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Speaker’s Statement
Mr Speaker
Order. Before we start today’s business, I want to inform the House that I have received a request from President Zelensky of Ukraine to address Members of this House at 5 o’clock today. Given the exceptional and grave situation in Ukraine, I have agreed to the request. Today’s business will therefore be interrupted at 4.45 pm to enable Members to be in their places by 5 o’clock. The House will formally suspend, but Members will be welcome to remain in the Chamber to listen to the address from President Zelensky, which will be shown on the screens within the Chamber. A limited number of headphones will be made available so that Members can hear the simultaneous interpretation of the address. This will not be part of the formal sitting of the House. After the President’s address, we will suspend briefly before reverting to our formal business.
Oral Answers to Questions
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Dehenna Davison (Bishop Auckland) (Con)
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
Together with our G7 allies, we have put the toughest sanctions on Russia in our history. We have sanctioned 228 individuals and entities. Our bank sanctions target £259 billion-worth of assets, compared with £240 billion by the US and £34 billion by the EU. We have also targeted more defence companies, cut access to British ports and closed airspace. Yesterday, this House passed new legislation to speed up the sanctioning of oligarchs, and from next Tuesday we will be able to do all of them.
Dehenna Davison
A huge number of Bishop Auckland residents have contacted me expressing their concerns about the ongoing situation in Ukraine, so I am grateful to hear about the Foreign Secretary’s robust action. Following the amendments to our sanctions regime yesterday through the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill, does she agree that that will allow us to hit Putin’s allies harder and faster?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is right. Amendments from the House of Lords to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 made it cumbersome and slow for us to sanction those individuals. They included making unlimited damages available to those individuals as well as requiring an impact test under the Human Rights Act. Yesterday’s Bill removes all of that, which means that by 15 March we will be able to sanction hundreds of individuals.
Virginia Crosbie
Given the barbaric invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the threats to cut off gas supplies to the west and the rising energy prices here in the UK, will the Secretary of State join me in calling for the continued expansion of renewable energy and for massively expanding and accelerating the UK’s nuclear programme to ensure that we meet net zero, dramatically lower our energy prices and ensure that we can never be held to ransom over our energy supplies?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is right. The west can no longer be reliant on Russian oil and gas. We need to end dependency by agreeing ceilings with our G7 partners, agreeing a timetable for reduction and helping through price support and supply support those countries that are very dependent. Of course, nuclear and renewable energy will play a vital role in moving forward.
Matt Western
Targeted sanctions are critical if we are to avoid significant collateral economic damage. However, despite what the Government may claim, the facts speak for themselves. According to Castellan AI, the total number of sanctions placed on Russia since 2014 by country is as follows: the US, 1,200; Canada, 900; Switzerland, 800; the EU, 766; and the UK, just 271. This is not leadership, is it? Why are the Government so slow?
Elizabeth Truss
We have led on cutting Russia off from SWIFT. We have led on closing our airspace and closing our ports. If we look at the total financial impact—the aim here is to debilitate the Russian economy—we can see that the sanctions we have put on banks, defence, aviation and oligarchs add up to £364 billion. In the US, they add up to £340 billion, and in the EU, they add up to £124 billion. We have to look at the overall financial impact, and it is much higher for the UK than for our allies. Of course we encourage them all to do more, and we need to work together.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Will the Foreign Secretary speak to her colleague, the Home Secretary, about the cruel and chaotic way in which desperate Ukrainian refugees are being treated by the Home Office? It cannot be right that there is no visa application centre in Calais, with Ukrainian refugees who have travelled thousands of miles to Calais being redirected either to Paris or to Brussels. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that this brings the UK into disrepute?
