankrupt anyway, so they will not have a lot of money to spend on weapons and stuff. Some 60% of their budget came from international donors—that is no longer going to come, whatever happens. They can barely pay to keep the electricity going, and a quarter of the hospitals and clinics have closed”.
I repeat: a quarter of the hospitals and clinics have closed. He continued:
“There is money sitting—there is nearly $9 billion currently frozen in the United States. There is a whole World Bank mechanism called the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund. That money can be put into UN agencies such as UNICEF and WFP, and into Save the Children”.
Well? Is it going to be put into UN agencies or into the hands of those respected NGOs?
Rory Stewart, and indeed the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards, recognise that there will be some dividend through the tax system for the Taliban as a result, but the resulting benefit to the hard-pressed people of Afghanistan mean that is a price worth paying. That is a view we all ought to take. I hope the Minister will come to understand that it is the view of very many of us who are concerned to see a change in the stance and policy of Her Majesty’s Government towards the peoples of Afghanistan, so that we can truly uphold the values that we have purported to be seeking to uphold in that country.
I come now to my final point. Again, it is a values-driven point. It relates not to what is happening in Afghanistan now but what is happening in our own country now. It relates to those Afghani refugees who currently find themselves between a rock and a hard place because of the lack of any coherent policy in our country and the Home Office’s failure to work effectively with the Local Government Association. This is about the failure of a resettlement policy that makes it very difficult for local councils, even when they wish to help; further, more of them wish to help than are currently able to help because of problems in relation to the funding of the resettlement programme.
What assurance can the Minister give us that there will not be a protracted stay on the part of Afghani people resettled in this country in former military accommodation? We know that such accommodation is grossly inadequate and not the sort of place where one would want to bring up children. These children, these people, are already traumatised by what they experienced in Afghanistan. I am afraid that they are being retraumatised in our country—in our own back yard. That is happening in Kent and all over the country where Afghani refugees are currently being housed. Local authorities are entitled to a better deal than the one they have had from the Home Office. I urge the Minister, who I know cares about these issues, to consult his colleagues in the Home Office and the communities department so that something can be done to support local authorities up and down the country and improve the lot of those Afghanis who have managed to get out and desperately need our help.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
It is never a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, because he shoots one’s foxes with such style. He has just shot four of my foxes so please see what I say as a series of footnotes to his very good speech.
I join the Committee’s unanimity in finding the delay in handling this excellent report absurd. However, the timing is fortuitously convenient because it enables us to ask the Minister to tell us about the weekend meetings in Norway, the Government’s response to Gordon Brown’s weekend appeal and the Government’s answer to what is clearly the number one priority issue: how to stop millions of people starving in Afghanistan this winter.
The report points out:
“Afghanistan is the most aid-dependent country in the world”—
it is talking about the 2020 numbers—with 60% of its budget funded from outside by the international community. Then,
“‘10.9 million people faced “crisis” … levels of hunger’”;
I quote the remarkable report of the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. The world pledged $3.3 billion of aid for 2021; not all of it got through because of what happened in the summer of 2021. However, the need is much greater now. By December 2021, the UN was estimating that 23 million refugees—more than 50% of the population—faced acute malnutrition. We cannot let this happen. The West won the war, but we must not let our defeat trigger an Afghan apocalypse.
That means recognising reality. It means putting our pride in our pocket and working with the Taliban Government. But without outside budgetary support, they could not, as the report says, maintain basic state services. Yet, as I understand it, all our humanitarian aid now is going via UN agencies and NGOs, and none of it is going to or through the Government in Kabul. What does that mean for public health, education, power supply, transport and the distribution of the desperately needed food? When states fail, it is the poor who suffer. We must not fail the Afghans a second time. The Government in Kabul must be allowed access to the Afghan Government funds held abroad. I am afraid that we really must not let our well-founded concerns about the Taliban’s human rights performance mean that we end up denying the Afghans the most basic of human rights: the right to stay alive, the right to have something to eat.
I never understood why Foreign Secretary Hague derecognised the Assad Government in Syria 10 years ago. Recognition does not imply approval. Recognition provides a basis for doing business. Recognition makes it easier—much easier—and more efficient to do what we need to do now in Afghanistan. We were the first of the great powers to recognise the Bolshevik Government in Petrograd 98 years ago. We have an embassy in Pyongyang; I know, I opened it. We have to face facts, however unpalatable: the Taliban are in charge and we have to do business with them. If we are going to help Afghans, we have to recognise the authority of the Taliban Government now in Kabul.
I would like to make two more points. Unfortunately, they were both made much better than I am able to by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, but I trade on the Committee’s patience. To ensure that our defeat does not also carry dishonour, we have to deliver on the promises we made to the Afghans—the ones who came here and those we said could come here. In August, as Kabul fell, the Prime Minister said:
“In addition to those Afghans with whom we have worked directly … we are committing to relocating another 5,000 Afghans this year”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/8/21; col. 1260.]
We also then said, separately, that we would take another 20,000 in “the coming years”—variously four or five years; it was not clear at the time.
But this month the Government have announced that the first tranche of the 20,000 are in fact those brought out in August. In December they revealed that the Prime Minister’s additional 5,000 similarly have been subsumed into the 20,000. In short, it rather looks as though we are now interpreting our commitment—the Prime Minister’s word—as restrictively as possible. It seems that few, if any, new refugees will be let in during this calendar year. I find that rather disappointing and I hope the Minister will comment on it.
In the first place, 20,000 over four or five years is not particularly generous. Canada is taking 35,000 this calendar year and, since 20 August, some 300,000 Afghans have crossed the mountains from Afghanistan into Pakistan to join the 3 million already shivering in the camps round Peshawar. Are we sure that our response to this massive tragedy matches its scale? I am not.
Nor, despite all the fine talk of Operation Warm Welcome, are we treating those who got here in August with conspicuous generosity; again, my fox here was shot by the noble Lord, Lord Boateng. These people are plainly refugees in any reasonable understanding of the word, but they are not being treated as such. They have not been allowed refugee status. Instead, they have been given leave to remain for six months and, five months on, many still have heard no more. Those whose position has been regularised have been given indefinite leave to remain. That does not carry the rights that come with refugee status, such as the right to family reunion. The majority, of course, are still living in temporary accommodation in hotels; as of today, the number is 84. They are unable to work. Their children are not in school. They are still in the dark about where in the United Kingdom they will eventually be settled. That does not come across as a particularly warm welcome. We could, and should, have done better; indeed, we still must. I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about that too.
However, the number one priority must be to make sure that as many of those left behind in Afghanistan as possible survive the Afghan winter. That means accelerated and enhanced international action urgently, as Gordon Brown said this weekend. It also means recognising reality and recognising the Taliban. The crisis unfolding right now is partly of our making because it springs from our policy failures and defeat. We must not just shrug our shoulders and walk away.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I too pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay. She is one of the wise women of this House. I welcome the report and express my regret that we are debating it a year after it was produced. It was indeed prescient; if only some of the warnings contained in it had been taken on board.
Only a month after the report was produced, two Supreme Court judges were assassinated in Kabul: Justice Zakia Herawi and Justice Qadria Yasini. We should remember their names. I knew Qadria Yasini; in fact, two of her sons were included in the evacuations conducted by the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, of which I am the director. We took out 103 women judges and prosecutors as well as some others, including a couple of journalists and two Members of Parliament. We took out those boys, then aged 17 and 19, too. They are still sitting in Athens, waiting on the lily pad that was secured as a temporary place for us to land the planes we chartered. Let me tell you, it was never our plan to charter airplanes; that has not been part of my legal practice over the years. However, when judges contacted us, desperate and in mortal danger—let there be no doubt that they were in mortal danger—we felt that we had to do something.
I did not immediately think of chartering planes. I sought to find who was getting people out. In fact, Christians were being evacuated by American evangelical charities. I wanted to know whether some of my women judges could be put in the back of the planes, but of course there was no room at the inn. There were no places on the planes but they did give put us contact with charter companies. This meant that I discovered the great price there was on evacuations, and I had to fundraise the money to get these women prosecutors and judges out.
What is special about the women prosecutors and judges, you may well ask me? Is this about evacuating the great privileged and professional middle classes? These women were educated at law schools in the period after the Taliban were last ousted. Many of them are still comparatively young women by our judges’ standards; we are talking not about Brenda Hale here—the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale—but about women who are still in their 30s and early 40s, with young children. They answered a call which we, of course, wanted them to answer. We wanted to see a different kind of judiciary, which reflected the whole of their society, and encouraged that. They took up the challenge and became judges in courts that were dealing with the narcotics that have troubled the cities in our own countries. They were running the courts that dealt with terrorists who were blowing up our soldiers with home-made bombs. They were dealing with some of the most challenging cases that we wanted to see dealt with properly by those courts.
All the way through the years before the re-arrival of the Taliban in Kabul these women were receiving threats, which arrived at the courts. They have not stopped receiving threats for years. Then in February, nearly a year ago now, two of their most senior women colleagues were assassinated and the terror that ran through their circles was huge. They knew it was a warning. Those women were shot: Zakia through the forehead and Qadria through the heart. The head and the heart—that is what those women brought to their professional practices.
The prosecutors too, who were prosecuting cases of violence against women, trafficking, forced marriage, child marriage and rape, were all on the kill lists of the Taliban as soon as the Taliban were released from prison. Let us be in no doubt as to the threat these women are facing. There are still women making contact with me and telling me of the danger that they face. They are living in basements or have moved to other houses. They move on a regular basis because of their fear; their relatives are also in fear.
What do I say in answer to the Home Office on this? When I asked for visas for some of the people who are still there—young prosecutors who are undoubtedly at the top of the list—I was told: “But you see, there’s a problem. Even if there is proof of this, we can’t give visas to people in Afghanistan because we have no embassy there, so they can’t be measured for biometrics. You can’t get a visa if you can’t be biometrically tested, and we can’t do that because we don’t have an embassy to do it, therefore there are no visas”. Tell me, then, the safe routes for how you get to the United Kingdom.
Then a suggestion was made, and I have learned a lot about how to evacuate people from Afghanistan. I know now about air traffic control and landing rights. I know all about how you manage to get from A to B with security, and about safe houses. So when I say, “We could bring out another planeload of the most desperate of the women, who need help now”, I am told, “Oh no—we can’t do that because we might be sued”. I said: “Who by? Who do you think is going to sue you?” There is the anxiety that there might be risks here and we would not want to have blood on our hands. Let me tell you: we are going to have blood on our hands. I am afraid that the answers I have been given so far have not been very heartening.
I would not have been able to do this without the incredible generosity of many people. I know that some noble Lords donated to the fundraising I conducted. I thank them for the way they helped and encouraged me. Sir Michael Hintze, an Australian philanthropist who has dual nationality and lives and works here in the United Kingdom, took up the lion’s share of paying the costs of some of these flights. I was helped by other people, some of whom do not want their names to be mentioned because they “do a mitzvah”, as Jewish people would say, quietly and without recognition. But that should not be necessary. What happened to states doing these things?
At the end of all this, I want to ask: what are we doing about visas for people to get out? With my little team at the International Bar Association and with Sir Charles Hoare, who is a great humanitarian, I have managed to get resettlement for a number of these women around the world. Australia is taking 20. I phoned up the former President of Ireland, who happened to study at the same time as me, and we got people into Ireland, which has already taken 10. As far as I can count, we have got only nine women judges into the UK so far. Five of them got out in the military evacuation and four have been taken from my group, who have been sitting in Athens in this temporary lily pad. They have been there for five months. I reiterate what others have said: why have we not done better?
I will ask about money. We talked about corruption in aid that was paid into Dubai to people who were supposed to be legitimate Governments. Why do we not talk to Dubai about the amount of money that was hived off and sits in bank accounts in Dubai? Transparency International has documented it. We should freeze some of those assets.
If I secured more funding for another flight, will the Foreign Office and the Home Office help us secure landing rights here in United Kingdom for another plane of perhaps 30 judges, lawyers, prosecutors, journalists and human rights workers fleeing for their lives? If I get 30 of them and their families, will Britain accept them?
Even as we speak, negotiations are taking place in Oslo with the Taliban. Are we talking about the rights of women? Alex Crawford interviewed Abdul Qahar Balkhi on Sky News earlier today, who said that
“we do not threaten women … ever … we have a lot of respect for women”.
I have heard abusers in this country say how much they respect women, but it does not stop the terrible levels of abuse. We know these people abuse and want to silence women. They were busy today in the media saying that it was the military abusing women over the last 20 years. The dishonesty is clear. All I am saying is that the women who made a stand and did a great deal of public service that we and the people of Afghanistan benefited from are still in fear. We have not stood up and done well enough yet. I hope we can do more.
Lord Loomba (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for bringing this report before the Committee, and the Select Committee for its important work. The return of the Taliban and the humanitarian disaster unfolding from Afghanistan’s economic and social collapse make it all the more important that this work to monitor and understand the situation on the ground continues. The previous speakers talked about various problems that have taken place since we withdrew from Afghanistan.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and many others have talked about girls and women. I will focus my remarks on the plight of women and girls; in particular, on the situation in which widows now find themselves in Afghanistan—the poorest of the poor, marginalised, invisible and unheard. The World Widows Report published in 2016 by the Loomba Foundation, which I chair, revealed that Afghanistan already had the highest proportion of widows in the world: more than one in five of all marital-age women from the age of 10. Maternal mortality was also in the highest range, with more than 1,000 mothers dying for every 100,000 births. Not surprisingly, Afghanistan has one of the highest percentages of war widows.
The tragedy for widows is that they are marginalised by society even as they face gender discrimination from the Taliban. They have nowhere to turn as the economic and social situation in Afghanistan deteriorates. Low life expectancy and early marriage result in women mostly being widowed in their 20s and 30s. In some countries ravaged by conflict, widows can move into male work roles to make up for the shortage of labour, but not in Afghanistan. What are they to do? In Afghanistan, conditions for widows can be so bad that there have been reports of them selling smaller children in order to save the others, and in the rare situations where they can work, they are invariably underpaid and exploited, with no one to turn to. I echo the wider sentiments about discrimination against women and girls whose hopes of empowerment and a better future nurtured in the past two decades have been cruelly dashed. We have all seen the shocking reports of the Taliban suppression of women protesters in recent days.
I know that the Government care about this and see it as a priority. For my part, I make a special plea for those who are doubly disadvantaged as widows and ask the Committee and the Minister to make every effort to shine a light and bring succour to those who need it most.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, 6 January was the first anniversary of the publication of our report. Several other noble Lords have mentioned the problems associated with getting it debated—better late than never, I suppose. I was proud to a member of the committee. If I can say so as 1/12th of the committee, I think it is an excellent report and it stands the test of time. Although it was long ago, I must give special thanks to the secretariat—Eva George and her team—and the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her chairmanship. She managed to do it all on Zoom, which to me is beyond human understanding.
On rereading the report, I particularly regret that we did not have a chance to debate it before the establishment of the Taliban regime. I am not going to exaggerate the significance of a single parliamentary report, but I think that many of the issues we raised were relevant prior to the Taliban takeover and remain relevant today. One year ago, no one reading our analysis could have been in any doubt whatever that the situation in the country was exceedingly grave. Although we did not predict the imminent collapse of the Government, we certainly identified their nearly insurmountable challenges. As we said in paragraph 1 of our summary:
“The Afghan state remains very fragile, with limited control of territory. The Taliban’s insurgency continues, and terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda and Islamic State Khorasan Province, operate in the country.”
We also pointed out that:
“The Afghan state is highly aid-dependent, and there are few prospects for domestic revenues to increase.”
Perhaps most tellingly of all, we said:
“The Afghan government’s accountability to its citizens is limited by its reliance on international military spending and aid. Government appointments are regarded as a source of spoils, and warlords and militia leaders retain roles inside the state.”
It was also obvious to our committee that, whatever resulted from the peace talks then taking place in Doha, our Government would have to address the fact that the Taliban would be involved in any settlement and we would have to decide at what level, and under what conditions, we should engage with them. We said:
“We conclude that the Government should be giving careful consideration to how, in the event of the Doha talks resulting in an agreement, it will handle its future relationship with the Taliban, which will necessarily be part of any power-sharing arrangement.”
We knew before it happened that the Taliban would be playing a crucial role in the future and that our Government would need to know how to engage with that.
While, as I say, we did not anticipate the imminent total Taliban takeover, it was obvious that the Taliban would be a major if not dominant force in any future Afghan Government. Indeed, anyone reading our report today would see there was a palpable sense of the overwhelming challenges of instability in the country and, despite the peace talks then ongoing, a strong sense of foreboding. That was implicit in our comments on the policy of the Trump Administration in reaching their one-sided agreement with the Taliban. It guaranteed US withdrawal without any reciprocal undertakings from the Taliban or any involvement in the talks by the then Afghan Government. It is impossible to resist the temptation to say of US policy at the time, in the light of subsequent events, “We told you so.”
Now we know that our foreboding was justified—the Taliban takeover is complete and took place in a stunningly short time—yet, for all the huge significance of the takeover, just a glimpse of the chapter headings of our report shows that the challenges facing Afghanistan today were there prior to the takeover, although of course hugely exacerbated by it. Our report listed the problems of poverty, hunger, Covid, human rights, corruption, refugees, drugs and terrorist groups.
On poverty in the country, we pointed out a year ago that Afghanistan was ranked 170th out of 189 countries in the 2019 Human Development Index. We also reported that Afghanistan depended on international aid for about 60% of its budget, that it was the most aid-dependent country in the world and that there were few prospects for domestic revenues to increase. In paragraph 237 we said, and this was prior to the takeover:
“The country faces a humanitarian crisis, with alarmingly high levels of food insecurity.”
So the basic problems of poverty were known well before the events in August.
It has to be said, in fairness, that in subsequent Statements and Answers to Questions the Minister has recognised the absolute priority of aid to those most in need in the country. He said in the House last week that the aid was getting through and there was good co-operation on the ground. However, since the Statements last week millions of people who will not necessarily be following these things will have seen the heart-rending, almost unwatchable reports by John Ray on ITN—this led the news on one day—about the desperation of so many people in Afghanistan, particularly the children, who as we speak are simply not getting enough to eat to keep them alive. So I really must ask the Minister: what are the obstacles to aid getting through to where it is needed most? How far short of the aid needed is actually being provided? What is being done to co-ordinate and accelerate the international effort?
We then have the allied problems of disease and hospital supplies, which were also highlighted by ITN, with children dying for lack of medicines. This issue is massively exacerbated by Covid. Last January, our report said that further humanitarian aid would be necessary specifically as a result of Covid. Again, I ask the Minister: where is the international commitment, and the UK’s in particular, on the supply of vaccines and essential drugs to hospitals that are so desperately in need?
So many of these issues have, inevitably, been mentioned before; the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, moaned about four of his foxes being shot but I feel as though all my foxes have been shot by speaking late. But on human rights, especially those of women and girls, our committee noted the improvements that had been made since the beginning of the UK’s involvement in 2001. For this, as with so much else, we salute the heroism and dedication of the military and all those British citizens who worked in Afghanistan with the aim of making life better for the Afghan people.
However, our report expressed concern about the extent to which these hard-won rights were being jeopardised in those parts of the country already under Taliban control. We found that there were substantial local variations, depending on individual Taliban commanders. I ask the Minister this: since the takeover in August, can he give any kind of overview of the human rights situation now that the Taliban has overall central control? Is it at all possible to say—this is perhaps a crude question to ask, but I would be interested to have an assessment—whether the Taliban today differs in any substantial way from the horrors of the Taliban of 20 years ago or is a reprise of that?
That brings me to the question which the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, mentioned and I merely repeat, about the engagement of the UK and our allies with those in control in Kabul. In December the Brookings Institution published a paper titled “It’s time for the West to engage with the Taliban”. The paper says:
“If we refuse to engage with the Taliban at any meaningful level … economic collapse and isolation risk provoking deeper instability, insecurity, and repression”.
On 15 December, the Minister for the Middle East, James Cleverly, said in a ministerial Statement:
“We have used our engagement with Taliban to press them to ensure a suitable environment for aid delivery, as well as to respond to international concerns on terrorism, the protection of human rights, especially the rights of women, girls and members of minorities”.
We have heard about the talks in Norway, but can the Minister update us on the level and frequency of that engagement? Can he also report on the success or otherwise of those contacts with the Taliban, especially on the catastrophic humanitarian issues?
I would also be interested in his reaction to a letter which some may have seen in the Guardian today—it was reported quite heavily. A number of our distinguished colleagues were signatories, including the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, the noble Lords, Lord Ricketts and Lord Sedwill, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Richards. They basically argued, among other things, for proper engagement with the Taliban. I would like the Minister’s reaction to this and, in particular, to the quote from the Norwegian foreign Minister, who said
“we must talk to the de facto authorities in the country. We cannot allow the political situation to lead to an even worse humanitarian disaster”.
I agree with every word in that letter and report. It would have saved me a lot of trouble if they had written it a couple of weeks ago, because it would have given me a lovely structure for my remarks. I would like to hear the Minister’s response.
I almost find myself summarising at this stage because it has been a very sombre, quite sad and regretful debate, with much more—this is true of my remarks as well as so many others—about the huge problems facing the country than practical ways of addressing and solving them in our much-reduced situation, but we must make the effort. In our report, we identified so many challenges facing Afghanistan. The same challenges remain but the situation is now far worse. The need is so great on so many fronts that it is sometimes difficult to focus and prioritise, but there surely can be no higher priority than the millions of children in Afghanistan whose lives are threatened because they simply do not have enough to eat. We need to address these problems, with that clearly as the first priority.
The Earl of Sandwich (CB)
My Lords, this has been a sombre debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, has rightly been congratulated by everyone, not least because of the remarkable timing. I have never seen a report and the belated government response go out of date so quickly, given that the whole fabric of western democracy in Afghanistan has collapsed. This whole debate could have been about NATO because of the knock-on effects of Afghanistan on the morale of the coalition at the moment and the obvious advantages for President Putin—but that is for another time. We are now in a period of limbo while we wait to see how the Taliban is going to put the country together again.
The noble Baroness and her committee have asked a number of pertinent questions. HMG have answered most of them, but not the central charge in paragraph 46 of the committee’s report that the UK failed to exert an “independent voice” in spite of its contribution. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, used the phrase “second fiddle” because this is nothing new. This proved only too true when the US pursued its own mistaken policy of rapid withdrawal; in my view, Bagram was perhaps the most flagrant example. The Minister might like to put the record straight and reassure us that the UK’s voice was at least there at the table, even if it was ignored.
There seems to be a consensus, at least among NGOs, that the Taliban is not the main obstacle to humanitarian aid but our own Governments are, or have been, because of the sanctions that they imposed on the Taliban, along with the lack of any banking system or official channels of aid. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, I expect the Minister to confirm that there is now an amendment to UNSCR 2615, adopted in December, and that this will provide a new UK channel for humanitarian aid. However, can he confirm that the exception when implemented in UK law through an SI will align with the exception agreed on 21 December? Can he confirm that banks and humanitarian agencies will not be subject to any new requirements, to ensure that the exception that the FCDO worked so hard on is upheld?
Can he also say whether the whole of the £286 million pledged for Afghanistan will now be made available to aid agencies, including NGOs, and whether this will be supplemented with unallocated funds, which always arise at the end of the financial year? People are dying every day. It is winter. Half the country is hungry, food aid is urgent, children are being sold and women are in hiding. This is the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, as everyone has said. Some aid is getting in, yet we are distracted by many other issues.
As noble Lords have said, the International Bar Association project to evacuate women judges has been an outstanding example of bravery, compassion and efficiency. There are individuals here and in the rest of the House who must be congratulated on this and other schemes, although so much more is still required. My personal tribute is to the NGOs that either never left or remain in close contact with Afghan partners, in some cases clinging on to projects on diminishing resources. They have suffered casualties and run risks every day. Some have even been killed. The group that brings together all these British, Irish and Afghan agencies—it is called BAAG—has organised regular briefings since August on what its members are suffering. It and many of its members submitted evidence to the Select Committee and, more recently, to the Foreign Affairs Committee.
These NGOs have put in a vast number of programmes. I have worked with Christian Aid, Save the Children and CARE International and have seen a lot of their work, such as community health, reconstruction, water and so on, and I see no reason why they should not continue. The HALO Trust remains because no one could deny its critical importance in demining. Obviously, women’s education projects will not. Back in the 1990s, I was a trustee of a charity supporting girls’ education in Badghis which had to stop under the Taliban, but it continued even then when we trained mothers to be teachers and the girls remained at home.
Reading the committee’s report, now more than one year old, brings back some nostalgia for the range of programmes that the coalition has provided or sustained over 20 years. It is a testimony to all the achievements of the UK and others over many years. What a waste it now seems, yet the experience remains in the country. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that I am among those who believe that many Afghans who remain in the country have absorbed democratic values and would like them to continue. The Hazaras may be at great risk for that very reason, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said. However, we must recognise that it will not be up to ordinary Afghans. It is up to the Taliban. They will have to make their mind up whether to embrace these western values. The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, made a very strong case. We will have to make some sort of peace with them. NGOs have already learned that, and many have been working side by side with them all the time. They have had to.
The Taliban are not one force, as has been said many times. They are not even welcome everywhere in the country. The Tajiks, the Hazaras and the Uzbeks are very different from the Pashtun. There are dozens of warlords with their own patch and militia to protect them. It may be that we have to wait for further internal struggles before stability returns, as the terrorists remain a constant threat. Only last week, eight National Resistance Front fighters commanded by Ahmad Massoud were killed by the Taliban. News like this often comes through news agencies in Pakistan since our mainstream media are, not surprisingly, still restricted. I was pleased to hear, as I think everyone would have been, that the BBC today told us that the World Service is still delivering its news coverage in five languages. Afghan journalists are often targeted and still live in hiding. Many have been arrested, attacked or brutally flogged if they cover demonstrations or speak in favour of women. We must salute them and all those who are speaking out against injustice, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister.
Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD)
My Lords, like other noble Lords, I thank and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay of St Johns, on her excellent chairmanship of the International Relations and Defence Committee and on the work she did in ensuring that this report came to fruition one year ago. Like so many Members of the Grand Committee, I served on the committee that produced this report and like so many noble Lords I express my grave dissatisfaction at the fact that it has taken one year for this report to be debated.
Normally, as the good people of Hansard will be aware, if I am winding for the Liberal Democrat Front Benches, I spend my time scribbling notes all through the debate. I tend not to have a speech when I arrive because I think it is important to make sure that I have listened to the debate. While I do not pretend that I am doing the Minister’s job of listening to the debate and responding, I think it is useful for Members of the House—or, on this occasion, the Grand Committee—to know whether the Liberal Democrats agree or disagree and where we stand on things.
However, when I saw this debate listed, I had a very different sense: I knew immediately what I needed to say and that I needed to write a speech. This is not merely a debate about a report from one of your Lordships’ committees that was written over a year ago and debated with hindsight, as so many of our reports are. It is a debate about something that affects the United Kingdom and our standing in the world. It is about whether we take moral responsibility and stand up for what we believe in.
We are speaking only in Grand Committee today. What a great shame it is that we are not in the Chamber, being watched and engaged with by the rest of your Lordships’ House. Yet again, this is a committee speaking by and large to ourselves—with the exception of one or two noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, my noble friend Lord Purvis’s official opposite number in Labour. The point is that we are not speaking to the Chamber or the outside world, but we should be. My remarks today seek to speak to your Lordships’ House and the Government, but also to the people whom we have left behind in Afghanistan, their friends and families here in the United Kingdom and the NGO community that is trying to support them.
It is so easy for people to forget about Afghanistan. We have a real problem with the news cycle. In August 2021, all we heard about on the news was Afghanistan, the attempts to get people out and, for a while, the attempts to get dogs and cats out of Kabul. The news of the animals and their sponsor seemed at times to be more important than getting individuals out, which perhaps says something about how we were viewing the crisis. How quickly the media move on.
The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, rightly said that ITN has recently been producing extremely moving and important short reports from Afghanistan to highlight the problems of people on the ground right now, during winter, when they are facing starvation, do not have enough heat and do not know where their next food is coming from. For most people in the United Kingdom, though, the Afghan crisis is something that happened last year, not something that is going on in January 2022. The main focus of our news broadcasts at the moment seems to be whether the Prime Minister attended a party. We must wait for Sue Gray, so we are told; that is what the headlines are all about. However, the people of Afghanistan do not know or care who Sue Gray is, and they certainly cannot expect to attend a party because, in most cases, the opportunity to do things that they might want to do at a party, such as singing, dancing and having music, have been banned by the Taliban. More importantly, they cannot envisage having a party because they cannot envisage where the food would come from.
As other noble Lords have pointed out so eloquently, the report we produced over a year ago stated just how dependent Afghanistan is on aid. That was a year ago, before the collapse of the Government in Kabul, before the Taliban came and before the reprehensible western withdrawal that led to chaos, carnage and leaving behind so many people without the opportunity to find a living.
Back in January 2021, we noted that, without aid, the public services of Afghanistan could not function. That was true then; it is true now. One of the issues that has barely been touched on in today’s debate is the situation with the banks. The letter from the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, and others to which the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, referred refers to the banks. Can the Minister tell your Lordships what this Government will do to work to ensure that, as far as possible, people in Afghanistan have money in future? The freezing of aid and the banking system means that people have no money.
Another thing that has barely been mentioned today is the fact that so few people are actually earning any living at all in Afghanistan because before, the funding was being provided through aid for 80% of the people. They were dependent on jobs in the public sector and those people, including teachers and medics, are not being paid. There was talk about women not being able to teach but there are still women working in hospitals as midwives, nurses and doctors. Even the Taliban knows that those people are necessary but they are not being paid. The only reason they still go to work is because they feel they have a duty, but for how long can that go on? What are the Government doing to ensure that aid gets to Afghanistan and the people who need it?
We need to make sure that people who are working are being paid but, beyond that, there are serious problems for women in Afghanistan at the moment—particularly widows, whom the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, talked about, but also for married women whose husbands are away looking for work. Afghanistan is essentially an agricultural economy but it currently faces its worst drought in 27 years. Even if it were not for the Taliban or Covid, there is drought. The men are away looking for work. The women are at home, more vulnerable than ever because the Taliban has put in restrictions on the movement of single women and those who have no chaperones, while trying to feed their children. There might be eight, 10 or 12 children. How would any of us feed our children when we have no income and when the cost of fuel has risen and there is no cooking oil? There is a grave humanitarian danger right now and we need to be responding.
However, that danger is so much worse for the people whom the United Kingdom left behind—the interpreters and judges, the British Council people, the GardaWorld force and the Chevening scholars. I refer in particular to the British Council because, for the past four and a half months, I have been writing again and again to the Government, asking what is happening to those people. It is a microcosm of the problem in this British response. The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, said that there has been no structure or strategy to the response. That seems to be the case with ARAP. The British Council people were told, “You can come out under ARAP”. A few did but many were left behind. I kept being told about rumours that ARAP is time-limited and that the numbers are limited. So I kept writing to the Government but was told, “No, ARAP is not time-limited and the numbers are not limited”.
That might have been true, but the rules have changed. If you worked for the British Council you might now be able to come under the ACRS. That is great, but we still do not know what the rules are or how you apply. We believe that if you are already in this country you might be eligible for the ACRS, through some opaque means. We understand that if you are in Kabul or elsewhere in Afghanistan you might be able to apply, but it is not quite clear how. Over the last six months, again and again, the Home Office, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and the MoD have passed the buck one to the other.
Individuals in Afghanistan, their families and others, and the diaspora communities in the UK need to understand who to talk to and how they can assist people. How can we, as Members of your Lordships’ House, assist? How can NGOs help? We understand that some of the referral routes will be through the UNHCR, but the NGOs are there on the ground. They know the situation. What are the Government doing to explain to them how they can make referrals, or, if they cannot, who can?
Finally, it is worth bearing in mind that the people suffering the most are precisely those who worked most closely with the United Kingdom. If everybody faces famine, it is even worse for those whom the Taliban know worked as interpreters or taught English for the British Council—not just English but British values: the very values the Taliban are most opposed to. The Taliban are going door to door. Many of the people who worked for the British Council and as guards have moved to safe houses, but they have to move again and again. If their children are left behind, some have been taken by the Taliban, either as child soldiers or as child brides. The word “bride” is not appropriate; they are children being raped. What are the Government doing to help all these people?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, for her introduction to this excellent report. I also extend my thanks to all the members of the committee not only for their contribution to the work on this report but for their excellent contributions today. I share the concerns over the delay in debating the report, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and my noble friend Lady Blackstone said, the 124 recommendations and the analysis behind them are still very relevant. I hope the Minister will be able to reflect on that. Learning the lessons of this report will certainly be invaluable.
The final weeks of the UK’s intervention in Afghanistan marked a chaotic end to two decades, but we should not let that overshadow the incredible achievements made during that period. As the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, said, we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude for the work of our servicepeople, not only in the last months before the Taliban takeover but in the past 20 years, because it is they who have contributed to a level of freedom and empowerment for Afghan women and girls that would never previously have been imagined. We can also take immense pride in the servicepeople and diplomats whose efforts as part of Operation Pitting enabled so many people who worked alongside us to get out.