Elizabeth Truss
The Home Office has placed staff in Poland and Hungary to help people, and the Home Secretary has announced a new pop-up application site in Lille. I can tell the right hon. Member that the Home Office has set up a surgery for MPs in Portcullis House, to which I am sure she will be very welcome to take any cases.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
On International Women’s Day, does the Foreign Secretary agree that one way to amplify the message we are sending to Russia through sanctions would be to call on every woman in Russia—the mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts and friends of those in the Russian army who are attacking a neighbouring state and causing such misery and suffering—to send a message to those soldiers to stop it and return home?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is right that; as well as the huge humanitarian crisis for the people of Ukraine, we are seeing the death of many Russian soldiers, many of whom have been sent to Ukraine under false pretences such as the claim that the Ukrainian people want liberation, which simply is not true. As we warned in advance of this invasion, President Putin has sent thousands of young Russian men and women to their death. That message is being received in Russia.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
Two weeks into this awful war, Ukraine has suffered terribly but stands defiant. Putin is isolated, his economy is in freefall and his actions are condemned around the world. We are united in our desire to ratchet up pressure on Putin, but the UK has sanctioned just eight of the Navalny 35 list of oligarchs. The EU has sanctioned 19 and the US has sanctioned 15. We welcome the Government’s U-turn on sanctions legislation yesterday, which should help us to catch up, but sanctions against oligarchs work only if we know where their wealth is hidden. Will the Government commit to urgently reforming Companies House, to leave Putin-linked crooks with nowhere to hide?
Elizabeth Truss
First, the right hon. Gentleman needs to look at the overall size of our sanctions. The UK has targeted £364 billion-worth of assets, whereas the US has targeted £340 billion and the EU has targeted £124 billion. We have led the way, whether on SWIFT, freezing bank assets or closing ports.
As for the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, it was the Labour party that wanted changes to make it tougher for us to sanction oligarchs. The hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds), who is now chair of the Labour party, said on Third Reading that the Act gives Ministers “excessive power” that could not be
“justified by the need for speed”.—[Official Report, 1 May 2018; Vol. 640, c. 239.]
She even called for additional bureaucracy through a cross-Whitehall committee. The U-turn is on their side.
Mr Lammy
The world watched Putin’s premeditated stalking of Ukraine. We saw the lies, the false diplomacy and the manufactured grievances, and then we witnessed the destructive invasion of a sovereign state. This is a crime of aggression. The creation of a special tribunal will help the global community to hold Vladimir Putin and his cronies personally responsible for this war, and it would complement the International Criminal Court’s investigation. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister backs it, several of our allies and partners back it and leading lawyers back it. Will the Foreign Secretary now do the same?
Elizabeth Truss
I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we are seeing horrific crimes taking place in Ukraine, and they are the responsibility of President Putin. That is why the United Kingdom has worked with our allies to put a case to the ICC—there were 38 states, making it the biggest ever group referral to the ICC. That is the right route to tackle the war crimes that we consider could have taken place or are taking place in Ukraine. We want to work with countries to collect the evidence. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice will be travelling to The Hague to work on that specific issue.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I very much welcome the strong package of sanctions imposed by the Government, but if President Putin is to understand that we are serious, he also needs to know that we are going to be able to sustain that package over a considerable time. He will believe that only if we are honest with the public that that will mean not just a cost to Russia but a significant economic cost here. We have to make the argument that it is necessary to pay for it, in order to keep us safe and secure in the future, and I urge the Foreign Secretary to do so.
Elizabeth Truss
Of course, there will be an economic cost to these sanctions for British people, in their energy bills and in the cost of living, but that cost is nothing compared with the cost to the people of Ukraine of the horrific barbarism that they are facing or with the cost of allowing Putin to succeed. We know that if Putin does not lose in Ukraine, it will not be the limit of his ambitions. He has already been clear that he wants to see a greater Russia, which could encompass countries such as Moldova and the Baltic states. So it is vital that we throw everything at sanctions, and we help as much as we can with getting defensive weaponry into Ukraine, because this is a battle that Putin needs to lose.
Mr Speaker
We come to the Scottish National party spokesperson, Alyn Smith.
Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)
The SNP has supported the Government’s efforts on Ukraine. We took some criticism for that, but it was the right thing to do. In that spirit, I have to say that there is mounting frustration on these Benches at the lack of progress on and ambition in the UK’s sanctions regime. The rhetoric is simply not matched by the reality, which is that the European Union has gone further and faster on these sanctions matters. I urge the Foreign Secretary to work more closely with the EU, particularly on the due diligence on individual sanctions, and to replicate the EU’s sanctions in order to complement the EU’s efforts and have a much more comprehensive sanctions regime, rather than sending it a nice letter with a month’s notice to sort its financial affairs.