However, as we know, too many were left behind. It is our priority to focus on them as well, but I accept what many noble Lords said about those who did get out. We have a duty of care for those people. My noble friend Lord Boateng is absolutely right: they should not be left to suffer. We need to help them rebuild their lives and those of their families. That is very important.
However, our focus must now be on two priorities. First, and most immediately, how can we protect the people who remain in Afghanistan and those who have been able to escape? Secondly, how can we protect the gains of the past 20 years—particularly relating to women’s and girls’ education, as this excellent report highlights? The education of millions of girls, landmine clearance on a huge scale and the establishment of media freedom are only a few of the achievements that are now, sadly, under threat from the Taliban. The people of the United Kingdom and Afghanistan will always have a special bond. As a generation of young Afghans see those gains lost, we owe them our support.
The most immediate way we can help the people of Afghanistan is through a response to the unfolding humanitarian crisis. Across Afghanistan, more than half the country’s population are expected to face potentially life-threatening food insecurity this winter, leading to mass starvation that could kill 1 million children—far outnumbering how many have been killed in the 20 years of conflict. According to the International Rescue Committee, this means that near-universal poverty will take hold in Afghanistan this year.
As my noble friend Lord Grocott highlighted, part of the issue is that 90% of the country’s hospitals and clinics face closure due to lack of funds and, with cash liquidity still a huge problem, the suspension of foreign aid and sanctions are hammering the economy. The UK needs to step forward now to address the impending humanitarian crisis.
The UN has already provided political leadership on exactly what is needed. UK spending on development assistance is positive, as we have heard, but the Government must demonstrate that they can spend money effectively so that it reaches those who are most in need. As the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, highlighted, this will involve working with multiple delivery channels, including the UN and NGOs, to support Afghan civil society and bypass the de facto Taliban authorities wherever possible. The funding needs to be flexible enough to adapt to the fast-changing conditions on the ground. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I want to hear in the Minister’s response exactly what he will say to Gordon Brown in respect of his appeal.
Earlier this month, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, called for $4.4 billion for the Afghanistan humanitarian response plan, to be paid directly to health workers and those in control of basic services. Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has put forward the Afghanistan Situation Regional Refugee Response Plan to support refugees and host communities in five neighbouring countries, but has said that many states must contribute more. I repeat the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay: it is clear that the UK needs to be clearer about exactly what commitments it has made and how and when the funding will be distributed. I also want to hear from the Minister about the responses to the UN’s appeals, not only Gordon Brown’s, and the course of action. How will the UK offer practical support to ensure that the UN can provide all the humanitarian assistance that Afghanistan needs?
As was referenced in the committee’s report, the UK should use its influence with key allies such as Pakistan and Qatar to maintain humanitarian dialogue with the Taliban and ensure that the specific protection needs of vulnerable communities are met. I know that the Minister has been doing that in recent times.
The noble Lord, Lord Balfe, said that we have to respond because many countries do not share our values. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, they may not share our values but they certainly share our concerns. The report was excellent in highlighting common issues of concern: terrorism, drug production and regional insecurity. Every country that neighbours Afghanistan shares those concerns; it ought to be within our ability to work with those countries to address them.
Humanitarian investment needs to be matched by diplomatic treatment and dialogue with the de facto authorities and continued commitment to the humanitarian diplomacy priorities outlined in the Government’s integrated review, as the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, so ably highlighted. Looking particularly at the constraints on humanitarian access and the promotion and protection of the rule of law, the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and other noble Lords raised the BBC World Service, which is well positioned to continue in its mission to provide accurate, impartial and impactful journalism in Afghanistan. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, highlighted, with the recent announcement that the licence fee is to be frozen for two years and with additional Foreign Office funding yet to be agreed, it is difficult to see how the BBC will be able to maintain that level of support.
The other focus of our debate is the millions of people displaced from Afghanistan. We must ensure that continued safe and legal routes are available for those fleeing persecution so that they can travel safely. People who assisted the UK in Afghanistan and stood up for our values should not be forced into the hands of criminal gangs to make dangerous journeys in the absence of safe routes. Unfortunately, as we have heard this afternoon, it is six months since the fall of Kabul and we still see many people struggling as the result of the confusion over those eligible for ARAP. We need a lot more clarification on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. It is not clear who will be eligible. No one could have been unmoved by some of the stories that we have heard in this debate, such as about the British Council staff who were mentioned and those we heard on the radio only last week, who I raised with the Minister in a Question. We need to give proper assurance to these people and to understand that that support will continue and will not be cut off.
My noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws made a moving speech about the situation of lawyers and judges. The Government made a clear commitment to help evacuate lawyers and judges, and it is concerning that only a handful have been successfully evacuated to the United Kingdom. I hope the Minister will not only respond to my noble friend’s specific questions but tell us how many cases have been referred to the FCDO and what percentage of them have been successful.
My noble friend Lord Boateng and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, addressed the issue of engagement with the Taliban. Aside from the most pressing questions of humanitarian support, the UK must also face up to the growing question of how to engage with the authorities in Afghanistan. That is why Labour has called on the Government to lead efforts to negotiate terms of engagement. Nearly six months after the fall of Kabul, the international community has failed to grasp the reality and to put in place a plan about how we engage with Afghanistan. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, that no responsible Government would normalise relationships or allow taxpayers’ money to fund a Taliban crackdown on women’s rights and girls’ education or terrorism, but a complete failure to engage is costing lives and is clearly not sustainable. I hope the Minister will be able to respond to noble Lords’ questions. In the light of what has been happening in Norway, can he tell us how the Government are pursuing those relationships with the Taliban?
To conclude, our focus must turn to Afghanistan’s future rather than its past. The people of Afghanistan face enormous humanitarian difficulties. Our response must be to work multilaterally to address their ongoing suffering. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan’s mandate was extended for six months on 17 September 2021 by UN Security Council Resolution 2596. I hope the Minister will explain what our position is on the renewal of that mandate in March this year. Its continuation would ensure that robust monitoring continues on the ground. This is very important for developing our relationship with the Taliban. Will the UK support the work of the UN special rapporteur on Afghanistan and ensure financial support for fact-finding missions once a person is appointed?
I hope that this report will form part of a necessary and thorough review, not only of our policies that led up to our evacuation but of how we supported people to leave. That review should be cross-departmental and aim to identify areas where joint responsibility and planning can be strengthened, including civilian-military engagement. This has been a timely and important debate. I certainly agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that we need to draw attention to a wider audience; I know not many people respond to our debates. I hope the Minister will not feel too pressurised in answering our pressing questions; I certainly hope he will not do what the noble Lord did this afternoon in response to an Urgent Question and feel the need to resign under pressure. I hope, knowing his longevity in his office, that he will be able to answer our questions to the satisfaction of everyone here.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)
My Lords, I join others in recording my special thanks to my noble friend Lady Anelay. I have known her for my full stint of what is now approaching 10 years on the Front Bench of the House of Lords.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
Indeed, my noble friend was my first mentor and remains not just a noble friend but a friend in its true essence. In joining others, I pay tribute to her and all members of the committee for their report and the various levels of engagement we have had.
I share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, as articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that although we meet a year on from the publication of this report its findings and recommendations are very much part and parcel of our thinking. They are as relevant today as they were 12 months ago. As to the reasons why this debate had not been scheduled earlier, I must be honest and say I really do not know. I think the usual channels will have taken note. For my part, and I hope noble Lords will feel this, it is not just that I assumed responsibilities for our relationships with south Asia in 2019. Since then, I have sought to engage directly not only with various partners but with noble Lords on this important issue, during the crisis and subsequently. I am grateful to those noble Lords who attended part of the regular programme of briefings that focused on Afghanistan just before the Christmas break. I give noble Lords an absolute, categorical assurance that I will continue to engage specifically.
I also put on record my thanks to many noble Lords who are here today and others who worked with me, notwithstanding differences—many questions and challenges have been put to me on the Government’s response. When it came to the practical response, we leveraged the maximum level of expertise to ensure that the people who needed our help could get it at whatever time of the day or night, certainly during the evacuation and Operation Pitting but also subsequently.
The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, raised the British Council. I hope she will appreciate and recognise that I have paid personal attention to this issue. I assure her that, through the various discussions I have with colleagues, particularly at the Home Office, the three cohorts we agreed to support through resettlement schemes, the British Council, Chevening and GardaWorld, will be fully supported. I cannot announce anything today, but I am in the process of finalising the exact contacts with each organisation. They are directly engaged on the people we continue to assist over that scheme.
I recognise the valuable contributions of all noble Lords in this important debate. It is incredible to think that the report was published a year ago. As noble Lords said, a lot has happened since. First and foremost, I shall reflect on the points made about the NATO withdrawal. The great thing about your Lordships’ House is, as I say regularly, the expertise and insights provided. That has been reflected in today’s debate. I agree with other noble Lords that it is a shame that we perhaps do not receive attention.
I note the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who talked about the importance of the original NATO decision. As a Minister of State, you make your contributions and you make your case, and I know that representations were made with the then President of the United States, President Trump, and his team, and subsequently with the Biden Administration, as noble Lords will recognise. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister sought an extension of the programme right until the end of Operation Pitting. Unfortunately, once the US decided to pull out troops—I recognise the points made by several noble Lords—NATO partners together decided that they would be unable to continue with the mission on the ground. However, it is very clear to me that the reality is we cannot, should not and will not turn our back on Afghanistan and, most importantly, its people.
I agree with my noble friend Lady Fall: whatever decisions were taken—I agree with her assessment of the decisions taken when the focus began on withdrawal from the Resolute Support Mission on 1 May—once the key leverage was given away, which was the date, it was not a question of if the Taliban would take over; it was simply a question of when. As the events of August demonstrated, the challenges became all too apparent. There was almost a domino effect. I know from speaking to people who have arrived here, as I have done directly with Afghan leaders, particularly women leaders, that even they did not expect that 15 August would be the date that the Taliban took over Kabul. Some were on planes and some were at their departments. Indeed, negotiations were still taking place, as brave leaders who continue to be on the ground have shared with me.
The UK accepts the reality of the situation and has played an active role in building a new international approach since the Taliban takeover through the UN Security Council, the G20, the G7, NATO and our direct engagement with countries in the region. The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, spoke about the history of Afghanistan. It is a country torn by conflict, not just in recent times but over many centuries. Nevertheless, what happened over the past 20 years was a change in the people of Afghanistan. There is a new generation of empowered women. It did not mean that there was no corruption—there was—but there were new hopes of new beginnings with an educated population.
Yet, after the withdrawal of NATO forces, we have seen a regression—that is probably an understatement—in what has been achieved on the ground. The Government have been absolutely clear about their priorities, which remain that we wish to ensure safe passage for those who wish to leave the country. As several noble Lords have said, we want to prevent foreign terrorist fighters travelling in or out of Afghanistan. We remain committed to human rights in Afghanistan and the important issue of humanitarian aid.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, spoke about the importance of women and the importance of judges. Again, I thank her for her efforts; she and I have engaged extensively on this issue. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked for specific updates. The information that I have is that the UK has offered a home to more than 20 Afghan judges and prosecutors. I have met some of them, including their dependants. I can share with noble Lords that we are working with like-minded Governments, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, will note, to see how we can co-ordinate our efforts better for those who are still outside Afghanistan but in a third country to ensure their final settlement. I look forward to working with the noble Baroness on this important issue.
On the evacuations and resettlement, we have talked about Operation Pitting, which was the biggest and fastest emergency evacuation. I know there have been challenges and questions, but I saw the early planning for the operation, and the fact that it was stood up—notwithstanding the fluid situation where we had no engagement with the Taliban and did not know how they would react—and that 15,000 people left is an important testament, as noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Balfe and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, have acknowledged. Indeed, the United Kingdom did not just help our own cohorts to leave; we also helped 36 other countries and their nationals.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, asked specifically about the resettlement schemes and the announcements that have been made. I can share that the original figure of 5,000 for year 1 has been exceeded and we are nearer 7,000. The 450 people already here will be counted within that 7,000, but the scheme remains very much open to others as they come through. The people who came through the ARAP scheme, and British nationals and their dependants, are not counted within that 5,000 or the 20,000 over the four-year period. I hope that is clear.
I join noble Lords in recognising the important role that our Army and indeed our diplomats played in this unprecedented evacuation under the most challenging circumstances. I can further share that since the end of Operation Pitting the UK has now supported 3,400 individuals to leave Afghanistan. This includes over 1,200 British nationals and qualifying dependants. I assure noble Lords that we will continue to help those in Afghanistan to depart the country, including holding the Taliban to their commitment to ensure safe passage.
Various schemes continue to operate. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, that ARAP remains open. The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, asked about various schemes that were operating. I fully accept that in the challenge of Operation Pitting there could have been greater clarification about how each scheme operated. When we talk about lessons learned, it has to be about much more than that: clarity, how we work a filter and how we can ensure that people are directed. I very much recognise how I would feel if I were at the other end of trying to get people out and receiving desperate emails. Actually I was receiving such emails directly and, truth be told, yes, there were many moments of frustration and exasperation, but you have to battle through. I may disappoint the noble Lord, but I have no intention of taking the decision that my noble friend took earlier today in your Lordships’ House; to me, if you are going to effect change—and perhaps I am being slightly starry-eyed about this—it is important to stay within to see what can be done. That was certainly my attitude in working with others on ensuring that this could be achieved in the best way possible.
The noble Lord, Lord Boateng, spoke passionately and I share his views. We are the UK; we are a country. Like his, my own family is testament to the opportunities afforded to people who migrate to the UK, make a life of their own and are able to contribute. We recognise that as Afghans arrive here in the UK, they should be given that warm reception to ensure that they too can rebuild their lives. They are starting with nothing. We need to ensure that those in temporary accommodation are brought through to permanent accommodation, and I assure all noble Lords that we are working closely not just with the Home Office but with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ensure accommodation. There are regular meetings chaired at a very senior level to ensure that there is co-ordination in that respect.
I recognise that another important role is that of local authorities; again, the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, pointed to this. We are currently working with 300 local authorities and have pledged to support families. We have made it clear that those who arrive through this safe and legal route will be granted indefinite leave to remain. I recognise what the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said but we are providing support to families and councils. Of course, this is about the whole offer, not just housing; it is also about, for example, healthcare and education for children.
On humanitarian support, let me say from the outset that I attended a conference in Uzbekistan just three weeks prior to Operation Pitting and the fall of Kabul. Every player was there, including President Ghani and Foreign Minister Atmar from Afghanistan, the United States, Turkey and Afghanistan’s near neighbour, Pakistan. I engaged directly with each and every one of them. Although the inevitability of a Taliban takeover was understood, no one—not even President Ghani, in his final conversation with me— perceived how quickly it would happen. However, what was clear was the need for co-ordination and, as soon as that was clear, we engaged with the UN over several months.
During the crisis and as the Kabul takeover happened, many early calls were made to UNICEF, UNHCR and the ICRC, among others. For example, I spoke to the deputy Secretary-General of the UN to ensure co-ordination of the humanitarian response. Last year, total UK aid to Afghanistan was £286 million. On the clarification of how much money has gone, I assure the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, that it is £145 million. I draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that I deliberately placed a detailed WMS just in advance of Christmas; I will share it again. All this money, the £286 million, will have left our door and be with agencies—indeed, be delivered on the ground—by the close of the current financial year. That was the commitment given and we are fulfilling it.
As I said, we worked to ensure that £145 million went out. To give an example to my noble friend Lady Anelay, we talked about this at the UN directly but I have also spoken to the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, Deborah Lyons, the UN SRSG, UNICEF, UNHCR, OCHA and ICRC, as well as other NGOs such as the Aga Khan Development Network, while working on the ground. If I can share a glimmer with noble Lords, many of these organisations have said that they are working without hindrance. Their ability to stand their networks up is clear. Challenges remain for some of their women workers but it varies from state to state. With 36-odd regions in Afghanistan, there are certain regions where work has become better and more effective because there is no conflict. We are monitoring that.
When I spoke to David Beasley at the World Food Programme, one thing he assured me of on our support and the money we have given—the latest report, which I shared with the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, came directly from the World Food Programme—was that aid is being delivered. However, I accept that, as the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, pointed out, there are vulnerable communities such as women and girls, particularly widows; I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s work in this respect. We are working with agencies on the ground.
I have met Afghan leaders, particularly women leaders, directly. I am meeting Fawzia Koofi this week but I have already met others, such as Hasina Safi, who was the Women’s Minister; I also met Shukria Barakzai a few weeks ago. I asked each of them to tell me which Afghan NGOs are working on the ground and still operational, so that we can help to support them. As the noble Lord, Lord Boateng, said, they know best. We will continue to support them through multilateral efforts as well as directly supporting UK NGOs. The noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has raised this point with me. We are working with organisations such as Save the Children. I will keep noble Lords fully updated on the detail of that.
My noble friend Lady Anelay, the noble Lords, Lord Purvis and Lord Boateng, and others raised the important issue of Afghan sanctions. On 22 December, the Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2615, which we were central in leading on, and added a humanitarian exemption to the sanctions regime established by Resolution 1988, thus enabling the provision of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. I assure noble Lords that the UK Government are now working as a priority to update the relevant UK legislation to implement this exception directly in line with the UN Security Council resolution. I hope that this gives my noble friend the assurance she seeks. The reason I was turning back as the noble Earl spoke was that I was checking with my private secretary, as I believe I am signing that SI tomorrow, so I shall update noble Lords accordingly.
The challenges and obstacles to aid disbursement was raised by several noble Lords. On the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, we channel our funding through UN agencies and trusted NGOs and work with them to ensure that that money gets through in the most effective manner. Questions were asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, and others about how we are working to ensure the further release of funding. We worked directly with the World Bank to release the first tranche of $280 million, which goes to health workers and teachers, and are currently working with it to ensure the release of another $1.2 billion. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and others pointed out about the recent letter in the Guardian. I have read it, and I agree with the sentiments about engagement with the Taliban.
In the time I have, I assure the noble Lord, Lord Alton, that human rights are central to my thinking. The issue with the Hazara community is well known to me. It is a point we are making in direct engagement with the Taliban, which I will come on to, first through identifying the situation on the ground. Various NGOs have been named. We are in touch with them. Many minority communities are suffering. The Sikh community, the Hazara community and my own Ahmadi community are under great challenge. We are working to identify them, discreetly at times, to ensure their safe passage because for some minority communities there is no option but to leave. I am very aware of that issue.
My noble friend Lord Balfe raised the important issue of the BBC World Service. We are working very closely with the BBC and have successfully managed to evacuate a number of people from Afghanistan, but I take my noble friend’s wider point about the importance of the BBC and the soft power and influence we often talk about that can bring about change on the ground.
I am conscious I am up against the clock, but I hope your Lordships will indulge me on the important issue of engagement with the Taliban. As the noble Lords, Lord Boateng and Lord Kerr, said, the reality is that the Taliban are now in charge. I have often been asked—I was asked this by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and others—whether I think the Taliban have changed. When I went before the committee, I was very clear. When it comes to the Taliban, I do not recognise the faith I follow in their perverse ideology. Have they changed? I do not think so. What has changed is that Afghanistan changed in 20 years. Will the Taliban recognise that? That is the key question.
If the Taliban want international recognition and to be part of the international community, let us talk about Islam. This is not about western values, as my noble friend Lord Balfe said. We often talk about British values. I am a Muslim by faith and I am proud of my country of Britain. Is there a conflict between my faith and the country I represent? No. These are shared values. These are human values. I say to the Taliban: the first verse of the Holy Koran is Iqra, which means educate. No caveat, no addendums, no saying just for men. It is for men and women, boys and girls. Recognise that, Islam. The Holy Prophet Mohammed, who is often quoted by the Taliban, was employed by his first wife, Khadija Khuwaylid. She asked him to marry her. So let us have a reality check, Taliban. That is Islam, the principle you claim to follow. Stand up. You shall be held accountable. On inclusivity and the protection of minorities, Islam provides that protection. Stand up. Follow that Islam. Then we will see you being counted among countries that are standing up.
In all this, it is important that the Muslim world plays its role. It is vital that we invest in our relationships with Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Iran and others, and we are doing just that. For example, I have just returned from Sri Lanka and Qatar and I met Minister Al Thani as he was about to go out to Kabul. I listed many of the issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, among others, including my noble friend Lady Anelay, listed about girls’ education, women’s rights and the rights of 36 million people in Afghanistan.
With the best intentions, we tried to stand up. Could we have got out more? The honest answer is that I do not know. I stand by the fact of what we achieved. We should not celebrate but say with humility that we managed to get 15,000 people out, but what about the 36 million that remain? Therefore, I recognise what noble Lords, Lord Anderson, Lord Kerr and Lord Hannay, have said: that we must engage.
At this point, a line is being drawn. We are engaging and have been at the forefront; Sir Simon Gass and Martin Longden have both been to Kabul. We are engaging directly, as noble Lords have said, in Norway. Nigel Casey, our special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, will be returning later tonight and I will meet him tomorrow. I will update noble Lords on the discussions that are taking place. I share with noble Lords that we are drawing a line with the Taliban at the moment that I will not engage with it them as a Minister. We will engage at official levels to ensure that they provide safe passage, provide and stand up for human rights and allow humanitarian aid in. As my noble friend Lady Fall said, we will not allow Afghanistan again to become a base for terrorism. It is not an easy ask, but we must work with international partners in this respect. Today those meetings are taking place in Norway. It is a change. I believe it is the first time the Taliban have been invited outside the region. They met in Islamabad a few weeks ago.
I, too, heard that awful interview which said that women’s rights are being protected after seeing a most shocking video of those very rights being usurped. That is not good enough; the Taliban will be held accountable. If the Taliban want international recognition they must step up to the mark and deliver on the promises and examples that they claim to follow. Then they will see how we can engage further. It is important that we engage with them for the key things that we deliver on human rights and humanitarian aid and we are doing just that.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, asked me about the mandate. We are very much part and parcel of that. When I met Deborah Lyons, I assured her of our continued support. We will work with UN partners to ensure humanitarian aid remains a priority. I heard the call from Gordon Brown; he is right to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis. I believe that with the contributions the United Kingdom is making—we are ever-evolving and learning from experience—we are stepping up to the mark to try to play our role. What happens in the weeks and months ahead will determine many of the issues.
The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, rightly raised the issue of interpreters; she and I have had many a discussion on this. Many interpreters have arrived. I remember working through cases and examples even in the few days I tried to take off at the end of July. Every new case brings hope. Some of the interpreters I got involved with, with your Lordships raising their cases, have arrived here. I have met them, and it is heartening to see them building new lives. I take on board what the noble Baroness says. We remain focused on ensuring that we stand up for those who played important roles for all of us.
I am over my time by five minutes, but I hope that by illustrating some of the detail behind our engagement I have been able to respond more extensively, particularly to the questions raised by my noble friend Lady Anelay and all noble Lords. The final point I will make is this: as the government Minister responsible, I will continue to engage with your Lordships across the piece on the important issue of Afghanistan because one thing I recognise beyond everything else is that within your Lordships’ House we have the insight, experience and expertise that can help to guide our Government in a response which is ever evolving. In terms of what we have achieved, we should show humility. In terms of what we seek to do, we should put humanity at the heart of our work.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)
My Lords, I thank everyone who has contributed to our debate and my noble friend the Minister. He reminded us that he has been on the Front Bench a mere 10 years, with hardly a grey hair to go with it. When I met my noble friend, I was the Government Chief Whip. He joined our Whips team. I knew then, as I know now, that he is a man of faith and honour. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott: Whips can be people of both faith and honour, can’t they? I knew the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, when I first became the Opposition Chief Whip back in 2007. He could get away with murder but never actually committed murder—I think.
Today, we have had a reminder of where duty lies when you purport to be a leading power in the world. We were reminded early on how important it is to have a view of history—and I do not say that just because I used to be a history teacher, a lifetime ago. We heard speeches from the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, my noble friend Lord Balfe, the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, and others that put our debate within the context, within the frame, of the lives of those who live in Afghanistan and the region. They reminded us that we should not think in terms of today but remember that tomorrow is built upon yesterday.
My noble friend Lady Fall said that we must remember why we went into Afghanistan in 2001 and why we intervened as a member of NATO, making sure that we upheld the rule of NATO that, if one of its members is attacked, so are the others, which all bear that responsibility of responding. She also made the point, which I shall remember very well, that the unified purpose of intervention means that, if you win, you have a straightforward military result, but the real problem is what comes next, which is where so many colleagues focused their remarks. Despite the continuing challenges mentioned by many Members today, progress was made.
However, the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, made the telling point that last August was a potent reminder of the ghastly consequences of political miscalculations. How true that is. Again, the question was asked: what next? How can we maintain our work with those in Afghanistan? How can we ensure that we fulfil our commitments on humanitarian aid without in any way compromising our position by talking to an Administration whose actions can be, and are, so deplorable? How can we balance everything we do with the duty to stand by the commitments that we have given?
The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said that we should ensure that our defeat last August does not lead to our dishonour. He put me in mind of the two Oslo meetings. One has already been referred to; I shall briefly describe the other. We have heard about the Oslo meetings last weekend. I learned about them only by seeing on Twitter a tweet from one of the members of the Taliban, who was there on behalf of the political office of the Emirate. I do not describe him that way; it is the way that he describes himself. As I read his tweet, which he wrote in four sections, I was carried back to one of my first overseas visits as a Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as it was. I went to Oslo at the end of 2014 to meet a Moses Room-sized room full of women. It was a conference of Afghan women who had travelled to Oslo to be able to talk about their hopes for the future. Some of them were teachers, some were doctors, some were politicians—all aspired for their children to have the same kind of freedom that they had found after 2001. As I listened to them, I felt very strongly our country’s responsibility that, when we make commitments to people whose whole future and lives depend on others, we should maintain those commitments. I am very pleased to hear the strength of what my noble friend the Minister said today.
I come back to the issue of dishonour. As a British citizen and parliamentarian, if I ever meet any of those nearly 60 Afghan women again, I want to be able to look them in the eye and say, “We have not forgotten you, and we will not do so.”
House of Lords
Sugar
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the effect of sugar on health in England; and what steps they will take to reduce its consumption.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
My Lords, consuming too much sugar can lead to weight gain, which in turn increases the risk of serious diseases such as cancer, heart disease, type 2 diabetes and Covid-19. It also increases the risk of tooth decay. Through the healthy weight strategy, we are delivering a sugar reduction and reformulation programme, including the soft drinks industry levy, and legislating to restrict the promotion and advertising of products high in fat, salt, and sugar.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. He would agree that we need a suite of different approaches—
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
—to try to make some headway. One of the great successes has been the sugar tax, yet the Government, for reasons which he previously explained, have decided not to extend it over a wider front because of unforeseen contingencies which created problems. Would he examine the prospect of taxing those unforeseen consequences so that the major driver for changing behaviour—pricing—will start to deliver the real results for us?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for what I am sure was his unintended pun. I will try not to sugar-coat my response too much. We will see who can descend to the worst pun by the end.
We take seriously the issue of unintended consequences. As the noble Lord has rightly said, there has been evidence of people deciding to go to a different brand. In the case of Irn-Bru, it introduced a newer version, which I think it called “Irn-Bru 1901”, which has in fact a higher sugar content. We are very aware of that, which is why all the measures that we take must be evidence based.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, in the National Food Strategy, which the Government are due to respond to soon, the suggestion is made that we introduce a £3 per kilogram tax on sugar, which would be on all processed food, food used in restaurants and food used in catering. It would, in effect, extend the current soft drinks levy which, as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said, has been very successful. It is very straightforward. What is the Government’s response?
Lord Kamall (Con)
We are looking at a number of different measures in terms of what works and what does not work, and we are very clear that it must be based on evidence. The Government keep all taxes under regular review, and decisions about the future development of taxes are made by the Chancellor, in line with the Government’s tax policy-making framework.
Baroness Redfern (Con)
My Lords, overconsumption of sugar causes both dental decay and obesity, but it is dental disease which, unfortunately, is in many cases largely irreversible. Does the Minister agree that action to tackle diet-related disease such as tooth decay must be formally recognised as an integral part of ongoing work to confront obesity?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I agree with my noble friend: it is really important that we review all the evidence and the different programmes. As she rightly said, the fact is that a number of hospital admissions of young children are quite often because those children have tooth decay that requires serious intervention. We are making sure that we look at all the different measures—what has worked and what has not worked—to put these into an evidence-led approach.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister said he was looking at all the evidence. In doing that, I wonder whether he is looking at what happens, for example, in Amsterdam, where there is a very enlightened policy of education—going into schools and dealing with mums before they have even given birth—in order that there is a better understanding of this. Surely we must have as wide a spread and approach as that, and not just deal with taxes, which are important.
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Lord makes a really important point: it cannot just be about fiscal policy; it has to be across a whole range of different areas, including education and prevention. Indeed, one of the things that the NHS is looking at for the future is making sure that we focus more on prevention rather than cure—not to put cure aside; clearly, we have to deal with people who are ill. At the request of the Government, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition has undertaken an extensive evaluation of the evidence, looking at all the measures that we could possibly take to reduce sugar consumption.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, raises an important issue. Obesity is now a major UK health problem, and excess sugar consumption is a major cause, with significant sugar content in too much of our food. I confess to being somewhat of a sugar addict myself—corrected by my wife, but I still love chocolates and three spoonfuls of sugar in my coffee.
Lord Flight (Con)
The solution here is surely to bring in sugar substitutes.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I am not sure that I heard the last word. Was it substitutes?
Lord Kamall (Con)
One of the issues that we need to be aware of as we look at how to tackle sugar levels is that, although we have seen a reduction in sugar in drinks and in many food products over the years, a concern that is often raised is whether the sweeteners have unintended consequences that also cause health issues. We have to consider all the evidence when we look at the measures that we introduce.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister comment on the proposed relationship between high-carbohydrate consumption—which is what sugar is—and deprivation?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I always turn to the noble Lord for his experience and advice. It is well known that diabetics, for example, do not look at their sugar content but at their intake of carbohydrates when looking at their diet. I say this as someone whose family has both type 1 and type 2 diabetics, so I understand this issue. I would welcome more information from the noble Lord.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, since its introduction in 2018, the sugar tax on soft drinks has successfully reduced sugar intake and raised more than £880 million, which the Government had promised to spend on tackling childhood obesity. However, it is no longer directly linked to any specific programmes, nor to departmental spending. Can the Minister explain this turnaround to your Lordships’ House, and what assessment has been made of the effect on public confidence that similar taxes will be dedicated to expenditure on improving people’s health?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for raising the success so far of the programme in reducing sugar in drinks. Between 2015 and 2019, we saw a 44% reduction in sales-weighted average total sugar in retailer and manufacturer-branded drinks subject to the soft drinks industry levy. The money raised through the soft drinks industry levy was not linked to any specific programmes or departmental spending. As the noble Baroness will be aware, departmental spend is allocated through spending reviews by the Treasury, and there is quite often some scepticism over hypothec—sorry, probably too much sugar, or not enough sugar—or hypothecated taxes, but we are committed to tackling childhood obesity through a number of different programmes.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the problem is not just sugar but the fact that people are putting too many calories of all sorts in their mouth? The real answer to the obesity epidemic and the Covid problem is to reduce the total number of calories going into the mouth. If your waist measurement is more than half your height, you are eating too much of the gross national product.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that catchy slogan; I wonder whether we could use it in some of our campaigns. As he rightly says, it is not just sugar. There are concerns about ultra-processed foods, for example, but also the size of portions. Many noble Lords will be aware that, for some simple products, the portion sizes have increased over the years, and if you want to get a small portion you have to either buy something and share it with someone or throw away half of it. We are looking at all these measures to make sure that our diets are healthier, that we have the right balance with smaller portions and that people are doing exercise. It is one thing is to consume those calories but another to burn them off.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the Government buy 5% of the calories eaten every day; that is a figure from Henry Dimbleby. Does the Minister agree that the Government must do a lot more in a co-ordinated way to use government procurement in schools, hospitals, prisons and other institutions to ensure that the food available to people has far less sugar in it and, ideally, includes fresh fruit and vegetables rather than ultra-processed food?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her recommendations for the sort of healthy diet we should have. She is absolutely right that, when government expects people to reduce their consumption of unhealthy food, it should set the way and lead by example. We are therefore looking at how we change diets in schools and across the public sector.
House of Lords: Appointments
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Grocott
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the balance in the House of Lords between members taking the Government whip and members taking the whip of the Official Opposition as a factor when considering future recommendations for appointments to the House.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, the Prime Minister makes nominations in response to the needs of the House for expert and specialist knowledge and experience and to maintain its political balance. This ensures that the Lords continues to fulfil its role in scrutinising and revising legislation while respecting the primacy of the Commons and the conventions between the two Houses.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
Can the Minister confirm that, when Labour left office in 2010, the number of Labour Peers exceeded the Tory Opposition by 26 and that, under this Government, the number of Tory Peers exceeds the Labour Opposition by 89? Can he also confirm that Tory Peers now constitute a third of the Members of this House and 50% of those taking the party whip—far higher than in any recent Administration? Is the scale of Tory appointments in recent years not at best a disregard of normal conventions and at worst a clear abuse of prime ministerial power?
Lord True (Con)
No, my Lords, I do not agree with that. Obviously, it depends what base you take for your statistics. The noble Lord opposite referred to the political House, which is now 32.1% Labour; the Labour vote share at the last general election was 32.1%.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend tell me whether the Prime Minister has read, marked, learned and inwardly digested the Burns report, which has been twice endorsed by your Lordships’ House and points a sensible way forward?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I cannot comment on the reading matter of the Prime Minister. However, I have told the House that neither his predecessor nor the current Prime Minister have committed themselves to the specific proposals on the size of the House.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, pending any further constructive and radical reform of the House, can the Government not at least agree that the appointments body should become a statutory body and that a set of principles, comparable to the Dissolution principles we will discuss tomorrow, could be drawn up by the Government in co-operation with all other parties represented in the House of Commons to form the basis for a common understanding of the principles by which appointments to this House should be made?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the House of Lords Appointments Commission performs an important role but, as I have told the House before, there are no current plans to alter its remit. Following the opening Question from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, one thing I think we could agree on is that the Liberal Democrats are at least very well represented in this House—I do not use the term “overrepresented”, preferred by my noble friend behind me.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, the Minister said that neither this Prime Minister nor his predecessors had committed themselves to implementing the Burns report. That, of course, is factually accurate, but what the right honourable Member Theresa May did do was exercise discretion in the number of appointments that she made to take forward what was then an approved government policy of reducing numbers in this House. Do we not need to get back to that situation?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the House today is much smaller than when I first came to work in it in 1997. I think your Lordships’ House works well and should perhaps agonise a little less on these matters. So far as these matters are concerned, another factor is the number of defeats inflicted on the Government. Frankly, they have not been in short supply lately, which does not suggest that there is a great imbalance.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, another startling statistic for the House is that the average age of Labour Peers is now 74 years and three months while that of Conservative Peers is 68 years and six months. So, actuarially, the numbers gap will increase over time. When this is coupled with the Prime Minister’s ignoring of the Burns report recommendations and allegedly selling Peerages and blocking my noble friend’s Bill, does this mean that the Prime Minister is now trying to ensure, as in the past, an overall majority for the Conservative Party?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the allegation that the Prime Minister is selling Peerages is a disgrace and should not be made in this House. So far as his broad point is concerned, it is true and fair to say that all Benches in this House need to be considered and that the refresh of the House should go on. My right honourable friend—in addition to a number of distinguished former Labour MPs whom he has sent here—has appointed 11 new Labour Peers since 2019. That is as many as were sent here by Gordon Brown.
Lord Trefgarne (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend not recall that, back in 1999, the then Labour Government removed about 600 Conservative supporters in a single Bill on a single day? A one-clause Bill to repeal that Bill would solve the Chief Whip’s problems.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, about the Burns report. When the Lord Speaker’s committee on the size of the House reported on 31 October 2017, it made some judgments on what the relative size of the political parties would be in 2022. It suggested that the Official Opposition Benches should have about 166 Peers as the number in the House reduced, while the Conservative Benches would have around 210. Today, we see the Labour Benches at 167—roughly right—but the Conservative Benches are 47 Peers higher than anticipated in the normal reduction of the House, as proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. That might not have been evident in Monday evening’s votes, perhaps because the Official Opposition are punching above their weight and a number of Conservative Peers just went home. However, is it not the case that the Burns report was accepted by all parties in your Lordships’ House as being a way forward? Is this not another example of the Government thinking that the rules apply to other people but not themselves?
Lord True (Con)
No, my Lords, I do not agree with the noble Baroness opposite. I note that the Labour leader has said that he wants
“a democratic second chamber representing the nations and regions of the UK.”
I am sure that that gets fervent support on the Benches opposite. I repeat the point that I made: there is a factor in the way that this House operates. The Government have suffered 164 defeats in this House in two years—well over twice as many as were inflicted on Gordon Brown’s whole Government and more than in the first five years of Sir Tony Blair’s Government.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, in view of the climate emergency and the huge problems facing the world, in which Greens are extremely well versed, will the Minister please suggest to the Prime Minister that in his resignation honours he could perhaps put a few Greens into your Lordships’ House ?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I think the Greens are very capable of making their voice heard in your Lordships’ House.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister has twice referred to the number of defeats. There is no point in having a second Chamber if we always agree with the first Chamber. The whole point is that we have different views here. We ask the other House to think again. But sort of threatening the numbers because we defeat something that the Government have done and ask them to think again is surely not the right way to consider the role of this House.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I made no such threat—I do not threaten your Lordships’ House. I am merely drawing your Lordships’ attention to some empirical facts: 14 defeats in one night were more than in the whole of the last Session of the Gordon Brown Government.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, is that not perhaps a reflection of the quality of the legislation that the Government are bringing before this House? Could the noble Lord expand on his comment about the desirability of achieving “political balance” in this House and define for us what he means by that?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, this Government bring forward legislation of a quality that seems to please the other place rather more than your Lordships—that I confess. On an overall balance, I have said that the refreshing of the House needs to take into account the interests of all sides of the House.
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)
My Lords, when David Cameron was Prime Minister and votes were not going his way, he elected to abolish the House of Lords. What has changed since then?
Lord True (Con)
Well, I am not aware of that, my Lords. To my knowledge, your Lordships’ House has been abolished only once: in 1649—and I am pleased to say that it was revived in 1660.
Vaccine Patents Waiver
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Chakrabarti
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to support a vaccine patents waiver at the World Trade Organisation.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and Department for International Trade (Lord Grimstone of Boscobel) (Con)
My Lords, the waiver proposal of the World Trade Organization goes beyond patents and vaccines, encompassing most intellectual property on all Covid 19-related products and technologies, with no geographical or duration limits. While HM Government remain open to initiatives that help with vaccine production and distribution, there is no evidence that waiving intellectual property protections would advance these objectives. We must focus on actions that will make a real difference, including delivering and administering vaccines globally.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful to the Minister for that, but he will understand that my Question is in the context of a previous prime ministerial promise and an obvious logical need to vaccinate the planet. The UK is paying the highest recorded price for the Pfizer vaccine. What work are Her Majesty’s Government doing to encourage Pfizer to share its necessary technology—not just the recipe—with the 100 potential mRNA manufacturers in Africa, Asia and Latin America identified by Médecins Sans Frontières and Human Rights Watch? They could be producing these vaccines now.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, we are still learning about coronavirus and about how to respond effectively to its mutations. One thing that we do know is that continued innovation by companies such as Pfizer is required to enable scientists to continue to develop health products and technologies, including vaccines to help tackle the virus.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, in part because we have failed to achieve a vaccine permit waiver, there will be further variants of Covid, which may well be resistant to our vaccines. The WHO is urging countries across the world not to loosen the controls and protective measures that they have—including, for example, compulsory mask-wearing. Will the Minister immediately, as a matter of urgency, urge his colleagues to reconsider the ending of the controls that we have had over previous weeks?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, I will certainly pass those comments on to my colleagues.
The Lord Bishop of Bristol
My Lords, the increase in production of vaccines, which is now widely known, will lessen supply demands, but of urgency is the development of healthcare systems for delivery. In the context of international aid cuts, what are Her Majesty’s Government doing to support the development of effective delivery systems?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, it is absolutely right to say that challenges to vaccine equity lie with supply and manufacturing constraints, pressures on health systems to administer available vaccines, supply chain issues such as export restrictions and tariff barriers, and vaccine confidence. These are the matters that we should be concentrating on.
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, and I think this is a convenient point to call him.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD) [V]
My Lords, now that the UK is outside the European Union, do the Government understand that being the champion of a vaccine patents waiver may be the perfect way to win friends and influence people in other countries, but may also, according to the British pharmaceutical industry, have the unintended consequence of reducing vaccine production and research?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, intellectual property rights and their continued protection are the way to keep innovators innovating, creators creating and investors investing. That is what will lead to more research.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, ramping up production will take a number of years, particularly if there is no TRIPS waiver. Until then, richer countries sharing their doses with lower-income countries will be critical to ending the pandemic. Will the Minister commit to doing more on transparency here, so that we join other countries in publishing the type and number of doses that we are sharing, along with their sell-by dates?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My noble friend makes a good point. It is interesting that, as reported in the Financial Times last week, Kate O’Brien, the WHO’s head of vaccines, said that the health body saw a
“very positive outlook for supply”
in 2022. But she cautioned that that was predicated on dose-sharing continuing, and manufacturers continuing to honour deals brokered under COVAX. This is the way forward.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, wishes to speak virtually. I think this is a convenient time for me to call him.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]
My Lords, if no one is safe until everyone is safe, why cannot the 100-plus vaccine producers referred to by my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti worldwide—in Africa, Asia and Latin America—be licensed under a TRIPS waiver to produce the vaccine in dedicated production areas, within approved plants and facilities, totally under the quality control of personnel seconded from advanced nation producers? By that means, we can avoid potential IP waiver problems, preserve quality, and even make profits, if they really are so necessary.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, we have seen no evidence that intellectual property is a barrier to the production or supply of Covid-19 goods, including vaccines. We will continue to engage constructively in debates of the World Trade Organization on these matters, including the points that the noble Lord makes.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister not agree that if the Government’s objective—an admirable one—is that vaccines should be equitably available around the world, it has not been a total success so far? It has fallen a bit short. If he agrees, should not the Government be focusing now on how to find measures that will provide for equitable distribution when the next pandemic comes along, and not leave us still arguing to a deadlock in Geneva?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, I am really pleased to say that the UK has been a world leader in ensuring that developing countries can access vaccines, through our early support to the COVAX scheme and commitment to donate vaccines. To date, the UK has delivered more than 30 million doses to countries in need, and we will have donated 100 million by June 2022. I am very pleased to say that 80% of those donations will go to COVAX.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti is right to raise this matter, and I agree with what she said. Less than 10% of the population in the world’s poorest countries are vaccinated; the efforts that have been made so far have failed. The Minister said that the current proposal before the WTO was too broadly drawn. If that is the case, and he does not want to back that which has been supported by more than 100 countries, including South Africa and India, perhaps he would consider proposing his own solution on patent waivers. Most people seem to think that it would help the situation.
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, the UK remains open to all initiatives that will have a demonstrable impact on vaccine production and distribution, and we will continue to engage constructively in discussions at the WTO to that end and bring forward our own proposals as necessary.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, when I raised the matter of a TRIPS waiver with the Minister during the passage of the Trade Bill on 1 October 2020, when my noble friend Lady Sheehan had an amendment to it, the noble Lord said that it was too soon. Nearly a year later, I pressed the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, who said that the Government remained unconvinced. Six months on, only 10% of Africa is fully vaccinated and, shockingly, 100 million doses had to be declined because they were too close to their expiration date. Without there being a TRIPS waiver, what is the Government’s core estimate of when Africa will be as fully vaccinated as Europe?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, I am afraid that there is no evidence at all that an IP rights waiver of the kind that the noble Lord suggests would help us to meet his objectives. The reality is that a proposal for a TRIPS waiver would break up the very framework that helped to produce Covid-19 vaccines at an unprecedented pace. That is the key point.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
Actually, I give way to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, who has been trying to speak for some time.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
I am very much obliged to the noble Lord. What assessment have the Government made of the establishment in Cape Town by Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines of the first Covid mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub for vaccine production in Africa? It benefits from the fact that Moderna has effectively suspended its patent rights during the pandemic. The European Union, the World Health Organization and numerous countries, prominently France, have funded this project in a Commonwealth country. Have the Government thought about a similar initiative with AstraZeneca, given that 97% of the investment in the AstraZeneca vaccine was from the Government or from philanthropy, not from other investors?
Lord Grimstone of Boscobel (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord is right to put that example before the House, and I shall make sure that I have a look at it and see whether we can follow it up.
Online Sexual Harassment of Children
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Farmer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they intend to take in response to the report by the Children’s Commissioner Talking to your child about online sexual harassment: A guide for parents, published on 16 December 2021, and in particular the finding that children are “stumbling across” commercial pornography.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, we warmly welcome this report, and the Children’s Commissioner’s support in protecting children online. The report’s findings underline the need for the measures that we are proposing in the online safety Bill, which will require a wide range of sites to take robust steps to prevent children accessing pornography online. We will include the Children’s Commissioner’s guidance in our online resources for parents and organisations to promote media literacy.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply. The Joint Scrutiny Committee and today’s Select Committee report refer to harmful and addictive online porn, and children’s exposure to illegal and extreme content. While parents have a key role, guidance for them is a fairly puny tool with which to police the internet. Given that research is increasingly amassing about pornography’s harms, especially to young people, can the Minister advise why age verification is not on the face of the Bill?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My noble friend is right to point to the harms that pornography can do to people who are viewing it far too early in their lives. The online safety Bill aims to address this, and we are grateful to the Joint Committee and the Select Committee in another place for their views on that legislation. The online safety Bill will not mandate the use of specific technologies to comply with the new duties it contains because it is vital that the Bill remains future-proof and able to change as technology changes to prevent new threats. However, we expect companies to use age-verification technologies to prevent children accessing online pornography.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, recent findings by the Internet Watch Foundation—I declare an interest as one of its champions—state that the seven to 10 age group is the fastest growing group appearing in self-generated child sexual abuse material. Without the IWF, this material can stay online for many years, causing mental health issues and untold damage in later life. What steps are the Government taking to give age-appropriate online safety advice to this age group, immediately?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Baroness is a tireless campaigner on this important issue and the Internet Watch Foundation does very important work. We are keen to bring the online safety Bill to your Lordships’ House and get it on the statute book for the protections it will bring. In the meantime, we are taking steps, and asking the Children’s Commissioner to conduct this report was part of that. In addition, the new relationship, sex and health education curriculum is clear that, by the end of secondary school, pupils should be taught about the impact that viewing harmful content, such as pornography, can have. We continue to keep that under review.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, until quite recently a child’s bedroom was a safe haven; now every child’s bedroom has had a door cut in it marked “the internet”. A child of whatever age, at whatever time of day or night, can go through that door and their parents will not know where they have gone, who they are talking to and what they are doing. The effects are quite horrendous, not least when the example is hard pornography. Is it any surprise that mental illness and suicides are increasing in this age group? It is quite plain the reason for it. Can the Minister do all we possibly can as a matter of the greatest urgency to close this horrible door?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My noble friend is right, and of course it is not just on computers but on smartphones that people are able to access the internet. The majority of people, children included, have a beneficial experience online; we are keen to maintain that, while bringing in the safeguards that are important for them, and that is what the online safety Bill seeks to do. In the meantime, we are very grateful to the Children’s Commissioner for her work in helping parents and grandparents have the important conversations with young people who are using the internet.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, children’s safety online is vital to protect their mental health and protect them from many harms. This is not an issue solely for England; it is a UK-wide issue. In view of that, will the Minister, in association with and alongside the online safety Bill, consider a summit of the nations and regions of the UK, so that positive resolutions that will help eradicate this and a plan of implementation to prevent children being abused online can be brought forward?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, the issue is even broader than the noble Baroness suggests. It is international in scope, and the Government are working with Governments around the world and online providers based in other jurisdictions—we do that regularly. We are engaging with them on the online safety Bill. Those discussions are informing that Bill, which will be an important part of enforcing the action across the globe that we all want to see.
Baroness Bull (CB)
My Lords, the Minister mentioned the relationship and sex education guidance and students being aware of these risks and dangers by the end of secondary school. Does he not think that may be a little late, given what we know about the age of children who are targeted and vulnerable online? Are the Government confident that teachers delivering this education are adequately trained to be the providers of this crucial information for young people?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Baroness is right: it is by the end of secondary school that this should have been achieved, but of course the process begins earlier. One finding in the Children’s Commissioner’s report is that parents often underestimate the extent to which, and the age at which, their children are coming into contact with pornography and other online harms. Her very useful report gives practical advice to parents about how they can start having those conversations in an age-appropriate way.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend the Minister reassure the House that while, quite commendably, the accent is on pornography and other harms, gambling is also a very serious issue online? Loot boxes, which do not come under the Gambling Act, are in fact the entry point for kids to learn how to gamble.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
That is one reason why the online safety Bill will take the approach of setting out in secondary legislation the sorts of harms that can affect children and other vulnerable people—and indeed all internet users—so that we can keep on top of emerging threats and make sure that our legislation does so as well.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, even a single conversation with a child about their online safety could reduce their risk of seeing sexual content or being persuaded to share indecent images. I agree with the Minister that the guide for parents from the Children’s Commissioner is extremely helpful, but what further steps will the Government take to encourage and equip not just parents but grandparents and other relatives to talk to their children about online dangers? Will the Government throw their weight behind a sustained public information campaign to encourage this?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Baroness is right that it is not just for parents but all responsible adults in society to play a part. The Government are doing that through the Online Media Literacy Strategy, which we published in July last year, and I have mentioned the changes that have been made to the curriculum. We are consulting on how to strengthen that further for the version that will be published in September this year, so we are keeping it under review.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that one of the greatest crimes of the moment is the destruction of childhood innocence, in which the internet plays such an enormous part? It does far more harm in many homes in the land than it does good. Can we please make sure that this Bill is as foolproof as pre-legislative scrutiny can make it? It must have post-legislative scrutiny as well.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My noble friend is right. As technology evolves, children are susceptible to a broader range of harmful content on a wider range of services. Of course, these services can bring great benefits to those who use them legitimately; that is why the approach set out in the online safety Bill will go much further than, for instance, the Digital Economy Act. We are grateful to the Joint Committee and everyone who has helped us to improve it so far.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, the Sunday Times yesterday alleged that there is a major hole in the Bill and that there is no provision for protecting children from grooming in the new technology of the metaverse. What does the Minister think about that and does he believe that there is a case for urgent action to be taken?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I read the very disturbing report in the Sunday Times to which the noble Lord referred. That is why the online safety Bill takes the approach of not being specific on certain technologies and making sure that our legislation can be future-proofed so that, as the internet continues to develop and new technologies are invented, the legislative protections for users keep pace with that. The metaverse, to which he referred, is a key example.
Lord Cashman (Lab)
My Lords, I reinforce the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, that inclusive relationship and sex education early in schools is vital. Does the Minister therefore agree that such relationship education empowers children as to which are the most appropriate and inappropriate relationships that can be developed online?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Yes, I would agree; I think the Children’s Commissioner’s guidance is very beneficial for teachers, as well as for parents, grandparents and guardians. As I say, we keep the curriculum under regular review, so we can make sure that new threats to children are being covered in it and so that conversations can be had in an age-appropriate way.
Post Office: Horizon Compensation
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the £685m set aside for the Post Office Historical Matters Compensation scheme will cover those claimants involved in the litigation who were not convicted or prosecuted, as well as sub-postmasters whose convictions have been overturned.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, the Government have indeed set aside up to £685 million to support the Post Office in paying compensation to postmasters with quashed Horizon-related convictions. The Post Office reached a settlement to pay compensation of £42.75 million, plus costs, in 2019 with a further group of postmasters. The Post Office has separately set up a historical shortfall scheme to provide compensation to postmasters who suffered Horizon-related losses but were not convicted or prosecuted and were not part of the GLO.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, Fujitsu knew that it could—and did—alter the accounts of sub-postmasters without their knowledge. It knew that the Government were denying that this could be done. It knew that the sub-postmasters were being prosecuted for those altered accounts. Is it not high time, and beyond, that Fujitsu began to become part of the solution rather than being part of the problem?
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point, with which I know many in the House will have some sympathy, but it is important that we await the outcome of Sir Wyn Williams’s inquiry. We all have our suspicions about this and we all have our views, but the inquiry has been set up to provide us with definitive answers to questions such as the very good one that the noble Lord has posed.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, fewer than a third of the 2,005 applications have been dealt with so far, and this is a pattern—we saw it with Windrush. First, there is a campaign, then there is a big political announcement. Money is apparently made available and then everything grinds to a halt. This is bureaucracy standing in the way of settling personal tragedies. Will the Minister go back to his department and get things moving?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I think the noble Lord is being a little unfair. He referred to a third, but it depends which of the cases he is talking about. There are a number of different aspects to this. There are those who had their convictions overturned, most of whom have already received £100,000 in interim compensation. On top of that there is the historical shortfall scheme, which is proceeding as fast as we can. The reason we set this up is to precisely avoid long delays through litigation, and obviously the process itself is managed through the Post Office and its advisers. But I will certainly take his message back. Nobody wants to see this drag on for too long.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, I would like to return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot. It seems quite wrong that a company that knew what it was doing, knew that the kit was faulty, and knew that mistakes were being made has not been involved in this case. They should be making payments to the Government so that the Government can fully compensate all those who have being wrongfully imprisoned, charged within this scheme and have suffered years of life-destroying consequences. That company must be held responsible, and the Government should make sure that is the case.
Lord Callanan (Con)
Both noble Lords who have raised this matter make an important point. I very much hope that those who were judged responsible will be held accountable, but it is important to wait for the outcome of the independent public inquiry that has been launched and is proceeding before we apportion blame.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, I want to follow up on those two questions. Is it not extraordinary that years have passed since this came to light, that people’s lives were completely ruined by what happened and that the Government are now having to put forward this huge sum of money, yet nobody from the Post Office has been held accountable for what happened?
Lord Callanan (Con)
It is beyond extraordinary, if I can disagree slightly with the noble Lord. The whole situation is tragic, appalling—there are numerous words we could use to describe the depth of the suffering of so many people. Financial compensation will never put right what went wrong. Again, we all think we know who was responsible and where the blame lies. The public inquiry has been established and is proceeding so that we can get a full account; we already have partial accounts through the various High Court cases that have proceeded. The importance of the inquiry is so that we can get a full account of exactly what happened over many years, through different regimes of government and people in leadership roles at the Post Office, and blame can be apportioned in the right way.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, some of these postmasters who live in Northern Ireland have had their lives and livelihoods destroyed by the actions of this internet scheme owned, I suppose, by Fujitsu. As my noble friend Lord Bassam and the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, have already asked, could the Minister ensure that Fujitsu is held responsible and accountable for its actions, which have left many lives destroyed and have financially destroyed people as well?
Lord Callanan (Con)
Of course, it is not just Northern Ireland: throughout the whole United Kingdom people have been financially, emotionally and criminally destroyed by this case. No words that we could utter here could minimise the terrible suffering and distress that has gone on. Again, I am sorry to be practical and hard-headed about this, but we have to return to the central point: we all think we know where blame lies, but let us wait for the results of the inquiry. By all means, in the meantime get on with paying compensation to those who have suffered—but let us have a proper inquest at the end of the inquiry, when we have the full results, of exactly who was to blame.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot and all involved on their persistence and tenacity in pursuing this egregious injustice. I am also delighted that the Government have set aside money to at least start to address these issues. Could my noble friend the Minister tell or reassure the House whether those who have been affected will be fully compensated, including for the legal costs they have incurred? Obviously no money can offset the emotional and psychological damage done, but I understand that there are concerns that some of those who have had to go through the courts may still end up financially worse off as a result.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I certainly join my noble friend in paying tribute to the work of the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, both in this place and the other place, as well as—to be fair—a number of Members on all sides of the House who drew attention over a number of years to this slowly unfolding catastrophe. This issue is an excellent example of some great work done by parliamentarians. With regard to my noble friend’s question, the answer is yes: the legal costs are covered as part of the payments.
Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Con)
My Lords, I wonder if the Government would remove Fujitsu from their preferred suppliers tendering for government contracts, pending that inquiry’s result.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I do not know whether Fujitsu is still on the tender lists or is the subject of any government contracts, but I will certainly find out and write to the noble Lord on that.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I have several times urged my noble friend to put a terminal date on this. He talked about the “slowly unfolding” tragedy, and he is right, but it is a slowly ending tragedy as well. Of course we must have the inquiry, but can we please set a date—I have suggested before the end of June—for when this will be resolved and people will get their due deserts?
Lord Callanan (Con)
I agree with my noble friend, because I would obviously like to see this all end as much as possible. When I said “slowly unfolding”, I meant that the revelations of the whole scandal came out over many years as a result of a number of different stages of parliamentary action, legal cases, et cetera. I assure him that we are keen to bring this to a resolution as quickly as possible in terms of compensation, but there are a number of different aspects to it, as I explained in my reply to the noble Lord, Lord Fox. Many postmasters are still in the process of having their convictions overturned. That process is ongoing, as is the progress of the historical shortfall scheme, which we have deliberately designed to try to avoid costly, long-drawn-out legal proceedings.
Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Bill
Monday 24th January 2022
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Act 2022 View all Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles (Safeguarding and Road Safety) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 3 November 2021 - (3 Nov 2021)
Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Bill
Monday 24th January 2022
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Act 2022 View all Approved Premises (Substance Testing) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text
Coronavirus Grant Schemes: Fraud
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, last week, the Government objected to the £4.3 billion figure quoted in various news reports. In many senses, we would be delighted if the extent of fraud arising from the Government’s coronavirus support scheme was smaller than first thought. Is the Minister able to provide a more accurate or precise figure today? If not, how will the department calculate this and when can we expect to see the correct sum?
In looking ahead to this UQ last Thursday, the Minister did not answer my question about fairness. Is he able to comment today on why the Government expect working people to cancel out these losses? That would be bad enough in normal times, but is surely worse when families face an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office and the Treasury (Lord Agnew of Oulton) (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his important question. I am here to defend the Government’s record in the deployment of counter-fraud measures over the last two years or so. However, I will only be able to do that in part. The assertion made by the Economic Secretary to the Treasury in the Commons debate last week that the priority was speed of distribution of funds is absolutely correct, but what has followed has been nothing less than desperately inadequate. Given the time available, I will focus on one or two emblematic failures, but these issues run far wider.
The oversight by both BEIS and the British Business Bank of the panel lenders of the BBLS has been nothing less than woeful. They have been assisted by the Treasury, which appears to have no knowledge of, or little interest in, the consequences of fraud to our economy or society. Much store has been given to the extra money allocated to HMRC, but it took a year to happen, and this department was already the most competent and well-funded in that discipline; whereas at the beginning of Covid, BEIS had the grand total of two counter-fraud officials on its staff, neither of whom were experienced in the subject. They refused to engage constructively with the counter-fraud function that sits in the Cabinet Office, has considerable expertise and reports directly to me.
Schoolboy errors were made: for example, allowing more than 1,000 companies to receive bounce-back loans which were not even trading when Covid struck. They simply failed to understand that company formation agents hold in stock companies with earlier creation dates. I have been arguing with Treasury and BEIS officials for nearly two years to get them to lift their game; I have been mostly unsuccessful.
We move now to a new and dangerous phase: banks’ ability to claim on the 100% state guarantee for non-payment. We do this without implementing a standard bar of quality assurance on what we expect as counter-fraud measures; we know that we have serious discrepancies. For example, three out of the seven main lenders account for 87% of loans paid out to companies already dissolved. Why is the ratio so skewed? Two of the seven account for 81% of cases where loans were paid out to companies incorporated post-Covid, as I referred to a moment ago. One of the seven accounts for 38% of the duplicate BBL application checks that were not carried out after the requirement was enforced. Bizarrely, it took six weeks to get the duplicate check into place, during which time 900,000 loans, or 60% in total, were paid out, bearing in mind that some £47 billion has been paid out.
If only BEIS and the British Business Bank would wake up, there is still time to demand data and action on duplicate loans. Why will they not do it? Despite pressing BEIS and the BBB for over a year, there is still no single dashboard of management data to scrutinise lender performance. It is inexcusable. We have already paid out nearly £1 billion to banks claiming the state guarantee. The percentage of losses estimated to be from fraud rather than credit failure is 26%; I accept this is only an early approximation, but it is a very worrying one. I will place in Hansard a copy of my letter to the chairman of the British Business Bank, sent on 16 December, addressing some of these points. I have still not received an answer.
I have at least four differences of opinion with Treasury officials: first, on urgent improvements in lender performance data, I simply want the bar to be set at what the best of the panel banks can deliver—to repeat, there is not even a common definition of fraud to trigger the payment of the guarantee; secondly, far greater challenge of lender banks when we uncover inconsistency in data; thirdly, educating Treasury officials as to why reliance on audits is far too reactive and generally happening well after the horse has bolted; fourthly, a failure by Treasury or BEIS officials to understand the complete disjunction between the level of criminality—probably hundreds of thousands of pounds—and enforcement capability. For example, NATIS, a specialist agency, can handle around 200 cases a year; local police forces might double that.
Noble Lords can see that it is my deeply held conviction that the current state of affairs is not acceptable. Given that I am the Minister for counter-fraud, it feels somewhat dishonest to stay on in that role if I am incapable of doing it properly, let alone of defending our track record. It is for this reason that I have, sadly, decided to tender my resignation as a Minister across the Treasury and Cabinet Office with immediate effect. I would be grateful if my noble friend would pass this letter to the Prime Minister at his earliest convenience. It is worth saying that none of this relates to far more dramatic political events being played out across Westminster. This is not an attack on the Prime Minister, and I am sorry for the inconvenience it will cause. Indeed, I think any Prime Minister should be able to reasonably expect that the levers of government are actually connected to delivering services for our citizens.
I hope that, as a virtually unknown Minister beyond this place, giving up my career might prompt others more important than me to get behind this and sort it out. It matters for all the obvious reasons, but there is a penny of income tax waiting to be claimed here if we just woke up. Total fraud loss across government is estimated at £29 billion a year. Of course, not all can be stopped, but a combination of arrogance, indolence and ignorance freezes the government machine. Action taken today will give this Government a sporting chance of cutting income tax before a likely May 2024 election. If my removal helps that to happen, it will have been worth it.
It leaves me only to thank the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for his courteous but attentive role as shadow Minister of my portfolio, and to thank noble friends, many of whom I know will carry on their scrutiny of this important area. Thank you, and goodbye.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I think we have just witnessed one of the most dramatic moments we have ever seen in your Lordships’ House, from a Minister who felt his integrity meant that he could no longer ensure he remained a member of the Government. I do not know if the noble Lord on the Front Bench wishes to comment; there is nobody else to take questions, so he may wish to just move to the next business.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, may I take this opportunity to say on behalf of these Benches how much we appreciate the honour and integrity that has just been displayed by the Minister’s resignation? His resignation has not yet been accepted, so he still remains the Minister, but I do not think anybody could have raised questions more forcefully, accurately or completely than he has. On a personal level, I want to say how much we will miss the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, in this role, not least because of his integrity.
Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Bill
Monday 24th January 2022
(2 years, 3 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Act 2022 View all Northern Ireland (Ministers, Elections and Petitions of Concern) Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 60-R-I Marshalled list for Report - (17 Jan 2022)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office (Lord Caine) (Con)
My Lords, I promise to be slightly less dramatic. I first want to express my sincere gratitude to all noble Lords who have participated in proceedings on this short Bill and to thank them for their thoughtful and sometimes challenging contributions, not least on the very odd occasion when the debate has strayed beyond the narrow confines of the Bill.
I welcome the positive engagement and constructive support for the Bill from all sides of the House and put on record my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, and all noble Lords from Northern Ireland itself.
I also thank the Bill team at the Northern Ireland Office, officials in the Northern Ireland Assembly and, last but not least, my noble friend, Lord Younger of Leckie—not just for his support and very wise counsel on this piece of legislation, but also for his handling of much Northern Ireland business in your Lordships’ House in recent times.
The Bill has been debated extensively during its passage and I am sure that noble Lords will be relieved to hear that, in accordance with Standing Orders, I do not intend to rehearse its provisions again. It is a faithful implementation of a number of measures contained in the New Decade, New Approach document, which paved the way for the re-establishment of devolved government in Northern Ireland in January 2020 and was itself the product of detailed and lengthy negotiations over a period of nearly three years.
The purpose of the Bill is to seek to give greater resilience to the institutions established under the 1998 Belfast agreement and to provide for greater continuity in decision-making. I am pleased that with the support of opposition parties we have been able to agree on early commencement of the important measures contained in it.
This Government remain deeply committed to the implementation of the Belfast agreement and its successors, and to building a stable, prosperous and shared Northern Ireland, within this United Kingdom, for everybody—a Northern Ireland where politics works, the economy grows and society is stronger and more united. I hope that this Bill, while in no way a panacea, can make a contribution to supporting those fundamental objectives. I beg to move
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I add our thanks to the Minister. As we have just heard in the drama a moment ago, a Minister’s life is not an easy one. I think that we are all still reeling from the shock resignation of the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, who clearly cared a great deal about his work. His colleagues will mourn his loss from the Front Benches, and this House will admire his integrity. He may go down in history for the way he resigned, showing his integrity.
I thank the Minister for his work on this Bill, which is, I think, the first one that he has taken through the House, although his commitment, interest and work on Northern Ireland issues for many years have preceded him. In many ways this was a short, perhaps relatively non-controversial, Bill, though we had our moments. I thank him for the way in which he and his Bill team engaged with noble Lords across the House. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, if she were here, would say the same, and would thank him for his meetings.
We had our own dramatic moments as we prepared to come to the House to debate a particular amendment. We heard the Prime Minister say, at Prime Minister’s Question Time, that that amendment would not be moved, when we had all expected it in the afternoon. So perhaps this is the time for dramatic moments in the House. Nevertheless, I add our commitment and our thanks to the noble Lord. We await the further Bill on Northern Ireland that we were supposed to be getting and had expected—the legacy Bill—which will also, I am sure, involve detailed discussions, and I hope that he will be willing to engage in the same way with us on that Bill as on this.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have a few words to say on this Bill. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Caine, on getting his first Bill through Parliament, and for the very polite way in which he dealt with all the questions and so on. I thank, too, the shadow Front-Bench Members for their willingness to meet some of us who had concerns about aspects of the Bill.