Elizabeth Truss
What the hon. Gentleman says simply is not the case. We are seeking to debilitate the Russian economy. We have targeted and sanctioned £364 billion-worth of assets, whereas the EU has targeted £124 billion. Yes, there are specific issues over individuals, which we are addressing through the emergency legislation that went through the House which will be in place next week. We will be able to sanction all the individuals that he is referring to. It is simply not true to say that the UK has not led on this, as we have. We led on SWIFT, on banning ships from British ports, which I know he was arguing for last week, and on closing airspace to Russian planes. What he is saying simply is not true.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Robbie Moore (Keighley) (Con)
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
The UK has been at the forefront of diplomatic, economic, humanitarian and defensive support to Ukraine. The UK was the first European country to provide lethal aid to Ukraine, and my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary is convening a group of countries to do more of that. We are the largest bilateral donor of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, including with our largest ever UK Aid Match contribution to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, which has now raised more than £100 million.
Douglas Ross
The Russian forces are doing to Ukraine what they supported the Assad regime to do in Syria: starve, bomb and target civilians, schools and hospitals. In Syria, with the support and funding of the UK Government, the White Helmets provided vital search and rescue services and other crucial support. That saved thousands of lives and helped to document the atrocities. Will the Foreign Secretary commit to supporting a similar organisation in Ukraine, to save lives there?
Elizabeth Truss
What is happening in Ukraine is simply abhorrent. Our current priority is supporting Ukraine through humanitarian aid. We are donating £220 million of humanitarian aid, which is the leading figure in the world. That will be used to save lives and protect vulnerable people. However, I will listen to my hon. Friend’s suggestion and see what we can do on that front, because we need to do all we can to address this horrendous humanitarian crisis.
Aaron Bell
I know that my right hon. Friend is as proud as I am that the sanctions on Russia that we have introduced to try to support Ukraine are the most powerful we have ever introduced in history. Does she agree that we may need to go further and that nothing should be off the table in terms of who or what we target? We need to do whatever it takes to cripple the Putin regime.
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend is right: nothing is off the table. We have been and are working with G7 partners, whom we want to see go further in areas such as a complete ban on SWIFT and the complete freezing of all bank assets, and by committing to a timetable for reducing dependency on oil and gas because, fundamentally, Russia is a state propped up by the oil and gas industry and, to really tackle the funding for Putin’s war machine, we need to cut off that funding stream.
Selaine Saxby
Since Russia’s invasion began we have seen horrific violence from President Putin against an independent sovereign nation. I know the Government will continue to support Ukraine against this barbarism and help her to return to safety. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that while the violence is ongoing we will do all we can to offer humanitarian support in the best interests of the Ukrainian people? Will she detail how communities such as North Devon can assist?
Elizabeth Truss
We have deployed humanitarian teams to neighbouring countries—Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Moldova—and they are working closely with local agencies. We have put a record sum into the DEC appeal, which is generating massive donations from the British public. It is important that, rather than donate goods, the public are encouraged to donate cash to the DEC appeal or other trusted charities and aid organisations. The Polish Government have said that donations in kind generate disproportionate amounts of additional work and costs, which prove ineffective and counterproductive to the needs of those affected, so I strongly encourage people to donate financially to the DEC appeal. That is the best way to get funding through to the brave aid workers on the frontline.
Caroline Ansell
On Saturday, I attended a rally in my home town of Eastbourne where people demonstrated their solidarity with Ukraine and, as my right hon. Friend said, donated to the DEC appeal. That same morning, we saw a series of televised images of very sick children having to be evacuated from the sanctuary and specialist care of their hospital setting, under bombardment. What medical support are we providing to Ukraine and neighbouring countries so that those little lambs have a chance?
Elizabeth Truss
The United Kingdom is the No. 1 donor of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, with £220 million, and we are doing more than any other country on medical support, with the sixth flight of medical supplies having gone out to Ukraine last night. I assure my hon. Friend that Foreign Office teams and Ministry of Defence teams are actively supporting efforts to get very ill children out of Ukraine so that they can get the medical support they need.