I have to say that the Library did not even have a copy of New Decade, New Approach. It is a very detailed agreement, and of course the Bill deals only with a small part of it; it does not deal with the most crucial part facing Northern Ireland at the moment, where officially the Government were meant to legislate on Northern Ireland’s businesses to guarantee unfettered access. That is part of New Decade, New Approach, so let us not kid ourselves that it has been put through; these are the bits which seem to be able to get through very quickly. Yet even on 14 January, the noble Lord, Lord Caine, sent a letter saying that he was putting forward an amendment to allow the same situation so there would not be a cliff edge when a Member of the Assembly was elected to this Parliament, and they could stay to the end of their term. That suddenly got dropped.
This may all look like it is sweetness and light, but I have to warn noble Lords that Northern Ireland is in a very difficult situation. This is a sticking plaster of a Bill for the situation in Northern Ireland; we have a system of government that is totally different from any other part of the United Kingdom and would not be tolerated in any other part of the United Kingdom. That needs to be said.
This week we may well see real difficulty because now, legally, it has more or less been proved, and will be proved later in the week, that the Northern Ireland Executive should have taken a decision and formally agreed to have checks at the Irish Sea border that has been set up. This has not happened, therefore later on this week we will probably see the Northern Ireland Executive having to take a decision one way or another on that, which will be extremely interesting.
We have also had another meeting between the Foreign Secretary and Šefčovič, with a similar outcome. They just repeat the same statement every time: “Further talks today”, “Constructive atmosphere”, “Teams continue intensive discussions.” This cannot go on. This House needs to face up to reality: Northern Ireland is in a very difficult position and it needs to be helped by being part of the United Kingdom and by your Lordships. Having said that, I accept that the Bill is going through, and I welcome those parts of it that I agree with.
Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)
My Lords, on behalf of my colleagues, I express appreciation to the Minister for the courtesy and the engagement that we have had during the progress of the Bill. I agree with the noble Baroness on how the Bill is a small sticking plaster over a major wound that is still in Northern Ireland politics. That gaping wound is the Northern Ireland protocol, which is causing untold damage, both constitutionally and economically, to the Province. That is not acceptable; however, I accept that the Bill is passing in this House today.
Health and Care Bill
Monday 24th January 2022
(2 years, 3 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-VI Sixth marshalled list for Committee - (24 Jan 2022)
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, before we formally move into Committee on the Health and Care Bill, I will raise a matter of general importance about the parliamentary process upon which we are embarked and seek guidance from the Government about a serious matter which is of immediate concern in the parliamentary process we are currently undertaking. I have no wish to delay proceedings so I will get to the point.
In August, the Government and NHS England issued a Readiness to Operate Statement guidance and checklist to all the relevant parts of the NHS concerning planning for the forthcoming legislation. On 19 January this was updated concerning the ICB establishment timeline, regarding the implementation date for the legislation moving from April to July. The words “subject to parliamentary process” may have been included in the guidance but the actions which flow from the NHS England guidance are contrary to those words. For example, it seems that the latest advice from the Government and NHS England confirms deadlines for appointments of leaders, chairs and boards, many of whom have been appointed, possibly involving the spending of public funds, long before the Bill has completed its passage through Parliament. Indeed, there are many other matters which are still subject to parliamentary process. This is pre-emption of parliamentary process.
The issues in the guidance are at the forefront of the Committee’s deliberations and it is possible that much may have changed before the Bill receives Royal Assent. Our scrutiny in your Lordships’ House is important, not least because both the Constitution Committee and the DPRRC have been highly critical of the Bill and the department. They have stressed the importance of the Bill receiving sufficient scrutiny, since it did not have pre-legislative scrutiny and is significant “disguised legislation”, including more than 60 delegated powers and directions which have no parliamentary process at all.
Noble Lords will be familiar with the rules governing preparation for the enactment of legislation. After Second Reading of a Bill, some work may be undertaken, but guidance from Her Majesty’s Treasury in May 2021 is very clear what actions can and cannot be taken. Box A2, point 4C, refers to:
“Expenditure which may not normally be incurred before royal assent.”
First, there is,
“significant work associated with preparing for or implementing the new task enabled by a Bill, eg renting offices, hiring expert consultants or designing or purchasing significant IT equipment”.
Secondly, there is,
“recruitment of chief executives and board members of a new public sector organisation”.
Thirdly, there is,
“recruitment of staff for a new public sector organisation”.
We understand that NHS England was advised by others not to issue this guidance. Will the Government confirm that: first, the legitimate role of this House in the scrutiny of legislation should be made clear to NHS England; secondly, the current guidance will be withdrawn and it will be made clear to NHS England that further action must await the completion of the Bill and Royal Assent; thirdly, it will be made clear that aspects of the changes within scope of the Bill can and may well be amended; fourthly, that adequate time will be allowed for proper scrutiny of the Bill? I shall be referring the guidance to the two said committees. If the Minister is unable to provide a response today, please can he confirm that he will respond in writing by the end of the week; otherwise, we will need to raise this again in your Lordships’ House?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
I start by thanking the noble Baroness for giving me advance notice of her intervention today. It clearly reflects the mood and concerns of the House that we heard last week. We recognise the strength of the House’s feeling on this matter. I have spoken to my department, and it told me that it is meeting NHS England this week to discuss this matter, and I will update the House accordingly. On the request that the noble Baroness made, I commit to write to her.
Lord Warner
“(2) Where patients are unable to secure treatment in an NHS facility after waiting 3 months, they may choose to seek treatment, including diagnostic treatment, from a registered private service provider at NHS prices.(3) Providers of services under subsection (2) must provide NHS England with the information NHS England considers necessary to enable it to conduct and publish a national annual survey on the extent to which patients have been offered a choice of provider.”
Lord Warner (CB)
My Lords, the first part of this amendment links the issue of patient choice to tackling the serious problem of huge NHS waiting lists. We cannot have a meaningful policy of patient choice in the area of elective treatment without sufficient NHS capacity. Many parts of the NHS lack that capacity and will do so for a long time to come unless they draw on independent sector capacity or spare capacity in other parts of the NHS. In short, the NHS must accept a degree of competition in the area of elective diagnosis and treatment if it is to reduce huge backlogs. That extra capacity and choice was being put in place at NHS prices 15 years ago, when at least half the country had that choice. Since then, the situation has deteriorated, but that is the direction of travel that we need to return to now if we are serious about removing patients from the huge NHS waiting lists.
The evidence for the seriousness of the situation that the NHS faces was set out in a National Audit Office report published in early December 2021. It revealed that 6 million people in England are on waiting lists for elective care, with 300,000 of them waiting over a year. The NAO also estimated that, between March 2020 and September 2021, there were between 7.6 million and 9.1 million fewer referrals for elective care. It is unclear whether or when these “missing people” will seek NHS treatment. However, if half of the missing referrals for elective care do return, and assuming that NHS activity improves by 10% more than its pre-pandemic levels, which is what the Government are expecting for the extra £8 billion that they are investing by 2025, the NAO considers that there will still be 7 million people left on the waiting lists in 2025.
So, can the Minister tell me whether the Government accept the NAO’s analysis and calculations? How much elective capacity—NHS or independent sector—will the Government fund in the next two financial years to reduce elective care waiting lists? Are there any plans to encourage patients to choose other NHS hospitals or private hospitals instead of waiting for their local hospitals to get around to treating them? If he cannot answer these three questions today, I should be grateful if he would write to me with answers, as a matter of some urgency.
Before I turn to the second part of my amendment, can the Minister clarify the significance of the front-page story in the Times of Tuesday 18 January, which might have a bearing on my amendment and the Bill more generally? This headline read, “Javid plans NHS revolution modelled on academy schools”. As a former Blair Health Minister, I commend the Secretary of State for moving in this direction, but how can such a move be compatible with the current Bill? If the Times article is accurate, it would seem to have implications for the new provider selection regime provided for in the Bill. However, I am reliably informed that the draft regulations governing the new regime have yet to be published.
So are these regulations being held up because the Secretary of State is changing his policy? Certainly, I know—the matter has been impressed on me—that independent sector providers are unclear about the arrangements for providers to appeal against ICS decisions that are at odds with the regulations. I am assuming of course that ICS will not be allowed to mark its own homework, but can the Minister clarify when there will be a public sighting of the draft regulations? Again, if he cannot say today, I should be grateful if he would write to me.
Finally, I turn to the right of patients to choose where they receive care. I will not go over the period 15 years ago when a lot of progress was made on the reality of patient choice, but I will mention some King’s Fund research in 2011 which drew attention to a significant barrier to exercising that right. That barrier was NHS staff. If patients are not informed of their choices and are discouraged from exercising them, they will go on forlornly waiting for their local hospital to get around to treating them. Rights can be enforced only if there is information available. This is the purpose of the second part of Amendment 72. My information is that not since 2015 has NHS England published an official annual survey of whether patients have been offered a choice of provider when receiving treatment. That is why we need a statutory provision that provides for the regular measurement and public reporting of patients’ experience in whether they have been offered choices about their care.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, I support Amendments 109 and 226 in this group, both of which are in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I will address them from the perspective of people with diabetes and with the support of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Diabetes UK.
It is just over 100 years since insulin was discovered. Before 1921, a type 1 diabetic would live for no more than a year or two from when the condition became discernible. In the 1920s, my father, a World War I veteran, developed diabetes, and he was very fortunate that this was the decade in which insulin was discovered. It was so successful that it enabled him to have a long and happy life—indeed, I was born when he was 71, and my younger brother was born when he was 73.
Much progress has been made in the treatment of diabetes over the last 100 years, but we are not making the most of technological developments relating to insulin use and diabetes management. I have struggled with these issues myself, and I have learned much about them since I became dependent on insulin in 1994. I personally have enormous reason to be grateful to the diabetic team at St Thomas’ Hospital, just over the river from us, but not everyone with diabetes gets that standard of care, and progress with the adoption of the most recent technology is simply too slow.
There have been great developments in wearable medical technology, such as insulin pumps, flash glucose monitoring and continuous glucose monitoring. We are making progress with such innovations and in NICE’s obtaining approval for them, but they are often not widely accessible. Access to technology, including linking a person’s insulin pump and a continuous glucose monitor, may help a person to self-manage their condition in the absence of routine NHS support. The long-term cost savings are demonstrated by the wider use of such technology in insurance-based systems, where the outlay must be justified by reducing the costs of later complications, which can be very considerable.
Diabetes probably now takes up 10% of the NHS budget, and 80% of the cost of diabetes relates to complications, with the largest costs arising from excess in-patient days, cardiovascular disease and damaged kidneys and nerves. The latest technology may enable parents of young people with type 1 diabetes to obtain a full night’s sleeping soundly, knowing that their child’s glucose monitor will issue an alarm and wake them up if they experience a severe high or low-glucose episode. New technology has been shown to support blood glucose stability and to lower average blood sugar levels, reducing potential health complications and hypos or hypers, which can lead to coma or even death if not treated. There are great benefits to physical and mental health from better long-term control of blood sugar levels.
Research by JDRF shows that barriers to the uptake of this technology include the fact that many clinicians are not trained in it and that the pressure on appointments means that there is often not time to discuss treatment options. Amendment 109 would require NHS England’s oversight framework for integrated care systems to include a metric on the percentage of diabetes patients in their area accessing diabetes technology. An embedded requirement that would better support the prescription of technology would incentivise better training for clinicians and encourage more time to be provided in appointments to discuss technological treatment options and any potential fears or concerns of the patient.
Amendment 226 concerns the promotion of self-management using the latest technologies. We need it in order to reduce the number of people with diabetes suffering from complications, which may include sight loss and problems with their feet, presently resulting in around 6,000 amputations per year. When in hospital, people with type 1 diabetes require five times more secondary care support than people without diabetes, so it is essential that the NHS invests in technology that can significantly reduce the instances of hospitalisation and adverse health outcomes for people with type 1 diabetes.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I thought those were very interesting and helpful remarks from the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. They serve to remind us of the importance of self-management in securing the best possible outcomes for patients. I just add the thought that, when the Government promulgate regulations relating to patient choice, one of the things we want to include is shared decision-making between clinicians and patients. In my observed experience, that too can deliver better outcomes. I think we have made significant progress in recent years in encouraging shared decision-making, and I hope we will see that come forward.
In moving Amendment 72, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, touched on a range of issues. I will not go down one or two paths, but I highlight that we will need to think hard about the interconnections between the question of patient choice and how far patients continue to be given choice. We need to ensure that it is not just talked about in the constitution or in regulations that say it is generally a good thing. For choice to happen in practice, subsequent clauses in the Bill relating to procurement, such as Clause 70, need to enable a choice of providers. The noble Lord made that perfectly clear.
The clause relating to payment systems—Clause 68, if my memory serves me correctly—still needs to have a “money follows the patient” approach. It is not me saying that these are all good things; they were put in place by the Blair Government, not the coalition Government, who did not do away with them but entrenched them.
I am worried. I will just make this point about Clause 70, the effect of which is to repeal Section 75 of the 2012 legislation. Included within that was that one of the requirements of the procurement regulations would be to support the right to patient choice, and the Government are proposing to repeal that.
The Minister may well, perfectly correctly, say, “That may be so, but we have the power in this Bill to set regulations relating to patient choice”, but this is separate, and, in the event, we may find that the link is broken between procurement and payment and patient choice. The net effect would be that patient choice is vitiated. I am worried, for exactly the reasons that I think the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is worried, that what has been around for some 18 years in one form or another—the expectations on the part of patients that they can exercise choice—may not be able to be exercised in practice because the preference of the NHS in many of these localities is to operate as a monopoly and not to give any opportunities for that choice actually to function.
Our debate on this group would be far better and easier to have—and might not even be needed—if the Government published the regulations under Clause 68 in draft so that we can see what they are proposing to do. They have not done it; between now and Report they could do it. When we get to Report, we are going to have a very difficult—certainly from my own personal point of view—set of conversations about how patient choice is to be exercised, how the NHS is to get best value from its procurement, and how trusts and providers are to be paid appropriately, rather than simply go back to block budgets. How do we get out of that debate? The answer is: let us see what the regulations the Government are proposing—in this case relating to patient choice—actually look like, and let us see it before Report.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I put my name to Amendments 109 and 226, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. I also have my own Amendment 204, which I will not move or speak to, because we dealt with Healthwatch in a debate which seems a long time ago but was only two Committee sittings ago.
I refer to the remarks of the noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Lansley. It seems to me that behind this is the hard issue we face that the huge increase in the number of people waiting will, I am afraid, take us back to the very bad old days of the perverse incentives existing within the NHS for patients to be encouraged to go for private care because of the length of the waiting list and waiting times. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, will recall that under the Blair Government, as part of our attack on waiting times, we had to tackle this issue of certain consultants—I suppose I should declare my interest as a member of the GMC board, though I am certainly not speaking on its behalf—and certain perverse incentives for patients to be encouraged to go to the private sector. Of course, much maligned though they were, that was why independent sector treatment centres were set up, and they were part of the process of driving waiting times down. We now have a huge problem of huge waiting times and a huge number of waiting lists, and we have to be very careful to ensure that these kinds of perverse incentives do not come back into the health service.
Lord Warner (CB)
Does the noble Lord recall that, when independent sector treatment centres were established, they operated on the basis of NHS prices, so people were getting NHS treatment in these independent sector treatment centres at the same price that the NHS would have had to pay for that treatment?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, that was a very important intervention, and I am grateful to the noble Lord for jogging my memory. I think that he would agree, though, that apart from the price, the point was that it was an important element in getting waiting times and waiting lists down. At the moment, we are clueless about how the Government are going to do this. As the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said, we will have a debate—I hope tonight—in relation to procurement, but I say to the Government that the open-ended nature of the regulation-making power that they propose to give to Ministers in such an important area is utterly unacceptable and has been drawn to the House’s attention by both the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee, as the noble Lord knows.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, this has been a very interesting short debate. I have two issues to raise. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for having raised perverse incentives and, indeed, the danger with perverse incentives that senior consultants with a great deal of experience could be absent from NHS premises when undertaking work such as surgery in other premises; they would therefore not be available to their NHS patients in the event of a problem and some surgery being left to more junior members of staff.
The other issue is the difficulty of ensuring true consent and information for patients when they are offered choice, with respect to their awareness of the staffing levels in the premises to which they will be going. In some of the private providers, there is not very comprehensive out-of-hours medical cover—particularly at night—with somebody on site. There is also a problem that, if a patient should develop a complication, foreseen or even unforeseen, and is in need of an intervention, they may then need to be transferred to a local NHS intensive care unit. In that event, it would be important for the money to follow the patient. If that intensive care unit is out of the area from which the patient has come, I hope that the regulations will allow for appropriate funding of that NHS facility.
Lord Warner (CB)
Is the noble Baroness aware that, during the arrangements in which there were contracts with the independent sector to provide elective surgery in independent treatment centres, the quality of that care was both reviewed by the then Chief Medical Officer, Liam Donaldson, and looked at, with evidence taken, by the Health Select Committee? They found that claims about shortcomings in these private facilities were exaggerated—their provision of services was equally as good as that of the NHS facilities.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I shall briefly support what has just been said by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, with a personal anecdote. When I recently needed an MRI scan on my neck, the doctor said, “Well, of course, you can have it done quite quickly if you go private.” She then added, “In case you are worried about doing that, it takes the pressure off of the health service.” The point made by the noble Lord and noble Baroness is exactly that it does not take the pressure off the health service; for the previous few weeks, these doctors have been working for the National Health Service. I hope that the Government will take this on board and will not start using the argument that going private takes the pressure off the health service.
Baroness Barker (LD)
Following on from that, one point that we should take into account is the extent to which the private sector and the NHS rely on the same workforce. That is particularly the case in relation to consultants and less so for nurses.
While we can argue about the location, price or quality, perhaps, of treatment and aftercare, the key issue is diagnostics, which is a huge issue at the moment in the NHS. I have a slightly different take on that. For all of my life, my mum was deaf, and I have to say that the quality of NHS hearing aids was about 10 years behind the private sector’s—but people trusted them; they trusted the quality of the diagnostics and the advice that they were given. We have moved a long way in terms of diagnostics for eyecare and hearing aids, but it does not matter where that happens; what the general public want to do is to be able to trust the quality and independence of the diagnostics that they get. If we can do that, I rather suspect that the general public, in the wake of the pandemic, when they see the NHS struggling in all sorts of ways to make up for two years in which their staff have been pulled around, sometimes away from their specialties, would be quite forgiving—as long as there are some very basic agreements about how it will work and the integrity of the work and systems.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, for adding some clarification to the point that I was trying to make. I am not for or against any system; all I am saying is that the arrangements have to be in place so that nobody is jeopardised—and indeed, in the event of a patient being transferred from a private facility back into the NHS, that part of the NHS is appropriately recompensed, particularly if the patient comes from a long way away.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, the problem to which the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is suggesting a possible solution is the result of long-term underplanning and underfunding of staffing in the NHS, and underfunding also of the capital budgets of hospitals, which sometimes have to choose between mending the roof and buying a piece of equipment that would get patients through the system more effectively and efficiently.
On the comments from my noble friend Lord Rennard on self-management, it is of course not just better care that that produces—it is also very cost effective. I draw noble Lords’ attention to page 3 of the Bill, line 13, where one of the three things to which NHS England has to pay regard about the wider effects of its decisions is
“efficiency and sustainability in relation to the use of resources”.
The resources are much better and more efficiently used if the patient has a decent choice of the equipment and treatment that is most effective for them, and it is often a great deal cheaper.
I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that we need the guidance. We need to see it before Report, and I hope that the Minister will be able to provide that.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, these amendments stress the importance of patient choice in health management, especially of their long-term health conditions, and I welcome and endorse what noble Lords have said on these key issues. The vital importance of patient choice and their right to be able to make informed decisions about their conditions and treatment, and to receive treatment within the 18-week standard waiting time set out in the NHS mandate, was pioneered by Labour and continues to be fully supported by these Benches, as I stressed last week in the group of amendments on the mandate and the NHS constitution.
The noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Lansley, and my noble friend Lord Hunt have spoken about the importance of active self-management, where clinically suitable, for patients with conditions such as diabetes. Access to the latest technologies varies greatly across the country, and the call in Amendment 109 to ensure that the oversight framework for ICSs includes systems for measuring the numbers of diabetes patients accessing diabetes technology would help achieve greater consistency and better use by patients who could benefit from it, particularly in helping to keep them out of hospital or to prevent their conditions deteriorating.
As vice-chair of the Specialised Healthcare Alliance, I know that patients with rare diseases often do not feel sufficiently supported in terms of psychological support, health systems and information, physical and daily living, patient care and support, and sexuality needs. As they are often having to live with their conditions long term, they have considerable potential to be more expert in their conditions than many of the healthcare professionals they come into contact with, many of whom may not be familiar with their disease or condition. With appropriate support, therefore, such patients can manage their less intensive care needs themselves, delivering better health outcomes and reducing demands on the NHS. Efforts to promote the self-care of people with health conditions, as set out in Amendment 226, really have the potential to improve the care of people with rare diseases.
Amendment 72—moved with his usual expertise and clarity by the noble Lord, Lord Warner—reinforces the importance of patient choice and is highly relevant because of the growing and record waiting list that we spoke about last week during the debate on the mandate and constitution. Of course, Labour in the past has used the private sector as part of a comprehensive plan to reduce waiting times, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, pointed out. He will also know that in reality the role played by private providers, and the costs involved in getting the waiting lists down to the 2010 levels before this Government took office, particularly for elective surgery such as hip and knee replacements, were modest compared with the huge investment in the NHS itself and Labour’s genuine commitment to public service solutions, increased investment, the use of targets and improvements in pathways and other efficiencies. As a result, the private sector relied more heavily on getting business from the NHS on NHS terms, not actually treating private fee-paying patients.
In sharp contrast, we have the complete absence of such a comprehensive or coherent plan from the Government to reduce the now-record waiting lists, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, set out in moving his amendment. The Secretary of State has acknowledged that waiting lists could grow to 13 million, with the National Audit Office now predicting that the situation could get even worse than it currently is by March 2025. The Secretary of State promised in November to publish how the Government plan to meet the workforce requirements needed to address staff shortages—to which noble Lords have also referred to during the debate—and the record waiting lists, but we still have not had any sight of this.
So far, all we have had instead are last week’s press reports of the huge sums of money the Government want to hand over to the private sector, including disturbing reports of NHS England’s unease at the Secretary of State’s instructions to hand over £270 million to the private sector with no guarantees on numbers of patients to be treated or, indeed, whether any NHS patients will even get treatment. Our shadow Secretary of State, Wes Streeting, has made it clear that an incoming Labour Government would fully expect again to use the private sector to help bring down waiting times for treatment, but as part of a comprehensive plan to build and the support the NHS so that people do not have to go private because waiting lists are at record levels and they are suffering and in pain. People who cannot afford it always have to wait and remain in pain. That is not social justice and it is just not right.
We support the principle in this amendment. If long waits can be prevented, they should be, although there is a serious question about whether the private sector would in any event actually have the capacity to meet the demand that could be generated by the three-month stipulation for treatment in the amendment. We also agree that the Clause 68 regulations need to be published as soon as possible and I look forward to the Minister telling us more about that. By contrast, a far better solution, as Labour has always advocated, would be to invest in the NHS, help the NHS become more effective and efficient and build capacity so there would be far less need for private sector care.
Finally, the amendment’s requirement to ensure that private sector providers have a duty to provide NHS England with annual information on the services funded by the NHS and on patient choice would be a welcome development, for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, set out. The more that is known about the use of private providers, the better and more informed the discussion about their role will become. I look forward to the Minister’ response.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
My Lords, I shall start by addressing Amendment 72 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Warner. The Government are wholeheartedly committed to addressing the backlog of hospital treatment, much of which, as we are all aware, has resulted from the unprecedented efforts that our country and our health system have taken to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes continuing to work closely with independent sector providers of acute care to provide the capacity to deliver more treatments and to reduce waiting times. I shall explain that a bit further. As of 10 January, NHS England has entered into national arrangements with 10 independent sector providers, to meet the needs of their patients and to reduce waiting times for treatment. This will also allow a wider range of patients to be treated in the independent sector, such as those needing some forms of cancer surgery and other treatments not normally delivered under existing arrangements.
The Government will continue to monitor this collaboration and work closely with the NHS and the independent sector to ensure that patients receive the best possible treatment and care. I welcomed the shadow Secretary of State’s comments on the use of private providers in recent weeks, supporting the use of the private sector where necessary to address the backlog.
We do not, however, believe that the amendment as written offers the right approach to effectively support collaboration between these parts of our health system at this time. The system already has arrangements between the NHS and the independent sector to address specific needs and to target areas where the greatest benefit can be gained. In addition, in most cases, patients already have the legal right to ask for their appointment to be moved to a private sector provider if they are likely to wait longer than the maximum waiting time specified for their treatment. This includes where patients have to wait more than 18 weeks before starting treatment for a physical or mental health condition, or more than two weeks before seeing a specialist for suspected cancer, with some specified exceptions. This does not limit patients to a private provider, as the amendment would, but allows them to choose from a range of providers. Currently, patients waiting for treatment are prioritised by the NHS so that those in the greatest need are treated first, when their clinical urgency and the length of time they have been waiting for treatment has been reviewed.
At present the NHS captures information on patient choice, which includes the use of e-RS at referral, where NHS England can see the number and nature of choices offered to patients. There is also a national e-RS pop-up survey for patients, which provides data on patient choice; information on choice offered to waiting list patients is also recorded.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, wanted to know about the timing of the publication of the regulations on patient choice. That will be the same as for the provider selection regime regulations: as close to July as possible, subject to parliamentary passage.
The noble Lord also asked about work on the elective recovery plan. The Government have announced that we will spend £2 billion this year through the elective recovery fund to tackle the elective backlog, as part of the biggest catch-up programme in the NHS’s history. This will continue with £8 billion in the following three years, from 2022-23 to 2024-25, and a further £5.9 billion was announced in the October 2021 spending review to support elective recovery diagnostics and technology.
The independent sector is bolstering NHS capacity in a wider range of areas—MRI scans, providing cancer diagnosis and treatment, treating women with gynaecological health issues, and much more. Thousands of patients are receiving tests and treatments for a wide range of conditions, thanks to the arrangements in place in the NHS and the continued strong partnership with the independent sector.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, also wanted to know about the story in the Times on academisation of hospitals. Significant NHS reform is already under way through this Bill, our plans for integration, the health and care levy, and our upcoming electives plan. No further plans have been agreed. High-quality hospitals will always have a central role in our health and care system, and the Bill will ensure that they do so in a way that supports integrated and patient-centred care.
I think that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said that he did not want to move Amendment 204, so I will not speak to that.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, for bringing Amendment 226 before the Committee today. Supportive self-management is part of the NHS long-term plan commitment to make personalised care the norm. However, we do not believe that having an additional duty on NHS England, as proposed by this amendment, would further support this work. Indeed, having a stand-alone duty of this kind could make the work more disjointed, rather than complementing the existing holistic approaches to personalised care, which aim to empower individuals to live well with their conditions. The department is working with NHS Digital and NHS England and NHS Improvement to encourage innovative new approaches and organisations to support services and to collaborate in an effective way with the NHS.
Amendment 109 deals with the access to innovation technology among diabetes patients, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, for bringing it before the Committee today. He is a much-valued contributor to all debates on this subject, and we learn something new ourselves every time he speaks on it. We have existing tools at our disposal to monitor the use of innovations. This includes NHS Digital’s innovation scorecard and the AAC scorecard. We are committed to further strengthening these innovation metrics and to improve our understanding regarding the use of innovations in the NHS.
This amendment seeks to add a new subsection to new Section 14Z49, which would create a requirement for guidance published by NHS England for ICBs to include performance metrics on the uptake of innovative technologies among diabetes patients. I understand that the amendment would seek to set specific requirements for the system oversight framework for ICBs in respect of diabetic patients. However, this could risk creating a confused system of reporting requirements, which I am sure we are all keen to avoid.
The amendment would also cut directly across the existing mechanism for setting priorities, by which the priorities set by the Government for NHS England, and in turn by NHS England for the system, are translated into reporting requirements—this flows from ICBs to NHS England and to Parliament. However, I hope I can give the noble Lord some reassurance that the Government take the issue of diabetes very seriously. I assure him that we will continue to hold NHS England to account for the performance of the system against those metrics, as I am sure your Lordships’ House will hold Ministers to account.
I hope this has been a helpful debate, and I will make sure that we get letters to explain any questions I have not fully answered from the noble Lord, Lord Warner. With that, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Warner (CB)
My Lords, this has been a helpful short debate, and I am particularly grateful to noble Lords, especially the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wheeler, for their contributions and for opening this subject up a little.
The purpose of my wording of this amendment—I did not think it was a perfect piece of parliamentary drafting—was mainly to flush out what the Government are going to do on patient choice and provider regimes. We have an answer on the latter. We will not know what is in the provider selection regime regulations until after Parliament has passed this legislation. That does not seem to me to be a particularly satisfactory position to be in, for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, said. So, I strongly encourage the Government to get on to the Department of Health and Social Care officials and speed the process up. Even if they are only draft regulations, they should be made available to your Lordships so that we can see what the Government’s practical intentions are.
I will not go into a defence of the private sector—I do not particularly want to do so—but, in the past, when it has been bought in on NHS contracts, it has brought more professionals to the party. Part of the original contracts for ISTCs made it clear that the private sector could not swipe NHS consultants; it had to find its own staff, who were not working in the NHS, to deliver on those contracts. So, they added to the capacity. I remind Members of this House that the thing about diagnostics, which the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, rightly raised, is that you can use the spare capacity in the private sector at marginal cost, so that you are not paying the full cost you would normally have to pay. So, there are some advantages there, if a Government know what they are doing in their contracting.
Finally, I was not satisfied with the noble Baroness’s answers both in relation to the NAO report and more generally. It is very easy to give me and the House figures for expenditure. I was asking how many patients will actually benefit, because the currency for waiting lists is patient numbers. We want to know how many people will be taken off those waiting lists as a result of the Government’s expenditure—that is the issue I was looking for some enlightenment on.
The background to this is: will I go further on Report? The answer is: I look forward to hearing what the Government say between now and then, but, at the moment, my inclination is to come back and test the opinion of the House. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
“14Z39A Duty to review latest innovations with a view to local commissioning (1) Integrated care boards must review all new—(a) medicines,(b) medical devices, and(c) other health care solutions that may benefit the local population.(2) Integrated care boards must—(a) appoint a dedicated innovation officer to their board, and(b) develop and maintain a system to keep up to date with medicines and devices innovation and review suitability for patient usage, including engagement with the relevant—(i) academic health science network, and(ii) local pharmaceutical committee.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would mandate ICBs to monitor and assess innovation for the benefit of the local population.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I have four amendments in this group; I will speak to each in turn and look forward to hearing what the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, says on his two amendments.
I thank the noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, Lord Patel and Lord Kakkar, for supporting Amendment 78. It looks at innovation, recognising that it is an ongoing iterative process that every ICB should be aware of to ensure that patients have access to the most efficient and effective healthcare solutions of the day. To that end, is purpose is to oblige integrated care boards to formalise the obligations of the board to horizon-scan for the latest innovations, as approved by regulatory bodies, to cover their population.
This new clause would require the appointment of an “innovation officer”, or potentially identifying an officer to take up that role, and place an obligation on the board to constantly review innovative medicines and devices, as they become available. This is a separate and additional duty to that to promote research.
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow and to agree with the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. I will cover some of the same ground in my remarks.
I start by declaring my interests as chair of the Association of Medical Research Charities and of the Specialised Healthcare Alliance. The alliance campaigns on behalf of those 3.5 million of us who have rare or complex conditions. The members of the AMRC spend around £1.7 billion a year on medical research, mostly through universities in the United Kingdom. That is more than is spent by the Government via either the Medical Research Council or the National Institute for Health Research.
I will speak to Amendments 79 and 196 in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Kakkar and Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blackwood. It is a privilege to have the support of such extremely distinguished and expert Members, and I am very grateful to them. The amendments also have the support of much of the medical research sector. Both amendments concern research within the NHS. This subject is a long-standing preoccupation of the medical research community, the NHS and the Government.
As long ago as 2011, the Academy of Medical Sciences published an influential paper setting out some key findings, prominent among which was the difficulty in attaining NHS permissions for research. In fact, this was identified as the single greatest barrier to health research. In 2017, the NHS and NIHR published a joint paper called 12 Actions to Support and Apply Research in the NHS. The NHS Long Term Plan, published in 2019, was generally received positively but actually had little to say about research. As your Lordships would expect, the NIHR did have something to say about research in its work of March last year, “Embedding a Research Culture”, which rehearsed the benefits of a research-intensive NHS. Three of the main actions called for were:
“Improving visibility and making research matter to the NHS … Making research more diverse and more relevant to the whole UK … Strengthening public, patient and service user involvement in research.”
These are obviously very important goals, but setting them out as clearly as the NIHR does makes it clear that the NHS’s performance in this vital area really does need improvement.
Also in March last year, the Government published a ministerial paper focused entirely on the delivery of UK clinical research. The paper set out the value of clinical research and our world-leading position. It made the assertion that
“research is the single most important way in which we improve our healthcare—by identifying new means to prevent, diagnose and treat disease.”
It concluded that that meant
“embedding clinical research at the heart of patient care and the NHS, making participation as easy as possible and ensuring all health and care staff feel empowered to support research.”
I strongly agree with both these assessments, and I am very glad to see them as firm policy goals. I welcome the clear and directive language and the signals of intent, which is why I was extremely disappointed to see such a very weak obligation as regards research in the Bill.
New Section 14Z40, inserted by Clause 20 on page 17, sets out what it describes as a duty in respect of research for ICBs. It simply says:
“Each integrated care board must, in the exercise of its functions, promote— (a) research on matters relevant to the health service, and (b) the use in the health service of evidence obtained from research.”
This is essentially the same kind of duty as imposed by the 2012 Act, and it is extraordinarily weak. The word “promote” is not really meaningful. What would satisfy this condition? Mere exhortation would probably qualify. Imposing a duty to actually do research would be much clearer, much simpler and more likely to have an effect. This would also be consistent with the Government’s view of the critical importance set out in the ministerial paper. That is what our Amendment 79 seeks to do. It is a “must actually do something” obligation rather than a “promote the doing of something” obligation. It requires that ICBs must ensure that those eligible organisations for which the ICB is responsible conduct research on matters relevant to improving patient outcomes and healthcare delivery and promote the use in health and care of evidence obtained by research.
The amendment has two additional parts. The first is to impose a requirement for ICBs to co-produce research aims with local place-based partnerships and to ensure diversity of participation. This acknowledges both the benefits and the necessity of place-centred research and close partnership in the production of research aims. The second additional part of our amendment is simply a requirement that the ICB publishes via its annual reports and joint forward plans the steps it has taken or plans to take to deliver clinical research.
Our Amendment 196 is also in this group. It deals with research directly in trusts and foundation trusts. As things stand, Schedule 4(16) of the 2006 Act says only that
“An NHS trust may undertake and commission research and make available staff and provide facilities for research by other persons.”
This is clearly permissive and not directive. Our Amendment 196 would remove this paragraph and replace it with a requirement for both trusts and foundation trusts to actually carry out research, as in Amendment 79. The amendment would also preserve, from the 2006 Act, making available staff and providing facilities for research by other persons.
I strongly believe that both amendments—all parts of them—are in keeping with the ministerial paper, Saving and Improving Lives: The Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery. I hope that the Minister will recognise the cross-party and not adversarial character of our proposals. We really agree with the Government about the paramount importance of research in the NHS—we just need to make it happen. I look forward to the Minister’s reply and to further discussions between now and Report.
The Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees (The Earl of Kinnoull) (CB)
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, is participating remotely. I invite him to speak now.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, if, as I hope, the Bill will be amended to establish a quadruple aim for the NHS—the fourth aim being the reduction of health inequalities—then it will follow that we must have systematic research into the origins and remedies of health inequalities. In this connection, we need to understand options for using cultural, natural and community assets within the changing structures of health and social care, in particular at ICS level. Research should lead to better understanding the relationship of such assets to health inequalities, with a view to health systems mobilising those assets in prevention and intervention strategies, particularly to benefit people living with complex needs in deprived areas. The spectrum of research receiving public funding needs to run from laboratory-based clinical research to public health and community-level action research. The system needs to build capacity at that latter end of the spectrum, training and providing funding and opportunity for new cohorts of such researchers.
Let me give a few instances of the kind of down-to-earth research that needs to be funded. How are improvements to well-being, including staff well-being, to be measured, valued and integrated most effectively with policy at ICS level? More research is needed on the cost-effectiveness of community-based programmes. More research is needed on the cost and health benefits of the link worker model in social prescribing and on financial models for integrating community assets into health systems. Social prescribing needs to be underpinned by robust research on what we might call dosage. How much of such activities should be prescribed, and for how long, to bring about measurable behaviour changes and health outcomes? More evidence is required regarding the sustained, longitudinal effects of engaging in non-clinical programmes across specific health conditions such as cancer, stroke, dementias, diabetes and heart disease.
Such needs are being recognised by UKRI and, under its umbrella, the ESRC, the NERC, the MRC and the AHRC. What is also striking is the growing international interest and evidence base for this kind of research, as demonstrated by the World Health Organization scoping review by Daisy Fancourt and Saoirse Finn, entitled What is the Evidence on the Role of the Arts in Improving Health and Well-being?, and the establishment of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Arts & Health, based at University College London. The aims of this centre are to carry out world-class research into how the arts, culture and heritage affect mental and physical health; to work with world-leading researchers in the UK and internationally to develop and improve arts and health policy globally; and to provide training opportunities, toolkits and resources to support development in the field, including facilitating opportunities for early career researchers.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I want to direct a few remarks to the issue of research, in broad support of the speeches made so far. The amendments in this group, taken individually, are generally to be welcomed, not least because they highlight the issues involved. However, taken as a whole, they suggest that there is a need for a more coherent approach, based on the common principles that apply across the whole range of providers and the whole spectrum of health and social care.
The point of principle is that there is a demonstrable association between the provision of high-quality care and participation in high-quality research. Put simply, patient outcomes in services that actively take part in research are better. This does not mean just future improvements in care, diagnosis and so on; the actual care provided alongside the research benefits from involvement in that research. It is reasonable to assume that the same is true of care services; I direct my remarks at healthcare, but I am sure these principles apply equally to those involved in the provision of social care.
Given the principle that research is so important, it is worth making a few additional points. First, research must be an essential element in a system of healthcare, involving both the bodies that deliver healthcare and service users. Hence ICBs need to have a research strategy and not just promote research but take practical steps to facilitate it. In this context, the importance of national research objectives should be emphasised. The involvement of these bodies in research should be more than just one more administrative hoop they have to jump through. It should be part and parcel of their core function, delivering better mental and physical healthcare. They also need to commit to training clinical staff in how they can participate to best effect in research, or at least in the importance of research to clinical care.
Secondly, there is a need to consider a duty on private providers of NHS services to participate in research. Of course, private providers have a duty to support and contribute to the training as well. It is easy for private providers to ignore the need for research, and this reduces the opportunities for those for whom they care.
Thirdly, on Amendment 96, I suggest that we need to go beyond the idea that clinical trials need to be considered by ICBs and other relevant agencies. We could go further and require ICBs to use their best endeavours to encourage and accept reasonable requests to support clinical trials and offer opportunities for patients to take part.
Fourthly, as we have touched on in previous debates in this Committee, it must be emphasised that, when addressing the issue of research, there is a need to refer explicitly to mental as well as physical health.
Finally, all of us should bear in mind the importance of service users being involved in research and of ICBs and other agencies keeping this in mind throughout the process of providing care. This includes the involvement of service users in developing the priorities of research in its design and in overseeing its carrying out. This is vital for making sure that the outcomes can be easily embedded in clinical and care services. It is worth emphasising this in the context of mental health, where most advances in patient involvement have taken place.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, for the thoughtful way in which they introduced the amendments in this group to which I have added my name. In so doing, I remind noble Lords of three interests: I am chair of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research, chair of the board of trustees of UK Biobank and chair of King’s Health Partners.
As we have heard in this debate, research is not only fundamental to securing the best outcomes for patients being treated in our hospitals and throughout our healthcare system; it is critically important for the sustainability of the healthcare system itself. Numerous reports and strategies have been published over the last 10 years, to the great credit of Her Majesty’s Government, in terms of putting innovation and research at the heart of repeated NHS strategies. It is therefore only right that your Lordships’ House pays particular attention to how securing the opportunity for that research and promoting the opportunities that will flow from it are reflected in the Bill. There is no question but that Her Majesty’s Government are deeply committed to this area, but, as the Bill is currently drafted, there is some anxiety that the provisions and clauses do not provide sufficient emphasis or obligation for the new NHS organisations, the integrated care systems and the integrated care boards—and, indeed, the continuing obligation for NHS trusts—to be actively involved in research.
Now why is this important? At the very least, we know that we need to continue to innovate, be it therapeutic innovation or innovation through devices—or, indeed, innovation of new working practices, pathways of care and delivery—if we are to continue the important advances in outcomes that we have been able to achieve in recent years and decades. As we have heard, research is at the very heart of our ability to improve the experience and clinical outcomes of our patients. Research is also fundamental in improving our ability to prevent disease. We have an obligation in this Bill to promote healthcare services and well-being and to avail ourselves of the substantial opportunities that exist with regard to a more focused prevention agenda. Much of that agenda must inevitably be driven by prospective research, to be conducted across broad and diverse populations on our fellow citizens.
There is the question of sustainability—the fundamental sustainability of the NHS. Here we recognise that, without research and the adoption of innovation resulting from that research, the demographic changes and increasing demands that attend the delivery of healthcare in our country will make the NHS unsustainable in future. Therefore, there is a very deep obligation, beyond what we can do for patients in terms of clinical outcomes, to put at the heart of NHS thinking and strategy, as well as delivery, the delivery of a substantial research agenda. We know that that that research agenda is secured centrally through the substantial commitment of public funds to the National Institute for Health Research, UKRI and Research Councils, which provide funding for research—and, indeed, for other contributions from government departments, including the third sector contribution and the substantial contribution for research provided by the pharma and biotech industries, and associated research opportunities.
All that needs to be directed towards NHS institutions that are ready to receive that substantial commitment to research and conduct in particular those clinical research opportunities which, regrettably, have been subject to variable performance over many years in the NHS. It is for that reason that this Bill must take the opportunity to address that variability in research participation and performance. If we do not achieve that, we are not going to utilise the full potential of the NHS to be able to deliver the benefits that have been so rightly predicted. Most of all, without ensuring a broad research culture across all NHS institutions and organisations, we are going to lose the direct consequences of such a research culture and infrastructure in terms of the fact that patients in research-active institutions have better clinical outcomes.
To move away from those two broad areas—the important impact on patients and the important opportunity to provide the broader research agenda with the innovation that flows from it—there is a third imperative: our capacity to attract and retain staff. As with any facet of manpower planning, it is vital to provide the opportunity for NHS staff members and healthcare professionals to be research-active. It provides a substantial incentive and encouragement and allows for career development, ensuring that we retain colleagues for longer and are able to develop them to make different contributions—all vitally important. If we take this as a whole, it is appropriate that Her Majesty’s Government give some very careful thought to the purpose of these different amendments and how what is being said in your Lordships’ House today might be included in the Bill in such a way to strengthen these research obligations and ensure that NHS organisations deliver on the health agenda.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak on behalf of my noble friend Lady Blackwood of North Oxford and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, neither of whom are, sadly, able to be here today.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
I am sorry—the noble Lord, Lord Patel, is here. I meant to say the noble Lord, Lord Bethell. I apologise for my senior moment.
I will begin again. I rise to speak on behalf of my noble friends Lady Blackwood and Lord Bethell, neither of whom is in their place. I should, out of an abundance of caution—particularly given how well I have spoken so far—declare the interests of both my noble friend Lady Blackwood and me, as the present and past chairs of Genomics England.
In speaking to Amendments 79 and 196, we wish to support the noble Lords, Lord Sharkey, Lord Kakkar and Lord Patel, in calling for trusts and integrated care boards to have a duty to conduct research and to report on the steps they have taken to deliver it. We know that there are excellent research-active NHS organisations in the UK, ranging from our acute tertiary university hospitals, such as Oxford, to our district general hospitals, such as Portsmouth.
There are many initiatives to promote research, such as Saving and Improving Lives: The Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery, which sets out a bold and exciting vision. In particular, my noble friends and I await with interest the Find, Recruit and Follow-up service, which plans to use digital tools to identify patients who may be suitable subjects for research. When speaking to patients, one of the refrains that we all hear most often is that they find it hard to find suitable clinical trials, and we welcome any initiative that can make it easier for patients to take part in clinical research.
As well as supporting patients in finding trials, we need to make it as easy as possible for them to participate. In some cases, the pandemic has accelerated a move towards remote monitoring tools—wearables and other devices that allow individuals to participate in trials while reducing the number of visits they have to make to hospitals. We welcome the NIHR remote trial delivery toolkit, which makes recommendations on how some of these positive practices can be continued and so broaden participation and promote patient retention in a beneficial way.
My noble friend Lady Blackwood, as a rare disease patient herself, knows that clinical research is often the only way for patients to get access to innovative treatment. Yet we are saddened to see, in the annual NIHR publication on initiating and delivering clinical research, that some trusts are still not delivering trials every quarter. We continue to see a large disparity in the number of trials being offered in each trust, which leads to a postcode lottery. Those individuals fortunate enough to be under the care of a research-active hospital have an increased chance of being recruited on to a trial, and therefore have better outcomes than patients under the care of less research-active hospitals.
Patients admitted to more research-active hospitals also have more confidence in staff and are better informed about their condition and medication. And as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, has said, there is very clear evidence that research-active trusts deliver better outcomes—in part, I am sure, because of their ability to retain and energise staff, as the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, has mentioned.
The last couple of years, however, have been challenging for the health research community. In 2020, the Association of Medical Research Charities predicted a £320 million shortfall in research spending, forcing many medical research charities to make tough choices about which projects to prioritise. Data also suggests that the UK has been slower to return to pre-pandemic levels of commercial clinical research compared with other European countries.
The Life Sciences Vision sets out the Government’s objective to be a science superpower, but this requires research to be embedded in every part of the NHS, including primary, community and mental health services. That will happen only if NHS organisations, including the new integrated care boards, have a duty to conduct research, as these amendments propose.
In addition, we all know that what gets measured gets done, which is why these amendments place a duty on trusts and ICBs to report the steps that they are taking to deliver clinical research in their annual reports or forward plans. This not only enables progress to be tracked but helps patients understand what research is being done in their area and will encourage NHS organisations to invest in research that meets the needs of their local communities and—
Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)
I am sorry to intervene. I am fascinated by everything that is being said but, given the cliché that money does not grow on trees, I am a bit surprised that we have not heard as much as we might have about international collaboration. Is that not a big deal? How would that be measured, as it were, as compared with the issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, has already raised?
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
I personally believe that international collaboration and engagement in research across all parts of the United Kingdom go hand in hand. It should not be either/or; it is a combination, and we need to do both. The amendments that I am speaking to call for every NHS organisation to participate and become research active.
Finally, and briefly, I urge the Minister to embrace this opportunity to embed what is genuinely cross-party support for clinical research in legislation. We all want to put the UK on the path to being the best place in the world to participate in health research. We will do that, as the noble Lord suggests, by collaborating internationally, but we will address the health inequalities that we have all spoken about over the many days of Committee only if all NHS trusts have a duty to conduct research.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I agree with the thrust of all these amendments. Most of the discussion has been about research—encouraging research in clinical trials within NHS trusts and foundation trusts—but I want to speak in support of Amendment 78, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, which looks at the issue of commissioning and the role of integrated care boards, because I believe that it is just as important to ensure that integrated care boards have in mind the need, through their commissioning policies, to encourage innovation. In our last debate on NICE, last week, we discussed the same issue, which is the fact that the reason NICE exists is that there are many innovative new medicines and treatments coming on stream, many of them developed in the UK, which the health service has found difficulty in adopting more generally.
The noble Baroness’s Amendment 78, about ICBs, is designed to encourage the ICB boards to consider that they have a responsibility in relation to innovations. It also proposes that integrated care boards must appoint a dedicated innovation officer to the board. I do not want to open up the issue raised by my noble friend Lady Thornton as we went into Committee, but we come back to the issue of the composition of ICB boards. She referred to guidance issued by NHS England a few days ago, which is not obtainable in the public domain. It is obtainable through something called “NHS Net”, but the Library has not been able to get hold of it. It is a bit much that advice on the contents of the Bill has been given out which we cannot even see. I hope that, as part of his response to my noble friend Lady Thornton, the Minister will look into that.
On the question, “Why add another postholder to the board of an ICB?”, I point to the Nuffield Trust report, which says that no organisation in the health service at the moment—or very few places—has someone with a direct responsibility for encouraging innovation. The Nuffield Trust thinks that having chief innovation officers with broad oversight could make what it calls a fundamental difference. I refer the noble Lord to research by the ABHI, which is essentially the trade association for medical devices. It showed that fewer than 20 NHS trusts across the UK have a member of their board with explicit responsibility for the uptake of innovative technologies.
Sometimes one must be wary of having a board appointment that may seem to be a token appointment. However, when it comes to commissioning, having someone around the table who is constantly reminding the board that through commissioning we must encourage and invest in innovation, would be very helpful. The slew of amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, is valuable in getting that message across.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I am seriously concerned, for my sake, that I am invisible to the noble Baroness, Lady Harding—which I regret, but I will tease her about it.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, I fear that is my blindness and my problem, not his. I am very sorry.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I am only teasing.
I declare an interest as a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and as a professor emeritus at the University of Dundee, where I have spent all my life bar the first 18 years. I say this because we have lost something in the United Kingdom. A key strength of our academic clinical departments was a worldwide reputation for conducting health service-related research. We were second to none, and I mean that. We have lost that because we have changed the environment. People who work in clinical academic institutions—our so-called teaching hospitals—no longer have the environment to promote that. It was the duty of those of us who worked in clinical academic departments to grow the next generation of academics. It was important that we were all involved in conducting clinical research that produced innovation, better care for patients and a first-rate, first-class, internationally renowned next generation of academics. We do not have that any more, and anything we can do through this Bill to bring that back would be a major plus.
I will speak to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey. Much has been said, excellently, and I will try not to repeat it, but a strengthened research mandate through this Bill could support patients, clinicians, NHS organisations and research. The patient benefits from increased research activity have already been mentioned, but there is a significant variability across the UK in the opportunity for patients to engage in research. A strengthened mandate could support ensuring that all patients can access clinical trials and their associated benefits. Therefore, wider changes are needed to increase the competitiveness of the UK as a destination for research, particularly through the proposed changes to clinical trials legislation, and through increases in Department of Health and Social Care and NIHR funding.
This could include measures to support faster approval timelines and closer multiagency collaborations. Clinical research has clear benefits to patients, as has already been mentioned. NHS trusts with higher levels of research have a higher rating from the CQC and better outcomes, as have already been said. During Covid, the UK has demonstrated its potential with the success of Covid-19 research, with 68 commercial Covid trials launched in the UK in 2020—the third-highest globally, beating the United States and the rest of Europe.
How did we manage to do that? It is because, during the emergency, we set up methodologies that allow patients to be involved in trials more quickly by creating a voluntary registry, where patients themselves volunteer to take part in research. I also note the clinical recovery trials that we set up—some noble Lords might have seen the article in the Times, with Sir Martin Landray suggesting that we follow that process in the future to try to find treatments for other common diseases. If we do that, we will lead globally. The NHS has the capacity to do that, but it now requires the will and the leadership from the centre to drive that. The clinical academics will be up to it—they just want to be given a chance. Let us do that, because we have demonstrated that we can.
Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak briefly in support of this group of amendments, particularly Amendments 79, 81, 96 and 196, which concern both research and clinical trials. I am grateful to the noble Lords who have put their names to them.
As other noble Lords have noted, the Government have actually recognised the need for integrated care boards to have research among their general duties—but one would be hard pressed to realise from the Bill’s drafting that this was a priority. As the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, said well, the drafting is weak. We need something much more explicit and action oriented. Frankly, “promote” is a vague term that can mean anything or nothing. We need action-oriented language of a kind that puts the NHS and the resources that this country has right at the centre of medical research.
We need an amendment of the type that my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering has put down to give us a national research strategy and join up the national and local levels in achieving it. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, has given us many reasons why we need to move on the whole subject of research and make it central to the National Health Service’s mission. We need something that is explicit in charging the NHS to conduct research and enable relevant bodies to do so as well. The results should be exploited in healthcare. Linking research to local needs will also increase their relevance, and the adoption of these results and the obligation to report on them will ensure that things really happen.
I could not find in the drafting any reference to the need to do clinical trials. Surely this is a central element in research and could be extraordinarily advantageous to the UK. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has just said, the NHS has a database that is unparalleled in the world. It provides us with an extraordinary advantage. I recall that when I was on the Science and Technology Committee, we heard considerable evidence about the barriers that were put in the way by rather pettifogging EU regulations. I recall the desire, when free of these, to be able to conduct clinical trials. I am aware that some people argue that the UK market is too small, but, with our database, that is not the case—and we can ensure that we have co-operation from abroad.
It is very important that this becomes a central element in our research programmes. It puts us on the map internationally, and it ensures that the NHS, which, after all, is a great consumer of the public expenditure in this country, is also part of wealth creation. That should be part of the result of the research that it conducts.
I do not think that the Government disagree with the thrust of the thinking here, but I very much hope that they will agree that the Bill’s drafting, as it exists at the moment, is inadequate. I hope that, when my noble friend comes to reply, he accepts that the language on both of these elements needs strengthening, giving a central role to research and clinical trials in the NHS.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords for putting forward these amendments, all of which seek to strengthen the Bill and build on what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, opened with: the need for clear lines of responsibility and for a joined-up strategy—in other words, for us to get to the point that we are looking for.
My noble friend Lord Hunt spoke of the embodiment, perhaps, of that through a chief innovation officer, who could be a reminder—not on their own—of the need to build in research and innovation as core throughout commissioning. I am sure that the Minister has heard that this debate is a cry for us to embed in the Bill and in our NHS not just a requirement for but a delivery of research and innovation to the appropriate standard to serve the country. It will not just happen on its own.
We have seen significant variation of opportunity for patients to engage in research and disparities in participation reported on geographic and socioeconomic lines, by ethnic origin and across different disease areas. This is due to the fact that the NHS has been unable to prioritise resourcing and delivery of research, which has been a particular feature over the past decade.
In the Bill, we have a major opportunity to embed a research-active culture—words used by the noble Baroness, Lady Harding—within the NHS which could build on the response to Covid-19, which the noble Lord, Lord Patel, emphasised. That response saw more NHS sites, staff and patients engage in research than ever before. Let us not waste this opportunity.
The Bill offers little different to the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which also did not and does not mandate clinical research activity, stating just a duty for clinical commissioning groups “to promote” research. Your Lordships will notice the similarity in wording in the current Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, is quite right, as are other noble Lords, to speak of the weakness of just using the words “to promote”. This set of amendments is about how we make it actually happen. The amendments are about mandating integrated care boards to conduct research and to monitor and assess innovation, because without that, it will just not happen.
Legislation is indeed a critical element, but it is important to stress that it must be accompanied by the necessary infrastructure: for example, through staffing levels—to which we will return in our next debate—research capability, digital resources and tools and access to services, as well as efficient trial approval processes, the ability reliably to recruit patients, the offering of guidance and, of course, dedicated staff time for research. All of those will make the legislation actually mean something.
As well as a strengthened legislative mandate which moves beyond the current duty simply to promote research, it would support patients, clinicians and NHS organisations across the country to have equal access to the benefits brought about by research participation. This will be better for patients, give greater staff satisfaction and deliver economic benefits not just for the NHS but for the broader economy. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, talked about the life sciences being a major player as a contributor to our economic well-being and prosperity in this country—something also emphasised by my noble friend Lord Davies.
Such a mandate would also ensure support for levelling up and make it possible to address health inequalities. This in turn would support the ambition set out in the Government’s clinical research vision: to make access and participation in research as easy as possible for everyone across the UK, including those in rural, diverse and underserved populations. I hope the Minister will take the opportunity to reflect on the points made in this debate, because this group of amendments provides an opportunity to strengthen the Bill to actually deliver.
Lord Kamall (Con)
Like many of the debates on this Bill in Committee, this has been a fascinating one. It has been really interesting to hear from experts who themselves have engaged in clinical research. I start by thanking my noble friends Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Blackwood and the noble Lords, Lord Sharkey and Lord Kakkar, for bringing this debate before the Committee today. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for his points about the arts and social prescribing.
Before I turn to the amendments, perhaps I could make two personal reflections. One is from my early academic career as a postdoctoral research fellow. I saw the benefit of taking the results of my research directly into my teaching. It made the courses more dynamic—it was not just a repeat of last year’s slides for this year’s students—and it showed what progress we were making in that field of research.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all who have contributed to what has been an excellent debate. I welcome my noble friend’s offer to have further discussions, which I am sure will be taken up actively by all those concerned.
However, there seems to be a bit of a mismatch between my noble friend’s reply and the very real concerns expressed across the House, including by the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, in summing up. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, said that there was insufficient emphasis and obligation for integration, and that the whole country would benefit from wealth creation—a point well made by my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones as well.
I was very moved by the reference of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, to the loss of status and standing of teaching hospitals. My father, a GP, always used to say that if you want something done, have it done in a teaching hospital. My late uncle was a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary, where his students rather fondly called him “Mack the Knife”—I hope for positive reasons, because he used it skilfully, but unfortunately it is too late to ask.
We need to press my noble friend further on strengthening the obligation and making it much firmer in the Bill. Is he prepared to move in that direction? I would like to say how proud I am to be British and living in a country where we have such a strong record on research and the data available. My noble friend the Minister did not respond on where we are with clinical trials—my noble friend Lady Neville-Jones and I particularly asked him about that—and I would be very grateful if he could write to me separately. On the basis that we can have further discussions on this, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment at this stage.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
We now come to the group beginning with Amendment 83. The noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Masham of Ilton, will be taking part remotely.
Amendment 83
Baroness Walmsley
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment draws the attention of the integrated care board to the need to ensure sufficient well-trained staff to comply with safe staffing levels.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 83 in my name, I want to speak to Amendment 86, also in my name, and to support Amendments 146, 170 and 171.
Everybody taking part in these debates, including the Ministers, would acknowledge the central importance of the staff of the NHS and social care, at every level, and their training, well-being and retention. However, it was clear from the evidence on the workforce to the committee and in debates in the House in another place that there is broad concern that planning for the provision of sufficient of the right staff in all areas has not been good enough. Given how long it takes to train a doctor, an allied health professional or a nurse, excellent forward planning is essential. Proposals were made in another place to improve that in the future but, unfortunately, the Government would accept only a mandated review every five years. This group of amendments is this House’s opportunity to try again, and I hope the Minister will be able to help us.
These amendments show that, in the opinion of noble Lords, the planning of health, public health and care staff must be based on an accurate, independently verified understanding of both the current situation and, as well as can be predicted, future need. Because the political responsibility lies with the Secretary of State, this information collection and planning must exist at the very top, as well as at NHS England and the ICS commissioning level. Clause 35 refers only to the workforce needs of health services, but Amendment 170 lays down detail on what the Secretary of State must do to fulfil this responsibility, not just for health but for public health and social care, since they are so interlinked. We look forward to the White Paper and legislation on social care and hope that workforce issues will be well covered in them, but we need to address it now, in this Bill, even though it would have been better to hear the Government’s proposals on social care first. Amendment 146 says what must be done at ICS level. Crucially, both amendments require appropriate consultation. But there is something I would like to add, and that is where my Amendments 83 and 86 come in.
Every hospital trust and primary care setting has done the work to identify and agree the safe staffing levels of each type and seniority of staff in each setting. This is based on an understanding of the local context and of the knowledge and skills needed for patient safety to deliver each treatment, and an assessment of how many patients can safely be looked after by each member of staff. This varies enormously from setting to setting—from a whole team of staff to each patient in operating theatres, to one-to-one in ICUs and premature baby units, and to several patients to one member of staff in less acute areas.
During the pandemic, we have seen these levels necessarily abandoned, with, for example, one ICU nurse being asked to care for two or even three patients at the peak. This has been an unusual crisis situation and services have had to be flexible, moving staff from one department to another, always, I hope, under the supervision of a staff member with the correct speciality. Hospitals have helped each other and ambulances have been diverted when no bed could be found for patients coming into A&E. That has been the advantage of having a National Health Service.
It has been very difficult for staff, and many have quit their jobs. We started the pandemic with tens of thousands of doctor and nurse vacancies, and the BMA has calculated that we currently have a shortfall of 50,000 full-time equivalent doctors—more than the number of unfilled posts. Our doctor-patient ratio is 25 years behind that of similar OECD countries. In the UK, before the pandemic, there was already a shortage of around 50,000 nurses, and still the healthcare system is nowhere near bridging that gap. In December 2020, a report by the Health Foundation, Building the NHS Nursing Workforce in England, said that the Government will need to exceed their target of 50,000 new nurses in England by 2024-25 if they want the NHS to fully recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
In January 2021, a survey by Nursing Times indicated that 80% of nurses feel that patient safety is being compromised due to this severe staff shortage, which is why my amendments focus on safe staffing levels. While there has been a good increase in the number of nursing students starting courses during 2020, this will not alleviate the issue of a lack of qualified nurses now or in the medium term. There are particular shortages among mental health and cancer support nurses. Cancer Research has also told us that one in 10 cancer diagnostic posts in England is vacant, which threatens the Government’s cancer target. There are also considerable shortages in other allied professions.
We have also seen a reduction in the number of in-patient beds in the last 10 years and bed occupancy rates well in excess of the recommended percentage. Even before the pandemic, some hospitals had no available beds at all during the winter period, leading to nearly every winter period being labelled a crisis. All this is because of the perennial failure to train enough staff.
Despite the increased use of technology, health and care continue to be people businesses, but there has not been enough effective planning to provide the workforce needed, not just for normal services but to provide the resilience needed for the winter and for future pandemics. This has partly been due to “leaky bucket” syndrome—the failure to retain staff because of the pressure and, in some cases, pay or pension issues. That must change. Health Education England is now to be incorporated into NHS England, and the Bill and the forthcoming social care legislation are opportunities to start again. We have one and a half million care workers, with high turnover. In order to improve retention, good training and a career path are needed.
I turn, however, to the detail of my amendments. Included in the duties of the new ICBs is, as set out in Clause 20, in new Section 14Z41, a duty to promote education and training. My Amendment 83 adds to that duty that it should train enough of the right staff to reach safe staffing levels in all areas. My Amendment 86 adds to new Section 14Z42, which covers the duty to promote integration, a duty to improve the ability of NHS and care staff to carry out their duties within safe staffing levels.
The latter amendment recognises the risk to staff themselves as well as patients when they are forced to work with fewer than the prescribed safe number of colleagues, or to extend their shift by many hours because there is nobody to take over. It is a risk to their physical and mental health and it certainly does not help the ability of student nurses and doctors to learn from their senior colleagues when they do not have enough time to breathe. It also causes burnout, leading to significant numbers of doctors and nurses considering leaving the profession or reducing their hours. Some 32% of respondents to the BMA’s April 2021 Covid-19 tracker survey said that they were now more likely to take early retirement, while half reported being more likely to reduce their hours.
I believe that safe staffing levels are part of the duty of care that employers owe to their employees in the health service. However, the Nuffield Trust, Health Foundation and King’s Fund have estimated that, by 2030, the gap between supply of and demand for staff employed by NHS providers in England could reach almost 350,000 full-time equivalent posts if nothing is done. Worryingly, that was based on pre-pandemic calculations. Overcoming unsafe staffing levels is an essential measure to ensure patient safety and to boost the well-being, morale and productivity of staff and, therefore, their retention. The Bill is an opportunity for the Government to take sustainable action to alleviate issues relating to workforce supply and demand in England.
The duties proposed in Amendments 146, 170 and 171 would be welcome, and I support them, but they are not enough. I think that safe staffing should be specifically mentioned among the duties of the ICB, and that is where my amendments would put it. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
My Lords, we have two noble Baronesses taking part remotely. I first call the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, the present Health Minister and his predecessors for a number of years—far too many years, frankly—should not be surprised by these amendments, all of which cover the issue of workforce planning. Often, Ministers’ words and aspirations have been supportive but the reality is that, without proper long-term workforce planning, the NHS and our social care sectors will struggle to be able to plan for the medium term, let alone the short term.
My noble friend Lady Walmsley introduced this group by saying what is needed in workforce planning and why, and I support her brief but critical amendment to ensure patient safety. The other amendments in this group set out the how: whether the workforce planning reports or clinical and healthcare training needs in Amendment 171, the duty on the Secretary of State in Amendment 173, the report on parity of pay in Amendment 174 or the important Amendment 214 from the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, on workforce boards. I am looking forward to hearing the expert contributions to follow on them from the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, and many other noble Lords, and I hope that the Minister will take note of how the lack of effective workforce planning is hobbling the provision of health and care services in England.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord McNicol of West Kilbride) (Lab)
My Lords, we have one more noble Baroness taking part remotely. I invite the noble Baroness, Lady Masham of Ilton, to make her comments.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB) [V]
My Lords, I am very supportive of this group of amendments. There cannot be a safe, effective National Health Service without an adequate, well-trained workforce in hospitals, in care homes and for people who need care in their own homes, as well as adequate GPs and community staff.
At this time, it is more difficult than ever to recruit, as so many nurses and carers left to go back to Europe and the world has been struck by the coronavirus. Many people are off sick with the virus or isolating, and some are tired with stress and overwork. It is not helped when the relations and partners of patients have not been allowed in to help disabled and elderly patients in hospitals. They can help with feeding and giving patients extra help and support, which staff do not have the time to do.
The Royal College of Nursing says that the Bill gives
“no assurance that the system is recruiting and training enough staff to sustainably deliver health and care services.”