Robbie Moore
I welcome the Government’s actions in response to the distressing humanitarian situation in Ukraine. Across Keighley and Ilkley we are all deeply concerned about the deteriorating events. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the substantial funding the Government have put in place will deliver vital support to aid agencies as they respond to this distressing deteriorating situation?
Elizabeth Truss
We can all see how terrible the situation is, with 2 million people fleeing Ukraine. As I have outlined, we are providing humanitarian assistance. We are providing Ukrainians with access to basic necessities and vital medical supplies, as people are forced to flee their homes. We will continue to work with our friends and allies throughout Europe to deliver as much as we can to those in need.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
The Foreign Secretary knows that a vital way to help Ukraine is to prevent those who have stolen money from the Russian people from hiding it in our capital city, but after years of austerity, our hollowed-out enforcement agencies simply do not have the resources to go toe to toe with billionaire oligarchs. The world’s other major financial centre, New York, does not have the same problem and takes a much more robust and well-resourced approach to the tackling of illicit finances. Will the Foreign Secretary acknowledge that unless we properly fund our law agencies that can tackle illicit funding, we can have all the tough laws in the world but people will still see the UK as a soft touch?
Elizabeth Truss
We have established a cross-Government taskforce to enforce the laws that we are putting in place on oligarchs. It is important to know that the legislation that we passed yesterday will reduce the amount of bureaucracy required to sanction oligarchs. That will help us to target our resources better across Government, so that we can focus more of our efforts on enforcement. I was asked earlier about further measures on transparency. Those are all being introduced and we are very committed to doing that.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I was speaking to Ukrainian friends of mine who live in Kendal just a day or two ago. They have family in Kyiv and family in Crimea. In Kyiv, they know exactly, tragically, what is going on. In Crimea, they are completely in the dark and fed only what Putin tells them. Does the right hon. Lady agree that one way we can help Crimea and the whole of Ukraine is to ensure that people in Russia and Russian-controlled territories know the truth of the murderous barbarity being done in their name? Will she be encouraged—I am sure she is—by the fact that, in the past week, visits to the BBC’s Russian language website have trebled? However, that is only 10 million people, and there are 150 million people in Russia. How can she help us to ensure that information gets to the Russian people?
Elizabeth Truss
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the importance of the BBC in communicating to the Russian people. The fact is that they have been lied to for years through disinformation via state TV, and we are now seeing Putin taking even more repressive measures to stop social media. One factor of this crisis is that young people in Russia are less likely to believe the regime because they have had access to social media. Putin is now trying to cut that off. We are working with social media companies to see what we can do. We have established a cross-Government information unit to communicate with the Russian people directly in the Russian language. Moreover, one impact of sanctions—and a reason why we have targeted banks—is that they send a message to the Russian people when they are forced to queue for money, when they cannot get on the tube, or when they cannot access the normal services that they have been accessing. I welcome the actions of corporates in Britain to withdraw their services from Russia. The message must get across to the Russian people that this appalling war is being fought in their name.
Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab)
On the referral to the International Criminal Court, what more can be done to assist in the collection and preservation of evidence, including forensic evidence, of potential war crimes? I ask the question because, if that evidence is held in towns that, heaven forbid, the Russians eventually take, by the time the International Criminal Courts asks for it, it may no longer exist.
Elizabeth Truss
On our ICC referral to the prosecutor, which is now being taken forward, we are working closely with our allies on helping to collect that evidence. It is important that we did that early on. This is being led by the Justice Secretary who, as I have said, will be visiting The Hague to work out how we can make sure that that evidence is collected. May I praise the brave British journalists who are currently operating in Ukraine? We saw a terrible attack on the Sky team—completely unforgivable action by the Russian army. Those journalists are valuable in helping to collect the horrendous evidence of what is happening.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
Ukraine’s national debt is already crippling its economy. In 2020, the debt stood at $94 billion. At this truly dark moment, it is unconscionable that Ukraine should be required to service that debt or to take on more. Can the Secretary of State tell us whether she has had any conversations with other Governments, the IMF, the World Bank, the G7 or EU Foreign Ministers about sweeping debt cancellation for Ukraine—perhaps along the lines of the mutual aid agreement struck by the allies in world war two?
Elizabeth Truss
The hon. Lady makes a very good point. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has been discussing that with G7 Finance Ministers. We are doing all we can to support Ukraine, enabling it to have the finances that it needs both to resist Russian aggression and also, eventually, to be able to rebuild its country after this horrendous invasion.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I agree with the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), who asked the first question on this. Like all bullies, Vladimir Putin demonstrates horrific patterns of behaviour. He helped to starve Syrians in Aleppo and elsewhere, and now he is obliterating Ukrainian cities. But do we not also have to look at our own patterns of behaviour? I see the same administrative failures that hampered our response to Syrian refugees now limiting that desire that the British public have to help Ukrainian refugees. That administrative incompetence is harming our approach. What consideration has the Foreign Secretary made of the effect of the Home Office’s inadequacies on Foreign Office objectives?
Elizabeth Truss
We do have to learn the lessons of the past 15 or 20 years, where we did not do enough to tackle Putin and Russia, we allowed the build-up of force and we did not respond strongly enough to what happened in Crimea and the Donbas. I am determined to do things differently. That is why the UK is leading not only on diplomacy, but on the toughest possible sanctions and the toughest possible support for the Ukrainian people in their resistance. I have already briefed the House on the Home Secretary’s roll-out of new centres to help Ukrainian people with visas. She has opened up a family route and a sponsored humanitarian route, and we continue to take that forward. We are open for refugees.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
Today, on International Women’s Day, we see all the women trying to escape with their families, their children and their mothers and fathers to reach places such as Poland, which has offered refuge to some 1 million refugees, and Ireland, which has taken several hundred thousand. Here in the UK, however, barely 100 have been able to find refuge. That is a shameful lack of humanity in the face of the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in Europe since world war two. Does the Secretary of State agree that this paltry effort to offer refuge is a stain on our otherwise commendable effort on the crisis in Ukraine? Will she urgently work with the Home Secretary, shake up the Home Office and get this sorted?
Elizabeth Truss
As I have said, the Home Office has opened new centres for people to be able to put in their applications. It is running a 24/7 helpline and has a surgery for MPs in Portcullis House. I also point the hon. Lady to the fact that we are the largest donor of humanitarian aid, with £220 million. We also want to help people to settle in the region; many people coming from Ukraine want to settle locally and we are helping in that effort by sending our humanitarian teams to the region.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
On International Women’s Day, Europe is leading and united in welcoming more than 2 million refugees, almost all of whom are women and children, fleeing the bloody and murderous war by Putin against Ukraine and its citizens. Yet, pitifully, the UK stands at only 300 visas. Shamefully, we learned this morning in The Daily Telegraph that while Ireland has waived visas and expects to welcome 100,000 refugees, the UK Government have expressed fears that that would create a drug route to the UK. On the very day that President Zelensky will address this House, does the Foreign Secretary realise that the Home Office’s continued xenophobic and inhumane immigration policy must be, for her and her office, a complete humiliation, undermining the support for Ukraine and its people? Will she now call on her colleague the Home Secretary either to reverse that policy, or to resign?
Elizabeth Truss
As I have said, we have opened up two new routes. The Home Secretary has opened up a family route and a sponsored humanitarian route. We are also providing huge support in the region, working closely with the Ukrainian Government and local Governments such as the Polish Government.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
The Minister for Europe and North America (James Cleverly)
Russia’s assault on Ukraine is unprovoked, premeditated, barbaric and an assault on a sovereign democracy. The UK has committed £220 million of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine and the region. We are in regular contact with our allies across the world, as well as international agencies such as the UN and other humanitarian partners and donors, to assess the needs on the ground and to ensure an internationally co-ordinated response. We call on Russia to respect its obligations under international humanitarian law.
Liz Twist
It is absolutely vital that the humanitarian corridors remain open to facilitate the safe passage of refugees from Ukraine as well as the safe passage of humanitarian aid into the country, so what steps has the Minister taken, in conjunction with NATO allies, to ensure that that happens?
James Cleverly
We note Russia’s claim of creating humanitarian corridors. These are just not credible. The current humanitarian corridors that Russia has highlighted lead into Russia, and it is an obscene and offensive gesture to the Ukrainian people to invite them to take refuge in the arms of the country currently seeking to destroy theirs. It is not credible and we call upon Russia to allow proper, meaningful humanitarian access.