As has been said, there should be forward planning for the workforce. For example, the biggest barrier to improving early diagnosis of bowel cancer is long-standing staff shortages in endoscopy, pathology services and gastroenterology, with 43% of advertised posts not being filled. This is really serious. With so many posts across the country not being filled, a variety of specialties are so badly needed. There must be more training opportunities. Without adequate training, there will be no hope of filling the unfilled posts.
It would be very welcome if the Government brought some amendments on Report to help make the recruitment of staff, who are so desperately needed, more successful. Without enough staff, all the important things your Lordships have been discussing today, such as innovation and research, will be unachievable. A thriving workforce is absolutely essential.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)
My Lords, manpower planning requires a bit of definition. In my role at the TUC over many years, one of my functions was to look after all the sectoral committees. The most assiduously attended was the health services committee. As we all know, there is an enormous number of specialities in the health service.
When it comes to manpower planning, why did people not press the right button? I am afraid that there is no button to press. In 1947 Aneurin Bevan found that with the British Medical Association there was no wish or desire on the part of the doctors to be part of a structure where a button could be pressed—as might be true in a great corporation—to make sure that the plan for manpower was implemented. As we all know—I will be corrected by someone in this Committee if I have got it wrong—GPs are not appointed by the National Health Service in the way you would appoint somebody to be in charge of an oil refinery in the oil industry or whatever.
It would be useful if the Minister—and I have given notice of a question along these lines—could say what the subjects of the workforce strategy in the Bill would be. How would it be funded? What would be the timescale for introducing it? How often would it be updated? The analysis would have to include such questions as reliance on locums; anecdotally, they can prove very expensive. Will there be targets and associated timescales for the reductions in vacancies?
All of this is easier said than done. I think the remark can legitimately be made that money does not grow on trees, so how are we going to proceed on this? I do not think that everybody who advocates manpower planning is totally naive. Jeremy Hunt in the other place advocated something very much along the lines of what we are talking about now. The focus of the question was on whether five years, 10 years or some other number of years was far too long. There should be reviews every two years or on some shorter timescale.
I confess that, if I were the Minister, I would say, “You’re begging the question of whether we know what we’re talking about when we talk about manpower planning”. So I would be glad if the Minister, in giving some thought to this debate, would care to write to noble Lords—not a White Paper or anything like that—to answer specifically how this thing would work. It is an excellent initiative, and I very much welcome the fact that there is a clause in the Bill providing for this manpower planning.
Edward Argar, for the Government, said that substantial work was ongoing, and referred to a 15-year strategic framework for the health and social care workforce, so the beginnings of creative thinking in this area have gone some way. I congratulate the Government on that. I am afraid, however, that until we get Ministers to be a bit more explicit about what we are talking about, and how the workforce plan will work, this will be a missed opportunity.
In conclusion, I acknowledge that there are a number of sacred cows in this area—and unfortunately, many of those sacred cows are incompatible with each other. It would be useful if the Minister acknowledged that we are asking the right questions. That, obviously, is the necessary precondition to finding the right answers.
Baroness Cumberlege (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 170, in my name. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, who supported my amendment, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath—I do not know whether he is coming back—and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who has already spoken. I thank the noble Baroness for speaking to the amendments in her usual comprehensive and thorough way. It was interesting that she talked about Malawi and the Philippines, and the issue of local training, which is so important.
We have all applauded health and care workers, both on our own doorsteps and when we meet them, on or off their job. Omicron has put them under huge pressure yet again, but despite that—despite isolating or testing positive—we know that they will cope. The NHS will cope.
The NHS is a public service, which means the service works for the people. That is its sole purpose. To achieve that, normal service must resume as soon as possible. The public have been understanding: they understand that there is a crisis, and that normal service cannot be delivered right now. There can be no doubt that Covid and its variants are a crisis for health and care. But Covid is a crisis atop another crisis, a deeper malignancy, which constrains and threatens the NHS—and, of course, the care sector; we must think of the two together—with or without Covid. I speak of the workforce crisis, now considered by experts, and by people in the service and outside it, the single greatest problem that the service now faces.
Numbers can be used to make any argument stand up, even a spurious one. But in the case of our health and care workforce crisis, the numbers are real, stark and heading in the wrong direction. Two years ago, before the pandemic, the average number of vacancies in adult social care was 112,000; the average number of vacancies in the NHS was 101,000. It is no secret that Covid is making a very bad situation worse. Internal NHS figures showing total absences across acute, mental health and community trusts nationally hit almost 120,000 on Wednesday 5 January. NHS staff absence figures are published weekly over the winter. The reported figure for staff absences, published last Thursday, 13 January, show that a weekly average of almost 89,000 hospital staff in England were absent, with the highest one-day peak for this winter being over 94,000. This is piling pressure upon pressure.
That tells us that we have a serious problem here and now—and, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Masham and Lady Brinton, said, it takes a long time to train skilled health and care staff. We need to act now if we want to feel the benefit in future. According to the Royal College of Physicians, nearly 48%—nearly half—of advertised consultant posts went unfilled in 2020, mostly due, sadly, to a lack of any applicants. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, mentioned this in a previous debate.
There are nearly 40,000 full-time equivalent nurse vacancies in the NHS in England. That is a vacancy rate of more than 10%. The Royal College of Nursing expects 52,000 nurses to retire in the next few years. Nearly 7% of roles in adult social care were vacant in 2020-21. It is estimated that we are 50,000 doctors short, and in total the Health Foundation says we need 488,000 more healthcare staff in the next decade. I apologise for flinging so many figures at your Lordships, but they underline a simple yet serious problem—and if we do not have credible, reliable, up-to-date numbers, how can we plan?
The health and care sector urgently needs better workforce planning. We need to know how much slack is in the system, and how it can cope not only with the expected but with the unexpected. We know from the experience of the last two years that the unexpected can, and so often does, happen.
Behind all those numbers are real people—professionals working flat out every day and every night to keep the show on the road, to care for patients and to keep them safe. I think we all agree that they are doing a valiant job, trying to be professional and compassionate, often in desperately difficult circumstances. But there is only so much that people can do when their team is not at full strength.
I am the first to admit that my amendment will not solve the workforce crisis. It will, however, provide the NHS and the care sector with a regular accurate national picture of the numbers of staff needed now and in future to meet demand. It will be publicly available, so we will all be able to see what is needed. It will provide a strong and much-needed foundation on which to take decisions about funding, skill mix, regional shortfalls and shortages of specialists. It will be published every two years. I think published annual assessments are too frequent. Two years is a reasonable interval: say, twice in the average time between general elections—one to say the last Government got it all wrong, and one to put it all to rights.
We could, of course, carry on as we are, without the information, a proper strategy or the ability to plan for the future—travelling in hope rather than expectation. That is not working. We already know that; the dozens of outside organisations which support this amendment— from royal colleges and professional bodies to charities and think tanks—know that; and, most importantly, the public know that, because they can see the pressure that NHS and care sector staff are under. To carry on like this would be to condemn our care services to flying blind through a storm. This amendment gives us the ability to set and navigate a sustainable course. With the extraordinary consensus behind this amendment and the impressive cross-party support we have had throughout Westminster, one would hope that it will find favour in your Lordships’ House and with the Government.
I listened carefully to the debate on a similar amendment in another place. The main argument Ministers made then was that the planned update to Health Education England’s 15-year strategic framework for workforce planning, known as framework 15, would do the job instead. I beg to differ, as do the 88 organisations which support this amendment. Previous versions of framework 15 have not quantified the workforce numbers, and the Government have been unable to confirm that the revised framework will set out the required numbers of staff. Even if the updated framework 15 had included projections of future needs—it did not—it would only be a one-off, and there would be no requirement regularly to update these predictions.
Might there be a concern about the financial implications of enacting this amendment? Do some worry that it may herald an increase in health and care staffing costs? I hope not, because to reject this amendment on those grounds would be a false economy. The NHS alone spends vast sums on agency staff, one of the most expensive and least satisfactory ways to manage an endemic workforce problem. The latest number I could find was for 2019-20, when the NHS in England spent an eye-watering £6.2 billion on agency staff, which was an increase on the previous two years. This amendment paves the way for reducing those expensive sticking-plaster solutions in favour of something sustainable and more cost effective.
There are, of course, many hurdles to overcome if we are to improve workforce planning and capacity management. There are issues that far greater brains than mine need to think about—the rise of AI, for example. In my household, married as I am to a farmer, as Members will know, AI has quite a different meaning. I am not referring to artificial insemination, but rather to artificial intelligence. What impact will that have on workforce planning and staffing? What about the rising trend of part-time work, telehealth or changes to skill mix? Those are all good questions that these clever brains stand a far better chance of answering if they have alongside them the regular, credible, national picture that this amendment seeks to provide.
In my view, we owe it to the staff working in health and care, and to the public who rely on them, to do better, to plan better, to prepare for the future and to ensure that the NHS and the care sector are at full strength. This amendment points us in that direction, and I hope the noble Lords here to answer the debate today will work with their colleagues in government to see the value—the worth—of this very simple amendment.
Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)
My Lords, in theory these amendments should not be needed, but in practice they clearly are, as the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, has just so forensically set out. It is a statement of the blindingly obvious, particularly coming out of the pandemic, to say that we need better workforce planning at a time when staff are exhausted from having dealt with Covid for several years and the NHS is confronting the need to deal with the backlog of care.
But, frankly, it would be a statement of the blindingly obvious at any time, because the lead times for decisions on training for health professionals are such that they go beyond any individual term of Parliament or government manifesto. Universities need a strong signal as to what future demand will look like. The interconnectedness between health and social care means that we are actually thinking about a workforce of 3 million plus, and the materiality of getting it wrong over a five or 10-year period is bigger in this sector of the workforce than any other part of the economy. As we heard earlier—I think from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley—estimates from the Health Foundation, for example, suggest that on the current trajectory the gap could be more than a third of a million staff in the health service by 2030-31; and in respect of the social care workforce, Skills for Care talks about perhaps 490,000 additional posts being required over the period to 2035. Those figures may be right or they may be wrong, but there is not a forensic forum in which those debates are scrutinised and choices made. This is not just about more; this is about different.
It is not all doom and gloom. Over the last two years, during the most intense challenge the health service has faced since its creation, nearly 160,000 people have signed up to join the health and care staff and professions. We have seen applications for undergraduate nursing up by more than a quarter and a huge increase in applications for and interest in studying medicine, yet we have an acceptance rate of only about 52% for undergraduate nursing, according to figures from UCAS, and we are turning away bright and brilliant young people with fantastic A-level grades who would like to study medicine. That is a paradox which stems from the fact that, unlike the day-to-day running costs of the health service, those items which have the longest planning horizon—workforce and capital investment—are the areas with the shortest financial horizon.
Of course, it may well be argued by the Government that we are about to turn a corner and that although there has been a degree of short-termism hitherto, things are about to improve. But I am afraid that I think we are entitled to treat that proposition with a degree of scepticism, because although what has been said up until now may be blindingly obvious, in fact what we have been confronted with is wilful blindness. Health Education England, which should be looking at 10 years, does not yet have its running budget for 10 weeks’ time. If we look back over the history of recent years, we can see a series of missed opportunities. The Minister may assure us that we will be presented with this 15-year further vision from Health Education England this coming summer, which will, of course, be welcome. But if we remind ourselves of the history since 2014 or 2015, as I say, we can perhaps be a tad sceptical. Obviously, I draw attention to my prior NHS interest, and everything I am about to say only draws on the public record, just to clarify that point.
It was back in 2014 that the NHS Five Year Forward View talked about the service changes that were required, but it was not permitted to talk about future capital investment, social care or workforce training, since they were being kept separate. So, in summer 2016, the Department of Health and Social Care was going to produce this detailed quantified workforce plan instead. Twenty-sixteen came and went and instead, in December 2017—three years after the Five Year Forward View—Health Education England launched a consultation document which said: “Your responses will be used to inform the full strategy to be published in July 2018 to coincide with the NHS’s 70th birthday.”
Twenty-eighteen came and went, and answers saw we none. Then in June 2019, we got another, in this case interim people plan, with lots of excellent content but unfortunately no actual numbers and no new pound notes. Despite the fact that it promised:
“We will aim to publish a full, costed five-year Plan later this year”
quantifying
“the full range of additional staff needed”.
But again, “later this year” came and went, and no such documents saw the light of day, until in July 2020 we had a one-year people plan which, at that point, was covering just the next eight months. Fear not, though, because it said:
“Further action for 2021/22 and beyond is expected to be set out later in the year”—
in 2020—
“once funding arrangements have been confirmed by the Government.”
That did not happen.
Instead, in July 2021, last summer, the Department of Health and Social Care again commissioned Health Education England to start from scratch. Last November, HEE published a short PowerPoint—commissioned from a firm of accountants—with the discouraging disclaimer on the first page that:
“We do not warrant or represent that the report is appropriate for your purposes”
and “no warranty is made as to the accuracy of any data”. As it happens, that does not really matter because there were no real data in the document anyway, which came to startling conclusions such as “workforce demand will be affected by demography and disease”.
I think we are entitled to say that this litany tells us that what, to everybody else, is blindingly obvious has instead been confronted with wilful blindness. What explains this? Is it a lack of interest on the part of the committed people to getting this right? No, it is not—some excellent work has been done. Your Lordships may take a clue from a statement that Jeremy Hunt, the former Secretary of State and now Chair of the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, made last Tuesday, when he said that “the Health and Social Care Committee has recommended on numerous occasions that we should have independently verified forecasts of the number of doctors, nurses and other staff that we should be training for the future. But that has been blocked consistently by the Treasury”.
Without in any way commenting on or editorialising that, the Minister may want to take the opportunity to confirm whether that is indeed the case. But just on the off chance that he does not refute the statement Jeremy Hunt has made, then that, I think, tells us that unfortunately, these amendments are necessary and will strengthen the hand of Health and Social Care Ministers in the future. I cannot help thinking that, in their heart of hearts, past Health Ministers know that they would have benefited enormously, were these amendments on the statute book. I am afraid that, if the Government choose not to support these amendments—as I hope will not be the case—that will be proof positive that they are very necessary. Therefore, I hope they will recognise that ignorance is not bliss and if we do find ourselves in that situation, this House will take the opportunity at Report to give the Commons another go.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, listening to my noble friend Lord Stevens of Birmingham, I am beginning to feel the pain of his frustration at being chief executive of the NHS and not being listened to in order to fix such an important issue as workforce planning. Also, there is a bit of déjà vu that he may remember, along with some of my colleagues who were took part in the Lords committee inquiry into the long-term sustainability of the NHS and adult social care.
Let me argue the same issues that he just presented. The report on the long-term sustainability of the NHS and adult social care, published in April 2017, looked at data on demographic and disease burden projections of the population over the next 15 to 20 years. It identified a lack of long-term workforce planning as a key threat to the long-term sustainability of the NHS. The Committee heard from the then Secretary of State, the right honourable Jeremy Hunt, who had this to say:
“workforce planning is an area where we have failed… Brexit will be a catalyst to get this right… That is an area where we need to be much more strategic”.
That was nearly five years ago and yet, there is no strategic healthcare workforce plan from the Department of Health and Social Care, as we just heard.
The solution is not going to come from an outside body, no matter how influential. It has to come from the centre, from the leadership of the NHS and social care, and not one in the isolation from the other. What we have heard from the centre and NHS organisations is many publications identifying the problem, but not the solution with a long-term plan. We are told that this may be coming in April 2022—or perhaps later.
On the other hand, there are several detailed authoritative documents on the NHS workforce from think tanks, NHS providers, the BMA, the nursing councils and many others, who have been grappling with this issue and trying to find a solution for a long time and advising the Government on how to do this. There is no lack of authoritative reports based on data related to long-term projections of population, its demography, health needs and the workforce needed to deliver them. For example, an extensive, well-researched report by Dr Latifa Patel, a respiratory paediatrician, and Dr Wrigley, a GP of medical staff in England, projected to 2045—based on population and disease data—the number of doctors needed in each speciality and possible models of plans to deliver on this by 2032. A document extending to 60 pages is not only highly informative and well-researched but identifies a way forward.
Since the Health and Social Care Act 2012, there has been inadequate workforce planning, fuelled by inadequate regional and national workforce data and a lack of accountability for it at government level. We are not training enough doctors, despite record numbers of people applying. The latest figures, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Birmingham, mentioned, show a 21% increase on previous years in applications to medical schools of highly talented young people. This means the NHS is ill-equipped to tackle the backlog of care, is not prepared for future public health crises and cannot meet patient needs, either now or in the future.
If we compare England with EU nations within the OECD, which have an average of 3.7 doctors per 1,000 people, the medical workforce in England is currently short of around 49,000 full-time equivalent doctors. Without significant intervention regarding the current rate of growth, the estimate is that the future medical workforce shortage will be between 26,889 and 83,779 full-time doctors by 2043. Such precise numbers show how well-researched this document is. Each full-time doctor in NHS England is doing an average of 1.3 full-time equivalent roles. I have three of them in the NHS and I can see what they do—although I tell them they are lazy compared to me.
Baroness Verma (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest in the register. I am making a very short intervention just to talk about care workers. While there has been a great emphasis on the NHS, the crisis that the care sector is facing now is absolutely devastating. I was with care managers this morning, and they were wondering how they were going to manage the next few weeks, never mind the next few years. I urge the Government to understand that it is not just about added training and it is certainly not about planning for the future when the crisis is now. The crisis in the future cannot actually be estimated now, because we are in a crisis now.
So I urge the Government to look at the key issue around the sectors, and that is money. It is funding. We devalue the very people we expect to have value for in looking after the elderly, the disabled and those who need help. I came here not wanting to intervene today, but I was actually pushed by what I saw this morning with my care managers. They are absolutely struggling, trying to work out where they are going to find these magical beings who do not exist, because they have left the sector as a result of being so poorly paid, so badly treated and so deeply undervalued by everyone. I just wanted to put that intervention on record because, while we do need workforce planning, the problem is that we are so far behind the curve that it is going to take one mighty big plan to get this right.
Baroness Hollins (CB)
My Lords, I would like to follow the noble Baroness because my amendment relates to this issue. My Amendment 174 would require the Secretary of State to publish a report on the work undertaken to bring parity of pay between health and social care services.
When reflecting on the pandemic, it is clear that we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to our key workers, who went above and beyond the call of duty to keep people safe and healthy. Their efforts resulted in a deserved pay rise for NHS front-line staff. However, it highlighted the disparity between the treatment of healthcare staff and social care staff. While we clapped for both every Thursday, the gap in pay and reward between the two professions has grown even larger. This amendment reflects the undeniable need to see care staff recognised equally alongside NHS staff.
The social care workforce is, and needs to be, highly skilled. It holds a heavy weight of responsibility for the well-being and safety of vulnerable adults and children. Staff are trained to support medication, undertake PEG feeding, deal with seizures and administer first aid. They help people manage their finances, health and well-being, and they provide emotional support. They operate within a highly regulated sector, necessitating an understanding of health and safety, mental capacity and deprivation of liberty law, safeguarding and even how to positively manage challenging behaviour. The importance of their role cannot be underestimated. Indeed, the same can be said for other, highly skilled allied health professionals, such as nurses and occupational therapists, whose breadth of interventions provide enormous value within the care sector, as well as within the NHS. The turnover rate is just so high. It is unsurprising that staff such as nurses and OTs who can do so are more likely to seek better paid employment in the NHS.
A report recently commissioned by Community Integrated Care shows that many front-line workers in social care are financially “significantly undervalued” by as much as 39%—nearly £7,000 a year—compared to equivalent publicly funded positions. Social care struggles to match pay conditions available within the health sector, including pensions, annual leave entitlements and sick pay. That means that, when faced with the choice of working in either sector, individuals are more likely choose to work in health, if they can. We must help foster a culture of collaboration between the NHS and social care.
Skills for Care estimates that the adult social care workforce in England employs over 1.5 million people, yet there remains a major recruitment and retention crisis which, without intervention, is only likely to get worse. Currently, there are over 100,000 vacancies—that is around 6.8%—with projections estimating that nearly 500,000 new jobs will be needed to meet demand within social care by 2035. The turnover rate of staff is estimated to be over 30%, and higher still among those on zero-hour contracts.
Pay is not a panacea for addressing this issue. Much of it comes down to better wages being offered in other sectors which are able to use market forces to drive up employee pay. Furthermore, if terms and conditions are more closely aligned between social care and the NHS, staff may be able to move more easily between sectors, providing the continuity of care for their patients in the community, which is so valued by so many people.
Social care has been defined as a low-paying industry by the Low Pay Commission every year since the first report of the Low Pay Commission on the national minimum wage in 1998. The average pay for support workers in England who assist people to live independently in the community is £17,695, or £9.05 per hour, which is 45p per hour below the real living wage—that is the average. It seems nonsensical for a single system to have staff working at similar levels but some being paid significantly less than others. The Government have previously argued that, because of the existence of private providers in the care market, they cannot mandate a level of pay for care staff. But this just does not hold up to scrutiny: providers are paid an hourly rate for the contracts they are given by the local authority. This means that there is a conduit through which a fair rate for providers, and by extension employees, could be set.
The continued insistence that an increase in the national living wage is suitable remuneration for care staff does not reflect the level of skill and dedication that they display. While this may reduce the barrier to entering the adult social care workforce, we are still left with problems retaining what will go on to become a much more experienced workforce. There is very little incentive to stay in terms of pay promotion, and the experience pay gap has reduced even more, to something like 1% per hour in the past year. We must address this issue to support this workforce, now and for the future.
Higher pay and lower vacancy rates have been associated with more favourable outcomes during inspections by the Care Quality Commission, which is not surprising. Put simply, a stronger and more valued workforce improves patient care and retention. The demand for the skills of the workforce, now and for the future, means that ensuring parity of pay and conditions between the health and social care sectors is of paramount importance in the care, rehabilitation and protection of people who need this support.
I thank Mencap for a very good brief, Skills for Care for excellent statistics, and my noble friend Lady Finlay for supporting my amendment. I hope that the Minister will see its value.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and I completely support what she and the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, have just said. Unless care wages equate with the minimum for personal care in the NHS, we will never resolve this problem. I have been told by the National Care Forum that that means approximately £13.50 an hour. I would like to see that on the record.
The main reason I rise is in support of Amendments 173 and 171, which reflect other amendments looking at the need to ensure that we get workforce planning right for the future. Although we are talking about the future, we are also talking about the immediate crisis in social care.
I was amused at 6.36 pm to get a message from NHS Professionals, which said: “Dear Mary, you are receiving this email because you are registered on our NHS pathway for professionals. We still have many new opportunities that you would be interested in, so please feel free to log in and see now.” I do not know whether the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, who is just walking in now, has had the same email from NHS Professionals, but we both logged on at the same time—and she is nodding she has. We will stay here for the time being.
The pandemic has placed a spotlight on the health and care workforce and the pressures it sustained. However, these pressures are against a background of persistent under-recruitment, under-retention and under-representation. This shortfall has serious implications for patient and staff safety, as well as the efficiency of health and care services. In part, as others have said, this has been ameliorated by overseas recruitment. However, as a co-editor of the World Health Organization’s State of the World’s Nursing report last year, I have to say that that is not sustainable or ethical. However, I particularly congratulate the Chief Nursing Officer, Ruth May, for her initiative that enables and encourages refugees to register as nurses in this country, which is clearly an ethical practice.
A strategy to comprehensively monitor and meaningfully respond to the shortfall is essential to support the recovery and development of a strong, safe and sustainable workforce. As it stands, I do not believe that the Bill adequately mandates the actions required to achieve this ambition. As others have said, across the NHS there is a shortage of almost 100,000 full-time equivalent staff, with nursing staff accounting for 40% of vacancies in England. In the last five years, we have seen less than a 10% increase in mental health nursing staff and a continual decline in learning disability services. I understand there is an NHS England ambition for 21,000 new posts across the mental health system. This appetite for expansion—with the view that it translates to a sufficiently staffed and skilled workforce—is welcomed perhaps more so than ever, as 2.8 million people, or 5% of the population, had contact with secondary mental health, learning disability and autism services during 2020 and 2021.
As we are all aware, the workforce shortage is not limited to the NHS. The turnover rate of registered nurses in adult social care is four times higher than in the NHS, with marked regional differences. Getting the right number of staff with the right skills therefore remains a challenge and requires urgent review to maintain quality patient care. In care homes, the shortage of registered nurses has caused some providers to renounce their registration to provide nursing care, forcing some residents to find new homes. In hospitals, high staff turnover and the use of agency staff have contributed to excessive restrictions and blanket approaches to care for people with learning disabilities and autism, for example.
We have also seen an impact on growing waiting lists. In the first quarter of this year, only 61% of children and young people with eating disorders were seen within one week for urgent review—a 72% reduction from last year and falling below the national standard. I therefore welcome the focus on children and young people’s mental health teams, including the proposed approach to facilitate a much better system in schools. However, such healthcare workers will need to be included in workforce reviews to facilitate a system-wide understanding of current and projected needs and resources. We should celebrate that so many people want to become nurses and encourage them to do so by investing not only in university places but in apprenticeship schemes that enable a wide variety of people from different cultural backgrounds to enter the profession.
While workforce data is collected monthly and subject to validation, it is segregated by sector, which makes some comparisons difficult. There are also known data limitations. In social care, only half of the workforce is recorded; in general practice, sessional practice nursing is not directly comparable with the main workforce; and in the independent health sector there is no complete estimate of the total workforce, despite the fact that it provides significant NHS services.
All this necessitates an imperative call for a workforce strategy that goes beyond a five-year snapshot of the NHS. Rather, a collective effort across the health and care labour market, including community nursing and midwifery, is warranted to annually capture and forecast workforce shortages and requirements over time, with a five-year government strategic response and annual update. Without these amendments, England risks a future health and care workforce that lacks the sufficient capacity, competence and diversity that is necessary to achieve more integrated care and safely promote health and support the changing needs of the population.
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, I will speak briefly on Amendments 170, 171 and 173. As a former Chief Nursing Officer, I recognise the challenge of ensuring the right number with the right skills of those providing healthcare to meet the needs and the future needs of the population. As someone who, while the Government’s Chief Nursing Officer, was given the objective of finding 60,000 nurses, I understand that it requires a whole-systems approach. I often felt it was about science and art—the science was in the work that went on nationally but the art was in the way it was applied locally on the ground. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about how work on the ground is often not about intuition because that is about experience and knowledge; it is about how it is applied on the ground. I also reflect on the fact that although it was my role with all those working around me to find 60,000 nurses some years ago, we are seeking to find almost the same number today. That demonstrates the fact that we do not have a sustainable model of workforce planning and that we need to do better.
We have already heard how the Bill requires the Government to publish a report that describes the systems in place for assessing and meeting the needs of the workforce. We have already heard that that does not go far enough. In meeting workforce needs, systems are required for both planning and supply, but that does not ensure that it will happen. I believe that we need a system that has accountability, that puts into place long-term planning, and that is funded.
The Secretary of State needs to be held accountable for both workforce planning and supply, because there are some things that only the Secretary of State can do. For example, if the workforce planning systems are not co-ordinated at a national level, there is often limited ability to respond to local variations on the ground, such as those between rural and urban settings or between professions or sectors. For example, responding to local variations may require national changes, such as in training or registration.
There are also parts of the workforce planning system for which only the Secretary of State can be accountable. For example, you can assess and put in place workforce plans but unless they are funded, it is done in vain. There are also actions that are often taken at a national level by government, which can impact on workforce supply and which only the Secretary of State can resist. We have seen national policy influence recruitment and retention: for example, as we moved away from the nursing bursary, as we have seen changes in immigration policy and in the challenges faced by the medical profession around its pensions. All those impact on recruitment and retention.
The Health and Care Bill must have embedded in it accountability for workforce planning and supply sitting with the Secretary of State. This will not only ensure good supply but will prevent staff shortages, improve patient safety and the quality of care. If this is not resolved, we will see those deteriorate.
Finally, on sustainability, we have heard how planning for the workforce takes time. We have heard how long it takes to take train a doctor or a consultant or even a clinical nurse specialty. These periods of training reach over the span of a Government. We need a system that does not just respond to the needs of a Government but beyond them, to ensure that our horizons are not limited by politics but by the needs of a population. Our workforce provides not just quality care to an individual but to a community. We have heard how, if we fail to provide the right workforce, we will fail the other aspirations in the Bill.
Lord Warner (CB)
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 146 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, but I support all the amendments in this group. Taken together and perhaps integrated a bit better, they strengthen the focus in the Bill on workforce issues and workforce planning. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, on his contribution to open government.
For too long, we have been preoccupied with the funding of our health and care system and have tended to assume—I confess that as a Minister I certainly did this to some extent—that if Governments made enough money available, we would be able to acquire the staff we needed, always forgetting, I think, that health and care is a highly labour-intensive industry, possibly the most highly labour-intensive industry in our country.
We were often very good at masking the shortcomings in our planning system by historically relying on recruitment from abroad. There were doctors from Africa, India and Europe, nurses from the Philippines and elsewhere, and we had a lot of staff coming in from the EU to work in our social care sector. Brexit and our national preoccupation with limiting immigration has changed all that, and that is before we calculate the effect of Covid on health and care staff recruitment. To give your Lordships just one example, pre-Brexit, 40% of the social care staff in London came from the EU. You simply cannot make that ground up very quickly.
Today’s reality for recruiting health and care staff is that we are operating in a highly competitive national and international labour market. That situation will not change any time soon. The probabilities are that we will have to pay more for staff and give more thought to our working practices and conditions. We will have to do a much better job of planning ahead and take much more seriously the training, support and recruitment and retention of this increasingly scarce resource—people.
I suggest that Ministers—I include all of us who have been Ministers—must stop political bragging about how many new doctors and nurses a Government will produce, often without the foggiest idea of how long it will take to do so. Ministers might want to give more consideration as to whether they have the right skills in the sector in the first place, before commissioning the training of highly paid, highly skilled professionals. We have not done a very good job of looking at the extent to which many of the jobs done by doctors could be done by other professionals. Our attempt to train nurses in prescribing has been only half-hearted in using the skills that we have paid for them to develop.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, I add my voice in support of Amendment 170, so ably and brilliantly introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, my noble friend Lady Cumberlege and the noble Lord, Lord Stevens.
At Second Reading, I spoke of my personal experience along the timeline set out by the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, as the person charged with developing the 2019 people plan with said absence of numbers. I do not wish to go into more detail on the history; I would rather spend the brief time I have available talking a bit more about why I think this amendment is needed and attempting to pre-empt some of the potential objections which I suspect will come from my noble friend the Minister.
A number of people have alluded to it, but we should be under no illusions that this is the most important debate we will have on health and social care. All our fantastic, lofty ambitions for our health and care system are for naught if we do not have the people to deliver them—and we should be under no illusions that we do not have them today.
I add my voice to those of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and my noble friend Lady Verma: there is undoubtedly an important point about ensuring that healthcare assistants, nurses and managers in social care are paid appropriately. We also need to face the fact that we do not have enough people working in health and care in every single role in the system.
This is not a UK-only problem. As the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, this is a global issue. We cannot rely on people from outside the UK alone to solve our problem; we have to solve some of this ourselves. We undoubtedly need more people, but I would argue that we also need to work differently; we need both more and different. We need to address the way we work in health and social care, which is at the heart of this Bill. We need to embrace new professions and do the forward planning to make that possible, whether that is recognising sonographers as a registered profession; pushing forward on physician associates, where we are some 10 years behind other countries in the world; or developing an approach to credentialling which enables our clinicians to have more flexible careers, as science and technology change through the course of their lives. All of these ways to work differently from the way we operate today are as important as having more people. Neither more nor different is possible unless we start by being honest about the size of the problem, which is why Amendment 170 is so important.
I believe there are two substantial disincentives for this amendment being accepted. A number of your Lordships have alluded to the first one: anyone running a large people-based organisation is always tempted to focus on the urgent today and not invest in training and development for the future. It is just too tempting for the NHS, as well as the Secretary of State and undoubtedly the Treasury, to want to retain the flexibility to focus on the short term and raid the training budget for the future. Any one of us who has run any organisation knows that that is a human temptation. This does not make them bad people and it is not party political; it is just the reality of running a large organisation. That is why legislating to force transparency is so important.
The second major disincentive relates to a view that I suspect has been held in the Treasury for the best part of 20 years and which is counter to most economics. It is a belief that the way to control workforce costs in the NHS is to constrain the supply. I am not a brilliant economist, but most economics is the other way round: the way to reduce the cost is to increase supply. I have no doubt that it is quite a strongly held view in Her Majesty’s Treasury that the way we control workforce costs in the NHS is by constraining the supply. The reality is that that market mechanism is completely failing.
You have to look only at the costs the NHS is paying for locum, agency and bank staff. A recent Getting It Right First Time report, published last autumn, stated that 27% of workforce costs in emergency departments are for locum, bank or agency staff, which tells you that they are not properly staffed. If you are a young junior doctor in your third year in your career and you work as a locum for one week, you will earn £5,800, but if you work for the NHS for one week, you will earn £3,300. We should not be surprised that junior doctors with large student debts want to work as locums, yet we also know that that materially reduces their fulfilment and the quality of the care they deliver. The economic incentives are not working, despite the deeply held view that if we constrain the supply the NHS will somehow magically transform itself.