Jessica Morden
Constituents trying to help their elderly and disabled relatives out of Ukraine describe their arduous 19-hour journey from the south to Lviv for biometric enrolment due to the lack of safe routes in the south. They are now awaiting appointments in Poland, but who knows how long that will take? They need to know, as others have asked today, what more the Foreign Office will do with the Home Office to make this process quicker and more effective.
James Cleverly
As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary said, the Home Office has established a forward presence, including just over the Ukrainian border into Poland, in order to facilitate cases like the one that the hon. Lady has raised. We continue working closely with the Home Office to ensure that its work on receiving Ukrainian refugees is as quick, effective and efficient as possible.
Dan Jarvis
Mariupol has been described as a living hell by those who have been subject to the vicious bombardment in the city. What are the Government doing to get people who are under siege, including brave HALO Trust staff, rescued into some safety?
James Cleverly
The hon. and gallant Gentleman raises an incredibly important point. Our ability to project influence into Ukraine is understandably heavily curtailed. We will continue working to ensure that potential human rights abuses are catalogued and put forward for subsequent trials in the International Criminal Court and other places, if relevant. I take the point about what more can be done to help the brave people who have stayed behind to do great work in Ukraine and what we can do to help them to evacuate the country. I cannot give him details at the moment but his point is well made.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
The Foreign Secretary has spoken about the work ongoing with the Home Office to process applications of refugees coming over the border into Poland, but people are also flooding over the borders into Romania, Hungary, Moldova and other neighbouring countries. What more can we do on the ground in those countries to help to swiftly get people to our shores?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend raises a very important point. As we have said, the Home Office has established a forward presence in Poland, but also in the other countries bordering Ukraine, to facilitate the forward passage for those wishing to come to the UK. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary have made it clear that we intend to have a generous offer to the Ukrainian people of a refuge to those seeking that, and we will continue co-ordinating with the Home Office in its work to establish routes to the UK.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Apart from humanitarian reasons, there are siren voices suggesting that we should commit to a no-fly zone in Ukraine, notwithstanding our existing support to the country and our commitment to article 5 and to NATO. Will the Minister assure the House once again that there is no intention to intervene directly militarily in this war, for a host of reasons, including the fact that it would lead to a wider conflict?
James Cleverly
The UK should be rightly proud of the support that we gave to the Ukrainian armed forces over a number of years through Operation Orbital and through the early deployment of NLAWs, or next generation light anti-tank weapons—the anti-tank missile systems that have proven so effective—and we will continue to provide support to the Ukrainians in their self-defence. The Secretary-General of NATO has made it very clear that it would be wrong for NATO to engage directly in the conflict with Russia that is the inevitable by-product of a no-fly zone. Putin is desperately trying to paint this as western aggression against Russia. We must not do anything that will allow him to perpetrate that perverse distortion of reality.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend having conversations about contingency plans for what will happen if, God forbid, Russian forces start to deliberately attack nuclear facilities near the western borders? Those plans would need to lead to a mass movement of the refugees already in that area. Would he also agree that that would pretty much constitute an attack on NATO allies?
James Cleverly
We take attacks, or the threat of attacks, against nuclear facilities very seriously. Nuclear safeguarding remains a priority for this Government. I will not be drawn on the conditions of what might be defined as an attack on NATO, but nevertheless we have made it absolutely clear that NATO is a defensive organisation. It has never expanded by force or coercion. Our support to the Ukrainians is steadfast, but there is a clear dividing line between an attack on one of our good friends—Ukraine—and an attack on a NATO member state.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
This International Women’s Day, hundreds of thousands of women are massed in the freezing cold at the borders of Ukraine, traumatised children in their arms, as they flee from Putin’s bloody, unprovoked war. Families have been separated, thousands of homes have been destroyed, and whole cities have been cut off from water, food, healthcare and other basic services. This is an evolving humanitarian situation, and the pace and scale of displacement is unlike anything we have seen in Europe for a generation. Some 2 million refugees have already fled the country, and millions more may cross the borders in the coming days and weeks.
Can the Minister tell us how much of the £220 million announced for humanitarian aid is actually in Ukraine or helping those who have fled its borders, and will he agree to provide us with a monthly breakdown of pledges against what has been disbursed? We have to act swiftly and we need to know what has been disbursed to date, so will the Minister tell us?
James Cleverly
As the hon. Lady says, this is a rapidly evolving situation. We have made recent announcements of humanitarian support, which are very significant—the largest in the world at this stage. We are more than happy to keep the House up to date with the disbursal of that humanitarian aid, and will do so through the normal means.
Gareth Davies (Grantham and Stamford) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
India is the world’s sixth largest economy and an important partner for the UK. In May last year, the UK and India committed to strengthening our economic and security relationship through a new comprehensive strategic partnership. Our trade with, and investment in, India is set to grow further, and we continue to work together on security and defence.
Gareth Davies
Does my hon. Friend agree that the UK’s development finance organisation, British International Investment, has a critical role to play in strengthening our economic ties with India and promoting the entrepreneurial spirit that our two countries share?
Vicky Ford
I completely agree about the importance of British International Investment across the world. I point to the firm statement that the Foreign Secretary gave to the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday, in which she emphasised the need to strengthen our economic and defence relationship with India in order to pull it away from the orbit of authoritarian regimes such as Russia.
Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)
With India arbitrarily detaining UK nationals such as my constituent Jagtar Singh Johal for over four years now and failing to defend the democratic right of national self-determination for Ukraine, can the Minister tell us how the trade negotiations are going?
Vicky Ford
Again, I point to the important statement that the Foreign Secretary made yesterday. It is vital that we continue to strengthen our economic and defence relationship with India. However, the constituency case of Jagtar Singh Johal that the hon. Gentleman mentions was raised by the Foreign Secretary recently with her counterparts in India.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The Minister for Europe and North America (James Cleverly)
The UK is working closely with our G7 partners to make clear our support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and that we will not accept Russia’s campaign to subvert its democratic neighbours. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is working extensively with her G7 counterparts, and met with them in Brussels on 4 March to co-ordinate our response to Russian aggression, including robust economic measures and financial sanctions.
Andrew Jones
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the situation in Ukraine matters not just for European security, but for the whole world, and therefore we need a global response? Our global allies must join us in taking a tough stance on sanctions and strongly supporting the people of Ukraine. This attack on a democratic nation may have taken place on our continent, but it has significant global implications.
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary discussed our potential sanctions response with G7 partners in Liverpool late last year, and he is absolutely right that the eyes of the world are watching our response on this, and the message we must send is clear: that the G7 and the wider international community, including countries in the far east, many miles from this conflict, are resolute in standing up against this kind of aggressive behaviour, and we will maintain that position.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome what the Minister has said about co-ordination with the G7 on Ukraine, but does he agree that Putin seeks to create instability and insecurity elsewhere in Europe at the same time, including in the western Balkans, Moldova and the Caucasus. Can he tell us what he has been doing with G7 counterparts and our partners in the EU to address those attempts to create instability across the rest of Europe?
James Cleverly
The Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary met the Prime Ministers and representatives of the western Balkans just last week. The hon. Member is absolutely right that we must not allow the situation in Ukraine to have a destabilising effect on other parts of the continent or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) said, other parts of the world. We will continue our close engagement with partners in the region and beyond to ensure that we deal with the situation in Ukraine and do not allow it to have a destabilising effect more broadly.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Now that the world has woken up to the reality of the cold-hearted ruthlessness of Putin’s police state, does the Minister agree that the most important thing that members of the G7 that are also members of NATO can do to secure European security is to raise their defence budgets to levels that we used to spend when faced with this sort of confrontational approach from Russia?
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. The UK is rightly proud of the fact that we have consistently met out 2% of GDP target for NATO expenditure. We warmly welcome the recent commitment of the German Government in what is a politically bold and incredibly important move to increase their defence spending. This situation in Ukraine is a reminder that peace comes at a price, and we have to be willing to pay that price to maintain peace.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)
Putin’s actions have shattered European security. In response, we have been at the forefront of providing support for Ukraine, stepping up sanctions to debilitate the Russian economy, which funds Putin’s war machine, isolating Russia on the world stage, and strengthening NATO’s eastern flank. We cannot have a world where might is right and sovereignty and territorial integrity are trampled. I am rallying our partners to boost support for Ukraine and strengthen our collective defence.