That is why we need to put this in the Bill. We do need more people, but we also need to drive incentives for transformation, and we will do that only if we face into the challenge. Those working in higher education can plan only if we give them a signal, and transformation teams can challenge the way we work only if we are honest about the need for that transformation.
One final reason I really urge my noble friend the Minister to accept this amendment is that our wonderful people, who have worked so hard in health and care over the last two years, need hope—and we can send them the strongest signal of hope that we really hear them, that we really understand the people challenges that they face, by putting this in the Bill.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I support Amendment 173 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, to which I have added my name, and I broadly support the amendments in this group.
Many noble Lords have identified the question of workforce as the most important single issue that the Bill has to address. Without effective workforce planning, the NHS, as we have heard—and, indeed, the care system—is in peril. Previously, our country and the National Health Service have depended on overseas doctors and nurses to come and fill large numbers. That has been the principal basis of workforce planning for many years—indeed, decades. But that is no longer a viable option. The World Health Organization has estimated that, globally, there will be a shortage of some 18 million healthcare professionals by 2030. That will be a particularly difficult challenge across the globe, and it means that we can no longer depend on importing healthcare professionals to meet our ever-increasing needs. This is well recognised by all who are responsible for the delivery of healthcare and, indeed, by Her Majesty’s Government.
The question is: how can we dependably plan for the future? Unfortunately, it has to be accepted—indeed, it has been accepted in this debate—that planning to date has failed miserably. That is not a malicious failure, but it is a reality, and one that we can no longer tolerate. That is why amendments in this group that deal with the requirement for independent planning and reporting on a regular basis to provide the basis for determination and projecting future health and care workforce needs, are appropriate—indeed, essential.
My noble friend Lord Warner raised a separate issue about a group of amendments that will come later in the Committee’s consideration, which propose the establishment of an independent office for health and care sustainability. This is a recommendation of your Lordships’ ad hoc Committee on the Long-term Sustainability of the NHS and adult social care, chaired by my noble friend Lord Patel. It is this emphasis on ensuring that there is independent, long-term planning and projection that can provide the fundamental and accurate foundations for workforce planning. We need a broader assessment of what the demand for healthcare will be, and that demand is complex and driven by not only demographic change but changes in the way that we practise, changes in expectations, adoption of technology and changes in working practices. That all needs to be brought together to provide the foundations for planning. Without this emphasis and this obligation secured in the Bill, the NHS and adult social care in our country will not be sustainable.
I very much urge the Minister, in considering this group of amendments, to help your Lordships understand why it would be wrong to secure this emphasis in the Bill. If Her Majesty’s Government are unable to secure this emphasis in the Bill, how can they reassure noble Lords that the failures in planning that have dogged NHS performance with regard to workforce over so many years will not be repeated in the future?
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, to state the obvious, without a workforce plan we cannot have a workforce. Amendment 170 certainly seems to get to the heart of the issue, which was so well introduced by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and my noble friend Lord Stevens.
Train Driving Licences and Certificates (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Vere of Norbiton
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 2 December 2021 be approved.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Vere of Norbiton) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that these draft regulations be approved. The regulations will be made under the powers conferred by the Channel Tunnel Act 1987. They will make necessary amendments to domestic train driver licensing legislation to enable the implementation of a bilateral agreement, which has now been signed by both the UK and France, on the mutual recognition of British and European train driving licences in the Channel Tunnel zone.
This will continue to support the smooth operation of Channel Tunnel traffic when the current temporary arrangements expire on 31 January 2022. It will also provide long-term certainty, clarity and confidence to cross-border operators, current and prospective, with regard to the future train driver licensing framework for the Channel Tunnel. Although the regulations will apply to England, Scotland and Wales, the main operative provisions will in practice apply only to the Channel Tunnel zone. The regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure as set out in the Channel Tunnel Act and Schedule 8 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.
I will now provide some brief background information about this legislation. The regulations will amend the Train Driving Licences and Certificates Regulations 2010, which set out the rules on the licensing and certifying of train drivers operating on the mainline rail system in Great Britain. The 2010 regulations transposed into domestic law an EU directive on the certification of train drivers operating locomotives and trains on the railway system in member states of the European Union. As part of the preparations for the UK leaving the EU, the 2010 regulations were amended by statutory instruments in 2019 and 2020. The 2019 regulations corrected inoperabilities arising from the UK’s departure from the EU, and established a transitional period enabling the continued recognition of European train driving licences in Great Britain for a period of two years from exit day—-two years from 31 January 2020. The 2020 regulations made further amendments to the 2010 regulations by extending the recognition of the provisions so that European train driving licences issued between exit day and 31 January 2022 would also be valid in Great Britain until that date.
Following the end of this transitional period— 31 January 2022—the recognition of European train driving licences in Great Britain as a whole will end. The regulations under consideration today will provide for the continued recognition of European train driving licences in the UK half of the Channel Tunnel and cross-border area when this transitional period expires. This will support the recognition of European and British train driving licences in the Channel Tunnel zone on a fully reciprocal basis under the related UK-France bilateral agreement. These regulations will therefore have a positive impact on cross-border operators and drivers, by providing long-term certainty on the train driver licensing requirements for the Channel Tunnel zone, which on the UK side is up to Ashford International station for passenger services and Dollands Moor station for freight services. On the French side, the regulations apply to Calais-Fréthun for passenger trains and Fréthun freight yard for freight services. These arrangements will reduce the administrative burdens on operators and the drivers whom they employ, by enabling French and British drivers to operate within the Channel Tunnel zone without the need to hold two separate licences.
The territorial scope of these regulations and the agreement that they implement have been chosen in the interests of reciprocity and equivalence in the extent of recognition in the UK and French territories. Train driver licensing policy is a matter of exclusive EU competence, and the European Commission’s view is that, under EU law, France can enter into a bilateral agreement with the UK on train driving licences in relation only to the tunnel itself and the immediate cross-border area beyond it, which means as far as the first station in each territory. These regulations, therefore, provide for the recognition of European train driving licences only up to Dollands Moor and Ashford International. These are the equivalent cross-border stations in the UK to Calais-Fréthun and Fréthun freight yard in France.
The regulations, and by extension the agreement that they will implement, are fully compatible with the Government’s fundamental red lines in the Channel Tunnel negotiations with France, which are to support the continuation of cross-border services while conferring no role for the EU courts or the European rail agency in UK territory, and avoiding dynamic alignment with EU law. Furthermore, information-sharing provisions are also included in the regulations, to give effect to requirements in the bilateral agreement. Under these requirements the Office of Rail and Road, the ORR, will be able to share information with the equivalent French authorities—for example, in relation to any doubts about the validity of a licence or compliance with licensing requirements on the part of either the holder of a European train driving licence operating in the Channel Tunnel zone in Great Britain, or the holder of a British train driving licence operating in the Channel Tunnel zone in France.
The bilateral agreement will impose equivalent obligations on the French licensing authority—the EPSF—enabling information to be shared on a reciprocal basis. These regulations will also maintain the requirement for train drivers to hold a complementary certificate alongside their licence. These certificates are issued by operators and confirm a train driver’s competence and knowledge of the route, rolling stock and the infrastructure on which they are operating. Again, the agreement will mean that British and French train drivers will be able to use one complementary certificate to drive throughout the entire Channel Tunnel zone, as opposed to needing complementary certificates issued in both France and Britain. To that end, the regulations amend the scope of recognition of complementary certificates issued under the 2010 regulations to include the area up to Calais-Fréthun in France.
These regulations will reduce administrative burdens on cross-border operators and enable them to plan their businesses into the future with confidence. I commend the regulations to the House.
Amendment to the Motion
Lord Berkeley
At the end insert “but that this House regrets that the regulations, while providing interoperability for train drivers between Ashford and Calais, do not extend to full European Union and United Kingdom interoperability in a similar manner to drivers of Heavy Good Vehicles.”
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I suppose that I could have added airline pilots to the wording of my amendment, but I did not. First, I want to make it quite clear that I welcome these regulations 100%. I know that Ministers and officials have worked incredibly hard to get them ready and agreed by the deadline, which, I think, is in about a week’s time. If these regulations do not get through by the end of this month, trains will stop—they will not run. It is therefore very important that the regulations go ahead; that is what I have been told. The noble Baroness gave us a pretty good introduction to the purpose and scope of the regulations but I think that she will agree that it is a pretty complex matter, and it is clear that they are all necessary because of our leaving the European Union.
The noble Baroness referred to the Train Driving Licences and Certificates Regulations 2010. Even the Explanatory Memorandum to that legislation was, I think, 22 pages long. What is interesting about it is that more than 10 years ago the UK, and the rest of Europe, signed up to a common driver’s licence for the whole of the European Union. It had a purpose: to
“create a more flexible labour market for train drivers (i.e. make it easier for train drivers to move from one Member State to another … introduce common standards of driver and train crew competence … make it easier for cross-border rail services to operate; and increase public confidence in the rail system”.
I find it extraordinary that the Government have decided that these objectives are not a good idea. Presumably they do not want to encourage public confidence or more cross-border rail services. I do not know. Perhaps the noble Baroness can answer those questions, but it is a bit odd. It certainly does not apply, as I mentioned, to trucks and air services.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
I thank the Minister for her clear explanation and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for giving us this opportunity to discuss an important issue. I also place on record the excellence of the Library briefing that we received on this, which is very helpful.
This SI is an example of the complex contortions that we are forced into to recreate—or recreate in part—the system that existed before we left the EU. It is a pale imitation. So much ministerial and Civil Service time is spent on the minutiae of this and dozens of similar SIs, when it would be so much better if Ministers could concentrate on the big infrastructure and climate change challenges that we face—or even just on catching up with the backlog of maritime legislation.
The Minister has answered my first question, of whether the agreement has now been signed. I am very pleased to hear that is the case. Can she confirm that, now that both countries have signed, there is no chance of a legislative hiatus, a problem that was facing us? It is regrettable, to say the least, that Parliament having passed the required amendments in 2019 and 2020, as so often, the further steps required are being dealt with at the last moment. I gather that the operators concerned had already obtained European TDLs for their drivers so that they could continue to drive trains through the Channel Tunnel if the signatures were not forthcoming. Once again, a business community is at the sharp end and incurring extra costs.
As the regret amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, spells out, this is a very limited solution, far from the smooth international trade and travel that we used to enjoy. It is ironic that it was in the heyday of Thatcherism that we celebrated the Channel Tunnel joining Britain and mainland Europe to make international trade and travel so much easier.
As the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has asked about the relevance of Ashford and Calais and whether you have one driver or two, I will not repeat the detail of those questions, but they are at the top of my mind. Can the Minister explain what the operational answer will be to this in future? Will trains have two drivers so that they can swap over once they have gone through the tunnel in whichever direction they are going, or will they now all stop at Calais and Ashford, which would involve a significant adjustment to the timetables? During Covid, trains have not stopped there on a regular basis.
The Library briefing also raises some important questions in relation to the rights of HGV drivers. The phrasing of the regret amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, gives me the opportunity to ask a useful question on the issue for UK-based HGV drivers working for EU companies. Their CPC cards may not be recognised in EU countries. Is this an issue? Can the Minister explain the situation? Also, UK operators wanting to work within the EU must now separately license their business, register their vehicles and trailers, and comply with new and additional customs procedures.
The Minister knows that, in the past, I have asked about the changes to UK rules on testing for drivers of a range of commercial and goods vehicles. There are now fewer steps towards gaining a UK licence, so I take this opportunity to ask the Minister: where do the changes in licences place an HGV driver qualified according to the Government’s new, simpler rules if they have an accident or are picked up by the police for a traffic violation within the EU, for instance? Will they still be deemed fully qualified and insured?
May I slip in a final question about the recent queues at Dover? Drivers are now reporting that it takes between 10 and 20 minutes for a lorry to get through and have the paperwork checked. The CEO of the Port of Dover has expressed additional concern about the new checks that will come in in about six months’ time. Can the Minister assure us that the procedures and systems are entirely ready for that? Have the Government had discussions with opposite numbers in France and the EU about ensuring that this process is as smooth as possible?
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I rise very briefly to say how much I support what my noble friend Lord Berkeley and the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said. They have raised lots of detailed issues, which I hope we will get a clear answer to at the end of the debate. I just want to add one thing. What is the Government’s vision for international rail travel of which Britain is a part? Is that the way that they are thinking about it, or are they thinking, “Oh well, we can’t do anything because it involves ECJ jurisdiction”, or something like that? Where is the vision? There is a real opportunity here: if we are serious about reducing air travel and all the damage it does to the climate, we have to be in favour of more people going on holiday or on business on the continent by rail. The opportunity is growing. I was lucky enough to be brought up as a railway clerk’s son and, every year, we would use our free passes to go from Carlisle to the continent.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
Yes, first class, too. It gave me a great taste for it, when we arrived at Basel and saw the great age of international rail transport, which was then gradually coming to an end as flying was growing. But it is coming back. Last year—or two years ago, before all the wretched Covid—we went on the wonderful Austrian sleepers to bring us back to Britain, except they could not bring us back to Britain, of course; they could bring us only to Cologne and then we had to get a train from there. But why should that not be part of the vision? Do the Government have this European vision? That is what we need and it is where the future lies if we are serious about a modal switch in medium-distance travel.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I associate myself with the comments made by my noble friend Lord Liddle, and I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Berkeley for having moved his regret amendment.
When I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, it brought to my mind that vision of the former Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher meeting President Mitterrand when they had the two Eurostars coming nose to nose. I believe that they had to alter the software of the trains to enable that to happen. It was an era of great promise for future travel in Europe and, although I fully understand that the regulations that the Minister has ably moved tonight are necessary and welcome, it is rather depressing to think that we are being restricted.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, I will try to be brief otherwise the Minister will not have a chance to respond. I thank her for her introductory comments and my noble friend Lord Berkeley for his amendment. In line with what the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, said, I too appreciated the Library briefing. Before I go any further, can I express the sincere hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Vere, will not be following the latest ministerial fashion and departing the Chamber earlier than anticipated.
The EU stopped recognising British-issued train driving licences on 1 January 2021, and European-issued train driving licences will no longer be valid in Great Britain after the end of this month apart from within the Channel Tunnel zone once the regulations are in force. The Government have stated in the Explanatory Memorandum that operators have already obtained European train driving licences
“for their drivers to ensure they are able to continue driving their trains”
through the Channel Tunnel because of how late these regulations have been brought before us. What has been the cost to train operators of having to obtain those European train driving licences for their drivers? Do their European train driving licences enable British drivers to drive throughout the EU, and for how long are these licences now valid?
The Government have confirmed that a cross-border driver holding a European train driving licence would also need to hold a British train driving licence to drive beyond the Channel Tunnel zone—for example, up to St Pancras International station. Drivers who are driving trains in Great Britain using an EU-issued train driving licence will need to apply for a British train driving licence from the ORR before the end of this month, and current holders will be considered as new applicants. Why will current holders be considered as new applicants?
I come back finally to the questions that virtually everybody else has asked. I think I noticed the Minister say that under EU provisions it would not have been possible for us to agree with France to be able to drive a train to Paris. I think she was saying that it had to be confined to the Channel Tunnel zone area. If I have misunderstood that, I am sure I will be corrected. Can the Government confirm that under the common European regime we had for certifying and licensing train drivers, British drivers could drive a Eurostar passenger train to Paris or Brussels, and indeed into Germany, and a French or Belgian driver drive a Eurostar train to St Pancras? The bilateral agreement with France would appear to apply only to the Channel Tunnel zone. Does that mean that British train drivers will not be able to drive a Eurostar passenger train or a freight train from Calais to Paris or Brussels or beyond and a French or Belgian driver drive a train to St Pancras? The answer may be, as others have suggested, that another licence is needed to do that. No doubt that is what the Minister will say in reply if that is the case. I can say only that, if that is correct, this would hardly appear to represent progress, bearing in mind what we previously had.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for enabling us to discuss it in slightly more detail than perhaps we might have done otherwise. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, was sincere in not wishing me to depart. If he was not, it is not going to be his lucky day.
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
I turn first to the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. I can see where he is coming from. Noble Lords will recall from when we discussed operator licensing that there is this Channel Tunnel zone, the bit that France was allowed to reach an agreement with the UK over. It is the same for train driving licences as it was for other elements that we have discussed in the past.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked why we cannot go further. We have been very clear on this. The European Commission knows exactly what its rights are, and they are quite extensive. It has said that France cannot negotiate with the UK to go further. Indeed, the European Commission did not convey any interest in including train driving licences in the trade and co-operation agreement. In any event, if mutual agreement had been sought at this level, it would likely have been conditional on dynamic alignment of train driving licensing regulations and possibly a continuing role for the Court of Justice of the European Union. That would have broken the UK’s red lines during negotiation.
All is not lost, however, and it is potentially a little more positive than some noble Lords fear. There will not be one train and two drivers; it is more the case that there will be one driver and two licences. Drivers for many of the operators already have both the European and GB licences. For the Channel Tunnel zone, they can also have the certificate of competence, or whatever the certification is called. They just need a single one of those, but if you are driving beyond that you need the relevant certificate covering the rolling stock and the infrastructure of whichever routes you are driving on; that is normal.
This does not seem to have held back the people who run the trains. I have some stats that I will not read out, but it strikes me that drivers for all the major operators have stepped up and got an additional licence where needed. Train driving licences issued by the ORR are free; there is no cost to the applicant, so it does not really matter if they are new applicants. It should also be noted that the existing training has not changed since we left the EU, so somebody trained in the EU has received the right training to get a GB licence.
We expect there to be a system in which people will simply have two licences. We do not see a future in which there would be a single licence. Do I think it will be a massive hurdle to the future of a fantastic vision for international rail travel? No, I do not. I am just pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, no longer has his companion pass, sucking up taxpayers’ funds in first class going to Europe—but I am sure he enjoyed it. I think all noble Lords will agree that travelling by train in Europe is a pleasurable experience, but one often has to change trains because the trains do not automatically go to where you are going—so you need another driver to get another train to go to a different place. Of course, we want the trains to be as good as possible. That is why Eurostar goes to Amsterdam, and obviously we continue to have Eurostar services into London and through to Paris.
I do not know that there is really much more I can say. The system, operators and drivers have managed to cope, the trains are still running and we expect them to run in future. There will be no legislative hiatus, as the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, feared. On the timeline of the regulations, the Government have been negotiating a number of elements with the French Government—the train driving licence element, the operator licensing element and the safety issues—and we did not get the train driver licensing element signed until 22 December because it had to be cleared by the European Commission. Together with the technical and complicated nature of these negotiations, this meant that January was the earliest these regulations could be debated. As I said, the agreement has been signed and therefore there should be no hiatus at all.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked me a couple of curveballs about how long a licence is valid for, and I do not know that answer, but I shall of course write, as I shall on other issues that I have not been able to cover.
I come briefly to the issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, raised about HGV drivers working in the EU. She is right to pay tribute to the House of Lords Library. I read that in the Library briefing and thought, “Oh, I didn’t realise that.” It is true. The current requirements for obtaining drivers’ certificates of professional competence in the EU and the UK are the same. However, the EU has decided not to recognise the UK qualifications post Brexit for use by drivers based in the EU working for companies established in the EU. Of course, it will recognise a UK driver working in Europe, from a cabotage perspective—all those things remain the same—but the EU has taken a slightly different tack. Clearly, we think that we have taken the better tack, but who are we to argue?
As noble Lords will know, we are looking at the driver certificate of professional competence to see how well it works for the UK. I am not convinced that stating that you must have 35 hours’ training is useful: training in what? Beekeeping? We need to make sure that HGV drivers are studying what is useful from a continuing professional development perspective. So that is the situation for a DCPC in the EU.
Operators can register in the EU and get an EU operator licence; otherwise, if they have a UK operator licence, they are restricted by the cabotage arrangements that we have in place. That has not changed. I am not aware of any change to UK HGV testing that has had an impact on C+E drivers in France—that would be for HGV lorries. They are still able to drive in France.
The noble Baroness then went slightly off-piste by mentioning the queues at Dover. I appreciate that she knows she went off-piste, and I know that she was very keen to ask me a Private Notice Question today on it. I will write with more information on that. For the time being, I commend the regulations.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
May I just confirm that, after the regulations come into effect, after the end of this month, a British driver driving a Eurostar train from London to Paris and to Brussels will require two licences to make that journey?
Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)
Correct, but, as I mentioned, the training is the same on both sides and there should be no barrier to the driver getting that second licence.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I am also grateful to the Minister for her answers, which have cleared up a lot of our questions, and for the regularity with which she writes letters to speakers after these debates. They are incredibly helpful—I may not agree with them, but they are really helpful. I thank her for that, and I am sure we will get a good one today—or it may now be tomorrow.
It was really good to hear comments from several noble Lords about the need for a vision. That is really important at the moment for the railways, particularly cross-channel. We had a debate about a year ago about whether Eurostar would survive during Covid and what the Government were going to do about that. It is important that the Government facilitate, encourage and do whatever they can to get as many new services through the tunnel as possible to whatever destinations make commercial sense.
I am sure we will return to this, but it was interesting to hear the Minister’s comments at the end in response to the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, about HGVs. Everyone thought that, two years after Brexit, it would all be sorted out. It may be that the railway has got there before the roads, for once. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Health and Care Bill
Monday 24th January 2022
(2 years, 3 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-VI Sixth marshalled list for Committee - (24 Jan 2022)
Lord Bradley (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak on this group of amendments, and I declare my health and higher education interests, as in the register—and, specifically, my honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. We have had some excellent speeches, and some forensic analysis, of these amendments, which are so important to ensuring that the workforce is at the centre of the reform programme under the Bill. I cannot match those contributions, so I do not intend to.
However, I would still like to support Amendments 172 and 214, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, to which I have added my name. The noble Baroness spoke eloquently to those amendments, recognising, among other things, the crucial role that allied health professionals play in the delivery of healthcare. It is worth emphasising that allied health professionals are the third largest section of the health workforce, supporting people of all ages with a range of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions both within and beyond health and social care settings. Their contribution can often be overlooked in a narrative that frequently focuses only on the role of doctors and nurses—however important those clearly are.
As we have heard, Amendments 172 and 214 are designed to address those issues. I shall comment particularly on the role of the speech and language therapy workforce; I am grateful to the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists for its briefing on this matter. There are around 19,500 speech and language therapists in the UK, many of whom have a portfolio career and work part-time. It is estimated that about two-thirds spend at least some of their working time in the National Health Service. Those not working in, or employed by, the NHS may work for local authorities, in schools, in the justice sector—in which I have a particular interest—with speech and language therapists becoming a key part of criminal justice liaison and diversion teams, in the third sector and in independent practice.
However, as already noted, these settings are not represented in current workforce planning. This risks not enough speech and language therapists being trained to meet current and future demand. In turn, this risks people of all ages with communication and swallowing needs not being able to access the speech and language therapy they and their families desperately require. Crucially, there is already a significant backlog identified, comprising unmet need and increased demand—that increased demand exacerbated by the pandemic.
From initial discussions with speech and language therapy services, it is estimated that a minimum increase of 15% is required in this skilled workforce, whereas in recent years the profession has grown by only 1.7% net per year. Amendment 172 would mean that the duty to report by the Secretary of State would include the whole health and care workforce, not only those directly employed by the NHS in England, and Amendment 214 would ensure that workforce planning takes into account the experience and expertise of the whole social care workforce by establishing a workforce board in every ICB area.
For speech and language therapists, establishing an advisory workforce mechanism would help to address current weaknesses of workforce planning in the country. In turn, this would support better service planning and delivery, ensuring that there are sufficient speech and language therapists to meet current and future patient need. I strongly support these amendments, which recognise the value of allied health professionals across many services, who will play a crucial role in the integration of care, which is the purpose of this Bill.
Since the debate has picked up Amendment 285 on the proposal to establish an office of health and care sustainability, I add my voice in support. I was a member of the ad hoc Select Committee on the Long-term Sustainability of the NHS, so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Patel. It was one of that report’s recommendations, and our key recommendation, and we will pick up that debate on another group. In the light of the comments already made on that issue, I recommend our recommendation to this Committee as we develop our thoughts on this Bill.
I hope that the Minister will give a very positive response to ensuring that the role of our allied health professionals is embedded in the plans that will come forward, crucially, on the workforce in our health and care system.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
I add my support for Amendments 172 and 214, speaking as a vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Speech and Language Difficulties and a patron of the British Stammering Association. These amendments, which again have the support of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, would do much to safeguard the position of that now rare commodity— speech and language therapists. As has been said by both noble Lords who tabled the amendment, they do not all work in the NHS.
The view of the Department of Health and Social Care is that speech and language therapists should be added to the shortage occupation list, because the profession is facing a range of pressures, including increasing demand in mental health in particular. The NHS long-term plan identified speech and language therapy as a profession in short supply. The need for those therapists must be taken account of in workforce planning.
Similarly, Amendment 214 provides an incentive to ensure that there are enough speech and language therapists to meet current and future demand, which is just not the case at present. I remind noble Lords that meeting communication needs, as well as ensuring the ability to swallow safely—both at risk from a wide range of conditions—are an essential component of well-being, and often safety itself. I hope that the Government will look favourably on these amendments.
Baroness Neuberger (CB)
My Lords, most of what needs to be said about this group of amendments, which I support, has been said, and said brilliantly well—it has been a wonderful debate. However, I would like to make one more key point. I chair University College London Hospitals Foundation NHS Trust and Whittington Health NHS Trust. In the last two years, during Covid, much of my time has been spent not in your Lordships’ House but walking around both of those institutions, saying thank you and listening to my exhausted staff.
One of the key reasons for putting the issue of reporting to Parliament on workforce planning into the Bill is that our staff—not just their organisations but the individuals themselves—want it to be there. They know what the issues are; they live with the shortages and they know that it has not been thought through. My noble friend Lord Stevens made that very clear: it has not been thought through. If they are not taking early retirement, as some are, they are living with the consequences. We could and should do so much better for them, and for the long term—and our staff know that. For their sake, if for no other, we must put this on the face of the Bill.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, this has been an extremely rich and vital debate on crucial amendments, albeit conducted in two parts. I will briefly offer the Green group’s support for all of these amendments. I aim not to repeat anything that has been said but to offer some uniquely Green perspectives on this set of amendments.
I will take them in two groups, starting with Amendments 170 and 173 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Cumberlege and Lady Merron. These are particularly important because they very clearly and explicitly lay out the responsibility of the Secretary of State. When I tabled some amendments last week on the Secretary of State’s duty to provide, they met with something of a frosty reception in some quarters—but it is clear from all sides of your Lordships’ House that it has to be the responsibility of the Secretary of State to ensure that there is a plan for the workforce. I stress that that is coming from all sides of your Lordships’ House.
It is worth referring to the King’s Fund briefing, which I do not think anyone has mentioned yet. I will quote one sentence:
“The measures in the Bill to address chronic staff shortages remain weak.”
That is what a respected outside observer says. Your Lordships’ House is seeking to plug that gap. The noble Lord, Lord Lea, suggested that this was all terribly difficult, and that is undoubtedly true, but a lot of people have been thinking about this for a very long time. I was at a briefing for the Royal College of Physicians before the pandemic, in person, with no masks in sight. It was more than two years ago and they were talking about the need for workforce planning, saying, “We know how this should be”. Indeed, on the Royal College of Physicians’ website, more than four score organisations are listed as backing these amendments for workforce planning. So the support is very much there.
That focuses particularly on the medical side of things, but I will refer also to the Age UK briefing. We have had some very valuable contributions about care workers from the noble Baronesses, Lady Verma and Lady Hollins, but Age UK considers that we need to look at this much more broadly. It is calling for a robust accreditation scheme for care workers working in CQC-accredited facilities. We need a different system.
I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, who talked about how this is a low-pay sector, but we also need to talk about this differently and recognise that it is also a high-skill sector. I think of some of the care workers whom I have met: care workers who cared for doubly incontinent, aggressive, advanced Alzheimer’s patients, and who had done so for decades. Anyone who claims that these are not people with amazing levels of skill really is denying an obvious fact. We need to acknowledge the skills of care workers and to make sure that they are appropriately remunerated.
I want to pick up another, perhaps specifically Green Party, point that no one else has picked up on. I noted that the chief executive of NHS England was recently forced into a new deal with private hospitals, which she said did not provide good value for money. The deal provides more care in private hospitals to help recovery from the Covid pandemic; it sees the Government going against NHS England and deliberately pushing up the role of the market in healthcare. For those who deny that this is happening, I am afraid this is very clear evidence of it.
I turn to a report of the Centre for Health and the Public Interest, which notes that the great majority of private hospitals rely entirely on NHS staff contributing outside their NHS hours on a self-employed basis. We are talking here about doctors and associated health professionals such as anaesthetists and other clinicians. The NHS paid for their training, pays for their pensions and covers their insurance, yet we talk about private hospitals “helping the NHS”. Listening to this debate, I think that perhaps as part of the amendments on Report, we need to think in the context of workforce planning about the financial contribution to be made by the private sector to the cost of training to adequately recompense the NHS for what the private sector gets out of it to make profits.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I start by acknowledging—as I am sure we all do in your Lordships’ House—the value, commitment and contribution of the workforce who are the backbone of our health and social care services. We owe them our gratitude. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, and my noble friends Lady Whitaker and Lord Bradley are all absolutely right to acknowledge the breadth and depth of the workforce: that it is a team, and that each part of that team is absolutely connected with the other.
I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, who said that this debate is absolutely central to all that we are here to discuss and to all that patients need from our health and social care services. I am extremely grateful to noble Lords who have tabled and supported amendments and spoken in this debate. All of them have made a compelling case for a workforce plan that will, if these amendments are taken on board by the Minister, feature a laser-like focus on valuing the entire staff team, along with providing planning, financial resources, responsibility, reviewing and reporting—all essential features of any effective strategy. This begs the question: if we see these pillars in a strategy in every other part of our economy and of the way that our whole society functions, why can we not have this for the NHS and social care?
I am glad to have tabled an amendment that calls for a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that there are safe staffing levels—this was very clearly emphasised by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in her opening to this debate. This is extremely important because it places a duty where it ought to be and allows examination and transparency.
Of course, we all know that the situation we are discussing today is not new: the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, spoke to your Lordships’ House about a litany of unfulfilled promises and missed opportunities in workforce planning. The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, spoke of her efforts to resolve this and explained the need, which we see in these amendments, to introduce improvements to the Bill to resolve the matter of workforce supply against the demand that is there. All of that requires a lead-in time, and it has to be underpinned by the requisite funds—there is no shortcut to this. In England, we now have a whole website that is full of guidance, and NHS boards are required to take this into account, and yet there is no national workforce plan or credible plan for funding. Until there is, the ICBs will not be able to plan either. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, rightly pointed out that this is not an either/or situation: we need a national workforce plan, and it has to have the funds to deliver it.
I will draw the Minister’s attention to particular aspects of the amendments: explicit recognition of the need to consult with the workforce through trade unions; that planning must cover health and social care; that timescales for reporting should be testing but not too onerous; and that the financial projections in any workforce plan should be subjected to some level of independent expert verification, through the Office for Budget Responsibility, for example.
Behind all of these discussions, we started in a place highlighted by the noble Baronesses, Lady Masham, Lady Walmsley, Lady Watkins and Lady Bennett, and other noble Lords, who spoke of the crisis of the levels of vacancies that we now see and the impossibility of dealing with this without preparation and resource. Any national plan for the workforce needs to be built from the bottom up and not imposed from the top. I hope that the Minister will consider this when he looks at ways to improve the Bill.
I will raise a couple of related points. The scale of the workforce challenge is well established, but it goes far deeper than just numbers and structures. It goes to issues around workforce terms and conditions and career development, particularly in social care, which the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, brought our attention to. It also has to deal with cultural issues; there is a clear indication that all is not entirely well in the NHS when it comes to diversity, whistleblowing and aspects of how staff are or are not nurtured and supported.
I have one final specific issue to raise, which we have heard about in the debate today and that I would like to extend: international recruitment. I ask that the Government do more to prevent international recruitment, particularly of nurses and midwives, from countries where it is unethical to recruit, and that this be a part of any future strategy. The existing code of practice on international recruitment is not legally enforceable, so when Unison or others report breaches of the code by recruitment agencies, there is no provision for sanctions to be brought against rogue operators. I ask the Minister to confirm that the code of conduct will be promoted and will be enforced.
The situation in which we find ourselves is fixable. I hope the Minister, in his response tonight, will show your Lordships’ House that he understands the situation, that he understands what needs to be done and that he will do it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
Well, this has been another fascinating debate, and I welcome the contributions from all noble Lords speaking from many years of experience, including former chief executives of the National Health Service and former Health Ministers, medical experts and practitioners. I am grateful to the many noble Lords who have laid amendments in this group; there clearly is a strength of feeling, not only in this Chamber but in the other place. To cut a long story short, this will clearly require more discussion.
However, I am duty bound to give the Government’s perspective on this. We have committed to publishing a plan for elective recovery and to introduce further reforms to improve recruitment and support our social care workforce, as set out in the White Paper, People at the Heart of Care: Adult Social Care Reform. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, that he is aware of many expectations that have passed, and I hope that this time we surprise him. We are also developing a comprehensive national plan for supporting and enabling integration between health, social care and other services that support people’s health and well-being.
The monthly workforce statistics for October 2021 show there are record numbers of staff working in the NHS, with over 1.2 million full-time equivalent staff, which is about 1.3 million in headcount. But I am also aware of the point of noble Lord, Lord Warner, that it should not just be about the number of people working—it is about much more than numbers and quantity; it is about quality and opportunities. We are also committed to delivering 50,000 more nurses and putting the NHS on a trajectory towards a sustainable long-term future. We want to meet our manifesto commitment to improve retention in nursing and support return to practice, and to invest in and diversify our training pipeline, but also, as many Lords have said, to ethically recruit internationally.
On that, I want to make two points. The first is this. When I had a similar conversation with the Kenyan Health Minister and expressed the concern we had about taking nurses who could work in that country, the Minister was quite clear that they actually train more nurses than they have capacity for in their country—they see this as a way to earn revenue. There have been many studies on how remittances are a much more powerful way of helping countries, rather than government-to-government aid. With that in mind, we recruit ethically, and we have conversations.
The second point is also from my own experience. I was on a delegation to Uganda a few years ago and I remember speaking to a local about the issue of the brain drain and our concerns. We were talking about immigration, and he said, “You do realise, though, it is all very well for you to patronise me and say that I should stay in this country, but sometimes the opportunities are not here for me in this country. You talk about a brain drain; I see my brain in a drain”. Sometimes we have to look at the issues of individuals who are concerned that they do not have opportunities in their countries, even if the numbers dictate otherwise. Having said all that, we are committed to the WHO ethical guidelines, but I also think that we should be aware. Look at the way that, post war, the people of the Commonwealth came and helped to save our public services. I hope we are not going to use this as an excuse to keep people out, though I understand the concern that we have to make sure that we recruit ethically internationally.
Lord Warner (CB)
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. I have been listening extremely carefully to his response to these amendments and have to say, as gently as I can, that I did not hear many concessions to the points made by noble Lords across the Committee. Unless something really exciting is going to come in the last couple of pages of his brief—I have been watching him turn them over—I suggest that he needs to go back to those above his pay grade and bring home to them the level of distrust about whether the Government are serious about putting proper amendments on workforce issues and planning into this Bill.
Lord Kamall (Con)
You can tell the noble Lord used to have my job, because he clearly anticipated the exciting bit—perhaps not exciting, but more practical—I was coming to. It is quite clear there is a strength of feeling on this issue—
Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)
As a slight modification of the question that was put, one way that Ministers conclude such debates is by saying that they will write to noble Lords on specific questions, to make sure they have been dealt with.
Lord Kamall (Con)
We recognise the strength of feeling in this House and in the other place. This will clearly require more work and more discussions. In that spirit, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
I thank the Minister for his comprehensive response to this debate, which the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, suggested was probably the most important that we have had and will have in Committee on the Bill. Staff are absolutely central to the delivery of health services.
Unfortunately, in this debate we have heard about a great deal of failure. We have failed the staff because we have not provided them with enough colleagues for them to be able to do their work without feeling stressed, being worried about risk to patients, feeling burnout or wanting to reduce their hours or retire early. We have failed to provide enough GPs; we were promised 5,000 or 6,000 extra, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, we have fewer than we had in 2015. We rely on 30% of doctors from abroad—an enormous number. Although I absolutely accept what the noble Lord says about the appropriateness of temporary training placements, opportunities and remittances going back to the countries from doctors and nurses coming here, it sounds a little excessive to me. Perhaps we need to do better in planning our own workforce.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
“(d) the impact on the diversity of provision of health and care services, including social enterprises, independent providers and charities in that area.”Member’s explanatory statement
The amendment would place a duty on NHS England and Integrated Care Boards to ensure that there is a diversity of provision within local areas including social enterprises so that there is a range of choice and expertise available to local communities.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, it has been rather a long wait, though I doubt that we shall spend as much time on this group as we did on the last. I do not pretend that the issue of procurement is as important as that of the workforce; none the less, when we come to Clause 70 there are some very important considerations.
I should say that, although my own two amendments are narrowly focused, in opening this debate I must register with the Minister concerns about the open-ended nature of the power to be given to Ministers under this clause. In essence, through secondary legislation, the whole procurement regime can be changed at the whim of an executive order. Services could be privatised or outsourced or whatever Ministers choose to do with them subject to regulations. It seems rather extraordinary that we are taking out the marketisation sections from current legislation only to replace them with an open-ended power and a procurement regime when we simply do not know what it will be.
I remind the Minister that the Delegated Powers Committee has been very clear that Clause 70 needs very careful attention. As it says,
“initial consultation has been carried out by NHS England on the content of the”
procurement regime, but
“full analysis has not been completed and there has not been time to produce a more developed proposal.”
The Delegated Powers Committee concluded:
“We do not accept that the inclusion of regulation-making powers should be a cover for inadequately developed policy.”
I hope that the Minister, when he winds up the debate, will say something more about this and how the Government intend to respond. I think it very unlikely that we will let this Bill leave this House with this clause unaltered. Indeed, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, intends to oppose that Clause 70 stand part of the Bill.
My two amendments are probably the easiest that the Minister will have to deal with in this group and I hope that, for once, he will just get up and say that he accepts them both because they are very sensible and helpful to the way in which one wishes to see the NHS develop commissioning arrangements at the local level. The first, Amendment 93, requires NHS England and integrated care boards to consider the impact of their decisions on the diversity of provision for health and social care services, particularly social enterprises and charities.
I just want to talk about social enterprises: they are set up with a social mission and deliver that mission with all the income that they receive. Over the past 20 years, they have become an ever more important part of delivery of healthcare services. My understanding, from Social Enterprise UK, is that there are 15,000 social enterprises delivering health and care services in this country and that there is very strong evidence to suggest that these organisations are very good at what they do—often better than the alternatives. Indeed, according to a review of public service mutuals, a form of social enterprise, commissioned by DCMS in 2019, these organisations are developing high levels of productivity and better outcomes than their peers and the private sector. Their productivity has increased 10 times faster than that of the rest of the public sector over the past decade. Why? They have done it through innovation: by listening to communities and focusing on their social mission, social enterprises have been able to prepare to make changes to service delivery that other providers have been unwilling to do. As a consequence, a report in 2020 by the King’s Fund described social enterprises as
“‘engines of innovation’ within health and care”.
The Bill as it stands does not provide any duty, responsibilities or guidance for integrated care systems or NHS England to consider social enterprises within their activity. My understanding is that, because we already have these shadow ICBs, it is being interpreted at local level that there is not a future for social enterprises within local systems. There is a risk that decisions are now being made by these shadow organisations, which have no statutory being at all, that there will be a reduced role for these social enterprises in the future. That would be a tragedy, and I must ask the Minister to look at my amendment. It is very innocuous: all it asks ICSs and the NHS to do is to consider the impact of their decisions on a wider provider lattice. He could go further. It would be very simple for a message to be sent down the service from this debate to say that they got it wrong about social enterprises and they should indeed be thinking of commissioning more services in the future from there.
My Amendment 211 is linked to it. It deals with social value and how they should be embedded into procurement processes by integrated care boards. The definition of social value is the process by which public bodies seek to maximise the additional social, environmental and economic outcomes of the money that they spend. The coalition Government in 2012 supported the passage of the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012. The adoption of the Act in the NHS has been very patchy indeed. I shall not delay the Committee by going into the details, but it is very disappointing. All my amendment would do is put a simple duty on NHS England to create guidance and ensure that social value is clearly understood across the system. It would be only guidance: it surely could not be a problem for the Government to endorse their own policy on social value in the NHS. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, is taking part remotely and I now invite him to speak.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I support my noble friend in his aim, expressed in Amendments 93 and 211, to require that procurement practices by the NHS are such as to ensure diversity of provision and maintain social value. The case was made convincingly, I hope, in previous debates that the non-clinical and voluntary community and social enterprise sectors have important contributions to make to preventing ill health, both physical and mental, aiding recovery and reducing health inequalities. That being so, it is only common sense that the NHS, and ICBs in particular, should use their power and influence to ensure that there is a flourishing ecology of the community organisations that share their agenda. The NHS should engage with them, listen to them, enlist them and cherish them.
Although the value of community organisations to healthcare has long been obvious, that has been all too little recognised in the actual practice of the NHS. Responsibility here, however, does not rest only with the NHS. The non-clinical sector must help the NHS to relate effectively to it. The King’s Fund has been doing important work on contractual models for commissioning integrated care. This was the basis, for example, for the way arts and cultural organisations came together in Gloucestershire to enable the CCG to fund the work without having to deal with lots of small organisations and individual artists. In Suffolk, the CCG has provided administrative support and leadership in providing training for arts and cultural workers to connect to link workers. We cannot expect ICB commissioners to deal with a mass of organisations in the VCSE sector, but they can support that sector to develop suitable models of co-ordination. I think “market-placed development” is the bureaucratic term here. Organisations such as the National Centre for Creative Health and the Culture, Health and Wellbeing Alliance stand ready to support non-clinical providers to get their act together to enable ICBs to negotiate with them productively.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to follow the noble Lord and I endorse the points he makes about the diversity of provision, which is certainly something that we should aim for; I am not sure how we will make sure it is in the Bill, but we will get to that later on. I will not dwell on the other amendments; I will simply explain why I oppose Clause 70 standing part. I was pleased to see that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, shares that view, although she may do so for different reasons.
This gives me an opportunity to explain something that I have been saying to Ministers—not necessarily these Ministers but their predecessors—for the last two or three years: if the NHS took the view that the structure of the procurement regime that was applied to it was a constraint, cumbersome and the various other words that it used, Ministers could do something about it very quickly because, in the legislation, they have the power to change the regulations. So why do they not do so? I also want to explain that the existing regulations do not impose some of the constraints that it is argued they do. That begs the question behind my opposition to the clause standing part: why are we legislating in this way in this clause, when the effect is to remove a power to make regulations relating to the procurement regime in order to then put into the Bill a power to do just that? It really does nothing much more than that.
Of course, in truth, we do not know what these new regulations will look like because they have not been published, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, rightly said. The issue lies in the regulations because, as I will demonstrate, what mattered to the service, as it turned out, was not what was in Section 75 of the 2012 Act but what was in the subsequent 2013 procurement, choice and competition regulations. I am sorry, but this is going to take a few minutes.
Clause 70 does nothing much more than refer to the fact that there should be transparent and fair processes, that “managing conflicts of interest” should take place and that compliance should be verified—I do not know quite what that means but it is probably a good thing. It also makes reference to general procurement objectives. You might ask what those are, since they are not specified in Clause 70 itself.
If one goes back to the previous legislation, one gets to the point in the NHS (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No. 2) Regulations 2013, which are also revoked later in Clause 70. In the regulations, there is a paragraph that says what the procurement objectives are:
“for the purposes of the NHS … a relevant body must act with a view to … securing the needs of the people who use the services … improving the quality of the services, and … improving efficiency in the provision of the services”.
I rather hope that we are not yet encountering anything to which people would object. It then goes on to say:
“including through the services being provided in an integrated way (including with other health care services, health-related services, or social care services).”
Frankly, we have had years now of people explaining that the legislation did not allow them to do things in an integrated way. But when one looks back to 2013 and the regulations brought in, they say that the objective is to do things in an integrated way. I slightly wonder why the NHS did not do that, rather than complain that it could not.
Let me go on. When looking at the general requirements of procurement subsequently in that regulation, it includes the provision to
“act in a transparent and proportionate way, and … treat providers equally and in a non-discriminatory way”,
and wants projects delivered with “best value”. So far, again, there is nothing to which people object.
In Regulation 3(4) we hit something that people might object to. In defining what quality and efficiency look like, the regulations go on to say that the services should be
“provided in a more integrated way”—
which we have already heard about, and it repeats exactly that point—
“enabling providers to compete to provide the services”.
This may be where the objection came from, in which case my argument to Ministers is this: if that is what you do not like in the regulations, omit it from them. Ministers could have done it literally in a matter of weeks.
What is the other objection to the existing structure of the legislation? Section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, about the power and what it should be used to do, talked about good practice in procurement and the right to patient choice. I mentioned in a previous group the importance of, in my view, putting the right to patient choice into the provider selection regime, but we will come on to that again at a later stage.
Here is a third point, and something to which I think some people objected to, and have objected to subsequently; that providers
“do not engage in anti-competitive behaviour which is against the interests of people who use such services.”
I might say that if the anti-competitive behaviour is in the interests of the people who use those services, it is not necessarily objectionable. However, when one looks further, Regulation 10 of the subsequent regulations describes the circumstances in which anti-competitive behaviour might be justified:
“unless to do so is in the interests of people who use health care services … which may include … the services being provided in an integrated way”.
We keep coming back to this.
The other point I would make—she is not here, but the noble Baroness, Lady Blackwood, said it at Second Reading—is that the NHS objected to the fact that it was required to engage in compulsory competitive tendering. Section 75 of the 2012 legislation says that the regulations may
“impose requirements relating to … competitive tendering”,
as well as to the management of conflicts of interest, but it does not require the regulations to be made at all, and it certainly does not require the regulations to include compulsory competitive tendering, and nor do the subsequent regulations published in 2013 require that.
All of that leads me to the conclusion that Section 75 of the 2012 Act simply creates a power; it does not need to be changed for new regulations to have been made. Section 75 says that subsequent 2013 regulations may be objectionable to people in so far as they refer to qualified providers and to competitive tendering. If that was the problem, you should revise the regulations, publish them, take out the bits you object to and give the NHS a provider selection regime that fits their anticipated needs. The objectives are all there: quality, efficiency, best value, fairness, proportionality and an integrated service—and an integration, if that is what this Bill is all about, was already there in the 2012 legislation.
My question to my noble friend for before Report, and the question asked by the stand part debate, is: why are we doing what we are doing in Clause 70? Cannot we do it perhaps more simply and effectively by amending the existing legislation, rather than by trying to do wholesale repeals, introducing something that we will not know what it looks like until after this Bill has passed through this House?
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 213 is in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and I am very grateful for her support. I can be briefer than I was expecting to be, given what the noble Lords, Lord Lansley and Lord Hunt, have said in the last few minutes.
My amendment addresses another instance of an attempt by the Government to bypass parliamentary scrutiny, and it proposes in response an enhanced form of parliamentary scrutiny. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, remarked, the DPRRC report on the Bill notes that the delegated powers memorandum says that, although initial consultation has been carried out by NHS England on the content of the procurement regime, full analysis has not been completed and there has not been time to produce a more developed proposal. Clause 70 gives the Minister the power to impose a new procurement regime, without giving any details of what it might be. This is the clearest possible example of the Government taking powers to make policy without specifying at all what that policy may be.
The DPRRC rejects the inclusion of regulation-making powers as a cover for inadequately developed, or undeveloped, policy. What is worse, the delegated powers memorandum says that a Cabinet Office procurement Bill will most likely follow this Bill, and it may require some amendments to the regulation-making powers that we are discussing in this Bill. The regulatory powers in question are to be subject to the negative procedure. I think we all, except for the Government Front Bench, would recognise that the negative procedure is emphatically not effective parliamentary scrutiny.
What we have here is a skeleton clause, with regulation-making powers of very broad scope. There is nothing in this clause, or in the Bill more generally, which would in practice constrain how broadly these powers could be used in constructing a procurement regime. It would probably be better, from the point of view of parliamentary scrutiny, to leave out Clause 70 entirely, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, my noble friend Lady Walmsley and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, propose, and wait for the full policy to be set out in the Bill, as promised to follow soon from the Cabinet Office.
If the Minister can advance compelling reasons why this Bill should be the vehicle for setting up the procurement regime by regulations, there is one route we could take, as set out in my amendment. This amendment imposes the super-affirmative procedure on the delegated powers proposal. The super-affirmative procedure is designed and used to deliver a measure of real scrutiny in circumstances that require it. In proceedings on the recent Medicines and Medical Devices Bill, the Minister very helpfully summarised the super-affirmative procedure as follows, saying that the
“procedure would require an initial draft of the regulations to be laid before Parliament alongside an explanatory statement and that a committee must be convened to report on those draft regulations within 30 days of publication. Only after a minimum of 30 days following the publication of the initial draft regulations may the Secretary of State lay regulations, accompanied by a further published statement on any changes to the regulations. They must then be debated as normal in both Houses and approved by resolution.”—[Official Report, 19/10/20; col. GC 376.]
According to the Library, the last recorded insertion in a Bill of a super-affirmative procedure was by the Government themselves, in October 2017, in what became the Financial Guidance and Claims Act.
I repeat that, if the Minister really can convince us that he has a compelling reason to have this new procurement regime set up by regulations in the Bill, my amendment would provide the opportunity for detailed parliamentary scrutiny. If he cannot accept that, then we would be wise to take out Clause 70 in its entirety.
Lord Warner (CB)
My Lords, I will briefly speak in support of the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and echo many of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, although I draw slightly different conclusions to him.
We have been around this track on social enterprise over the last 15 or 16 years and, in what I might call the good old days, there was a social enterprise unit in the Department of Health. That arose—it is worth remembering this—because many NHS staff preferred to work in a social enterprise unit rather than be direct employees of the NHS. The early days of social enterprises saw a number of groups of staff, particularly nurses, producing, in effect, co-operatives to work as social enterprises. While the noble Lord is entitled to feel a little anxious if there is nothing in the Bill even as modest as Amendment 93 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that arrangement gives some degree of protection to social enterprises which have served the NHS pretty well over the last 15 or 16 years. So, the least the Government could do is accept Amendment 93.
To some extent, the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, relate to the points I made earlier about Amendment 72. The bottom line on all this is that the way the Government have gone about trying to say, in Clause 70, that there needs to be a new provider selection regime, while not declaring their hands, has actually created the worst suspicions. If indeed, as the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, says, there is adequate provision already, why create the suspicion that some dastardly deed is going to be produced at a later stage by putting in Clause 70 and then not producing the draft regulations before the House clears the Bill?
The Government have got themselves into a fair tangle over this issue, and the Minister would perhaps do well to take this back to the department and try to reassure people as to what the Government are up to. Are they trying to change the Section 75 arrangements, and, if so, in what way? We want a lot more clarity about what the future provider regime will actually look like.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly, having attached my name to a couple of amendments in this group. The issues around Clause 70 have been very clearly addressed, and I will just add one reflection, looking back to a discussion on an earlier group last week, when I said that if the Secretary of State gets great power, with that comes great responsibility. From the debate in your Lordships’ House, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is right to say that the Bill will not leave the House in this condition, but, if it were to, or if, after future amendments and ping-pong it were to end up back in this condition, the Secretary of State would really be in quite a dangerous place.
I pick up on social enterprises and the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. We will be coming to some amendments, perhaps on Wednesday, when I will be talking about the impact of privatisation on social care. There will at some point—we have already seen this several times—be a huge crisis of the financialised social care sector, particularly care homes. When large chains fall apart and we have to find a way forward, social enterprises will be one way. I am aware that Clause 70 mentions healthcare and associated services, but to think about this in a whole and integrated way, we should ensure that there is recognition for social enterprise.
I attached my name to Amendment 208 because I thought it was important to demonstrate maximum cross-party support. Dare I say that events in the House earlier today demonstrated the need for transparency and openness in official contracts? There is great public concern about the misallocation of resources and the need for a guarantee of openness in government and official spending, so that amendment is crucial.
I do not know how I missed Amendment 209 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, but I certainly would have attached my name to it had I not done so. It is often commented that I cover a very broad range of subjects in your Lordships’ House, so I often talk about trade deals in other contexts, but there are very grave concerns about trade deals undercutting principles and priorities that have been identified in British politics, so that amendment is also important.
Finally, on Amendment 211, we have seen that giving government contracts to the lowest cash bidder has had disastrous consequences across a whole range of sectors. It has benefited a handful of giant companies, some of which have collapsed, some of which have engaged in rampant fraud and all of which have delivered a disastrous quality of services, exploiting poorly paid staff. Social enterprise is a different approach, a different way of commissioning and a way out of that. It is a way of relocalisation: stopping those few large companies that keep winning contracts because the whole thing is structured so that only a handful of companies can bid for them anyway. These are all really important amendments.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
I have my name to Amendment 93 and Clause 70 stand part. As the noble Lord, Lord Warner, just told us, Clause 70 is a bit of a mess, and having listened to the explanation of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, of why it is a bit of a mess, I do not find much need to say much more. However, on the issue of compulsory competitive tendering, I understood that the Bill will reduce its importance. I wonder how those things link together and whether the Minister can explain it to me.
On the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, about diversity of provision, it is usual that those with the biggest voices shout the loudest and, in the health sector, it is often also those with the biggest budgets, such as the acute hospitals. We have this very valuable not-for-profit sector that has a small voice and a small budget—at least individually, although it adds up to quite a lot—and a great deal of it comes from the NHS.
As has been said, many of them are spin-offs, comprising former NHS staff who prefer to work in that context. There are an awful lot of them—about 15,000—and they feel particularly threatened by the Bill because, despite the fact that they are specifically mentioned in the ICS design framework as a vital cornerstone of a progressive health and care system, they are not referred to in the Bill and there appears to be little, if any, recognition of the potential impact of the new structures of provider collaboratives and place-based partnerships on their funding and, crucially, their involvement in decision-making. As others have said, that missing piece has caused a lot of suspicion and concern in the sector, and we must not lose these important organisations, because they really understand their client base: they are local, they are flexible, they are fleet of foot, they innovate and they are vital in providing services, in particular for those with complex needs. We must make sure that their voice is heard.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, this group is in two parts. The first part consists of the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Hunt. I need to declare an interest as a patron and the founding chair of Social Enterprise UK, and also as an associate of E3M, for public sector social enterprise leaders, particularly in the healthcare sector, so I have been living with this. Indeed, I must declare an interest as the Minister who helped take through the right to request in the NHS for our staff. I am very committed to these amendments, and to the need for social enterprises to continue to innovate and deliver in our health and social care system, which they do at the moment. There is a report due out very soon from the group chaired by the noble Earl, Lord Devon, on Covid and social enterprise; the way that social enterprises have delivered during Covid is stunning.
I turn to the amendments in the second part of this group, many of which have my name on them. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, and I find ourselves in broadly the same place: it is a mess. Our first thought was, “Why is this clause here?”, because it does both the things that my former noble friend Lord Warner—I still regard him as a friend—said. This clause does not tell us what is going to happen but it makes us extremely suspicious about what might happen. My amendments—and also, I think, the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey—are about that suspicion. It is quite right that the regulatory committee also said that we needed to pay attention to this, because it gives the Secretary of State very wide powers and it does not tell us what the Secretary of State will do with them.
I have quite a long speaking note, but I do not intend to go into the detail now. I simply say to the Minister that if, by the next stage of the Bill, we have not resolved the issues behind this clause, the Government may find themselves struggling to get it, as it stands, through your Lordships’ House.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, again, I have heard the excellent contributions that have been made, really holding the Government to account on a number of these amendments.
I begin with Amendment 93, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I assure him that social value is a very important matter for the Government. I know that this importance is echoed across the NHS, as the country’s largest employer and public service, and that we see the value of the excellent services and innovation that social enterprises, independent providers and charities bring to health and care—indeed, not just to health and care but to the wider economy. However, we do not think that this is an appropriate duty to put on NHS commissioners, or an appropriate addition to the triple aim.
We have been discussing the triple aim and other issues around how that ends up. We fundamentally believe that the focus of NHS commissioning decisions should be on offering the best possible treatments and services based on quality, rather than any decision being based on the type of provider, but, again, while recognising the diversity of non-clinical providers, especially social enterprises, voluntary organisations and charities. The duty of the triple aim is intended to be shared across the NHS. The aims represent a core shared vision of what the NHS should offer, and are intended to align NHS bodies around a common set of objectives and support a shift towards integrated systems. In this context we would not want to split the duty by adding a section relevant to commissioners, NHS England and ICBs, but not to trusts and foundation trusts.
On Amendment 211, in its long-term plan the NHS committed to reducing health inequalities and supporting wider social goals. Again, this refers back to previous debates on how we make sure that we really capture the essence of tackling inequalities in the Bill. We recognise that NHS organisations can contribute to social and economic development, and aim to reduce the impact of social determinants of health and reduce heath inequalities. It is with this in mind that social value, alongside sustainability, has been proposed as one of the key criteria which will be used for decision-making under the provider selection regime.
We believe that this amendment, at this stage, is not necessary, as alongside the role of social value as a key decision-making criterion, NHS England and NHS Improvement will produce guidance on applying net zero and social value in healthcare procurement, which includes taking account of social value in the award of central contracts.
The Cabinet Office social value model has been applied to procurement decisions taken by NHS England and NHS Improvement since 1 April 2021 and will be extended to the whole NHS system from 1 April 2022. Adopting the Cabinet Office social value model across the NHS complements strategic initiatives and policy within the NHS.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I assume it will be but, as I am about to say on a number of other issues, there is clearly a lot to take back to the department, not only tonight but on the whole Bill. I pledge to take that back to the department.
Where there is only one possible provider or where the incumbent is delivering well, it is intended that the regime will enable commissioners to continue contracts in an efficient way. However, if a trust or foundation trust currently holds a contract or did hold a contract, it should not be assumed that it is or was always with the most suitable provider. It is the view of the Government and the NHS that patients should be able to access services based on quality and value, delivering the best possible outcome, rather than basing the decision on what type of provider they are.
Amendment 208 would require a competitive tender for contracts with an annual value of over £5 million. While we recognise the role of competitive tender—and expect that, in many cases, this may be the appropriate route—the NHS asked the Government for greater flexibility in tendering contracts. It is for local commissioners to select the most appropriate provider for a service and to do so in a robust way. We agree with the importance of open, transparent and robust decision-making. Regulations and statutory guidance made under the provision in Clause 70 will set out rules to ensure transparency and scrutiny of decisions to award healthcare contracts. Decision-makers will also need to adhere to any relevant existing duties, act with transparency and appropriately manage conflicts of interest. This and other aspects of the regime will provide sufficient safeguards to fulfil the important need for fairness when making decisions about the arrangement of services.
On Amendment 209, the Government’s position on trade agreements is clear. We have been unequivocal that the procurement of NHS healthcare services is off the table in our future trade negotiations. This is a fundamental principle of the UK’s international trade policy. In fact, it dates back to the days when we were a member of the European Union; this issue came up a number of times. I remember working in the European Parliament with colleagues from the Labour Party and elsewhere to ensure that this was part of our agreements. Therefore, we do not consider the noble Baroness’s amendment necessary. My department has worked with the Department for International Trade to ensure robust protections for public services. For example, in the recent UK-Australia trade agreement, it was clearly stated that the procurement of health services is not included in the scope of the agreement’s services procurement coverage. We will ensure that our right to choose how we deliver public services is protected in future trade agreements.
Amendment 212 would mean that the provisions of Clause 70 expired three years after the day on which they commenced. In 2019, the NHS provided recommendations to the Government and Parliament for this NHS Bill. These recommendations told us that
“there is strong public and NHS staff support for scrapping Section 75 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and for removing the commissioning of NHS healthcare services from the jurisdiction of the Public Contract Regulations 2015.”
The recommendations also voiced support for the removal of the presumption of automatic tendering of these services. Our intention is that, through this clause and the new procurement regulations to be made under it, we will deliver what the NHS has asked for: new rules for arranging services that work for the NHS, and, most importantly, for patients.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I am very sorry—I know it is late—but, frankly, these are not rules that will serve the locality. At the moment it looks as if these rules will be set by the Secretary of State and will serve the Secretary of State. That is what the Bill says at the moment; those are the powers that this clause takes.
Lord Warner (CB)
Before the Minister answers that question, could he make clear whether the primary concern of the Government is the interests of the patient or of the NHS? They could be in conflict. Much of what he has said implies that they are the same but they are not, and some of the issues on which the Minister is saying “We’re doing what the NHS wanted” concern me about where the patient’s perspective is in that kind of approach.
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Lord raises a concern that I have heard a number of times: that we should be careful about saying “This is what the NHS wanted”—that the focus has to be about patients. We clearly take the view that this should be patient-centred and patient-focused. Indeed, I have had a number of conversations with many noble Lords about how we make sure that it is patient-focused. We understand, however, that concerns have been raised that Clause 70 may in part be a temporary measure, to be replaced or significantly edited by the Cabinet Office procurement Bill to follow. This is not and never has been our intention, but I understand the concern and recognise that there is value to aligning processes when such alignment is in the wider system interest. We continue to engage with the Cabinet Office on its proposals.
Amendment 213 would make regulations under Clause 70 subject to the super-affirmative procedure. I appreciate the intention behind this amendment. However, we do not feel at the moment that the super-affirmative procedure is necessary. As set out in our delegated powers memorandum, the powers created by Clause 70 are inserted into the NHS Act 2006, in line with the vast majority of regulation-making powers under that Act.
We know that there is significant parliamentary interest around the rules determining how healthcare services are arranged, so it is vital that we strike the right balance between democratic scrutiny and operational flexibility. The negative procedure provides that balance and ensures transparency and scrutiny. We will continue to engage widely on the proposals for the regulations to be made under these powers, to ensure that they will deliver—
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
I am sure that the noble Lord knows that there is actually no parliamentary scrutiny with the negative procedure—none.
Lord Kamall (Con)
May I explain about the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, on Clause 70—
Lord Sharkey (LD)
Before the Minister abandons Amendment 93 entirely, could he explain why it is necessary to have, in this Bill—when there is another one coming along—regulation-making powers that are unconstrained and non-specific?
Lord Kamall (Con)
We do not believe that they are, but clearly there is a difference of opinion about it.
I would like to turn, however, to the point made by my noble friend Lord Lansley on Clause 70. The regulations that we create under Clause 70 will have a broader scope than those currently created under Section 75. The provider selection regime will include public health services commissioned by local authorities, thereby recognising their role as part of joined-up health services delivered for the public. While we always want to act in the interests of people who use our services, our regime recognises the reality that in some cases integration, rather than competition, is the best way to achieve this for the health service. Finally, removing the section and creating a new bespoke regime, is—despite the scepticism of the noble Lord, Lord Warner—what the NHS has asked for. There is strong public and NHS support for scrapping Section 75 of the 2012 Act—
Lord Lansley (Con)
I am sorry—it is getting late—but will my noble friend at least, at some point, tell us: did Ministers ever challenge the NHS on whether what it was asking for required primary legislation? Did they ever ask, “What are you trying to achieve?”—and then let us, the Government and Parliament, who actually pass the legislation, see how it should be achieved? Or has Parliament in practice now become merely the cypher for the NHS?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I take the point that my noble friend makes, and I completely understand the concerns; that is why it is important that I take many of the concerns raised today back to the department.
Clause 70 inserts a new Section 12ZB into the NHS Act 2006, allowing the Secretary of State to make regulations. I have a lengthy explanation here but, frankly, I am not sure that it will pass muster. If noble Lords will allow me to go back to the department—I may be a sucker for punishment, but I accept the concerns and I will go back—
Lord Warner (CB)
Would the Minister like a few of us to go along to the department with him?
Lord Kamall (Con)
As the noble Lord will recognise, when I was appointed to this job, I did say that I wanted to consult as many previous Health Ministers as possible, as well as people who have worked in the field. It is clear from this debate that more consultation and discussion are needed, so I would welcome noble Lords’ advice. On that note, I beg that Clause 70 stand part of this Bill and hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, the hour is late. We cannot have the extensive debate that we probably require. I shall be very brief. I should have declared an interest as president of the Health Care Supply Association, the NHS procurement professionals.
On social value, I am very grateful to the Minister because he said that guidance will be issued to the health service on this, which is gratifying. On social enterprise, my noble friend Lord Howarth, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lady Thornton of course, all referred to the value of social enterprises. The Minister is not convinced that we need to put anything in the Bill. The point I need to put to him is this: it is clear from intelligence from the health service what the people running what I call the shadow ICBs want. I do wonder what we are doing legislating when obviously, everything is up and running; it is very difficult to know why we are here tonight debating these issues. Clearly, the NHS wants it, so it has got it and it is Parliament’s job, presumably, to just legitimise what it is already doing.
Having said that, these integrated care boards believe that social enterprises are not to be invested in in the future. So, my appeal to the Minister is this: fine, do not put it in the Bill, but please get a message out to the 42 ICBs telling them not to be so silly as to think that they should carve social enterprises out of the new regime.
More generally, on procurement, it is very interesting to be debating with the noble Lord, Lord Lansley. We fought tooth and nail for days on Section 75 of the 2012 legislation. Along come the Government, now saying, “Oh, we’re going to get rid of it. We don’t know what we will replace it with, but it is all right because we can have some negative regulations which mean we can steam it through without any scrutiny apart from a desultory debate as a dinner-break business sometime in the future. Oh, and by the way, there’s procurement legislation coming along too, but we can’t tell you what will be in there.”
Somehow, between now and Report, collectively we need to find a way through. I confess to the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, that I am rather pleased to see Section 75 go. However, something has to be put in its place, or we will just leave the NHS to get on with it and await future regulations and legislation. One thing for sure is that the idea of leaving the Bill with Section 70 and not even accepting the noble Lord’s sensible suggestion of the super-affirmative procedure is quite remarkable, and clearly it will not run. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.