Barbara Keeley
There have been reports of several actions by Russian forces in Ukraine that violate the laws of armed conflict, including reports today of the shelling of a hospital in Mariupol. I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) in underlining how important it is to document these incidents, so that those responsible can eventually be held to account for their actions. Will the Government also do all they can to ensure the creation of a special tribunal to investigate the crime of aggression, because the Ukrainian people deserve justice?
Elizabeth Truss
I agree with the hon. Lady about the appalling atrocities that are taking place and the need to document those atrocities. That is why the UK with partners—38 states—put the referral to the International Criminal Court, and that is why we are working very hard with our partners to collect that important evidence.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
The Minister for Europe and North America (James Cleverly)
NATO has a strong partnership with Sweden and Finland. I assure my hon. Friend that our close co-ordination will continue. Our relationship with Sweden and Finland extends to our valued partnership in security and defence bilaterally and through regional groups, such as the joint expeditionary force and the northern group. I note closely what she said about future applications to join NATO from those states.
Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
Vladimir Putin’s decision to severely restrict the BBC World Service in Russia is, I am sure all hon. Members agree, an attack on freedom of speech and on accurate, trustworthy, excellent journalism. The BBC has provided reliable information to the Russian people as Putin wages an illegal and unprovoked war, which he claims to do in their name. Will the Minister tell us what steps he is taking to ensure that the BBC World Service is not targeted further in Russia and across the rest of the world?
James Cleverly
The Government are firm in their defence of media freedom. The conflict in Ukraine has reminded us, if we needed reminding, how important the job of independent, honest journalism is internationally. The BBC World Service is a jewel in the British crown and the Russian language output that it provides is incredibly important in allowing Russians to understand what is being done perversely in their name.
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
Elizabeth Truss
The world, including China, is watching how we and our partners respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine. The reality is that the only thing that Putin and Xi understand is strength, which is why it is so important that we bring more countries into the positive orbit of democratic, free enterprise and freedom-loving economies. That is what we are working to do with our partners in the G7 and more broadly.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
James Cleverly
The Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary have made it absolutely clear that we will open our arms to Ukrainian refugees. The Home Office is working to ensure that that is done promptly and we will continue to support the Home Office in its work in that area.
Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)
Elizabeth Truss
My right hon. Friend is right about the reckless actions of President Putin and about the destabilisation and attempted destabilisation of nuclear facilities, which the United Kingdom called out at the UN Security Council. President Putin is trying to distract from his appalling invasion of Ukraine and the fact that it is not going according to plan by resorting to increased rhetoric. We simply should not respond to those threats.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
Elizabeth Truss
I know from my time at the Department for International Trade that those agreements tend to be signed off by officials.
Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. As I said in response to an earlier question, Russia’s farcical claim that it is opening humanitarian corridors eastwards is, of course, a nonsense. The Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion are typically doing so westwards into the countries bordering Ukraine. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has made the point that, in support of those people, the best thing the British people can do, wherever in the UK they are, is to make cash donations rather than donations in kind. We will ensure that that humanitarian support reaches the people it needs to, and we will continue supporting, both at the borders and here in the UK, those Ukrainian refugees as they flee conflict.
Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Lab)
Despite our deep and historic ties both with Israel and with the Arab world, the UK was entirely absent from the process that led to the Abraham accords in the summer of 2020, and last year’s integrated review made no mention of them whatsoever. Does the Minister agree that if the rhetoric of global Britain is to mean anything, surely the UK should be central to encouraging more of our partners across the Arab world to normalise relations with Israel for the good of the whole middle east?
The Minister for Asia and the Middle East (Amanda Milling)
The Foreign Secretary made clear her commitment to the Abraham accords at the Gulf Co-operation Council and UK Foreign Ministers meeting on 20 December 2021. The UK warmly welcomes the historic steps taken to agree normalisation agreements between Israel, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, and we will continue to work with the US and regional partners to actively encourage further dialogue between Israel and other countries in the region to work towards a more peaceful and prosperous future.
Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)
Elizabeth Truss
The UK remains vigilant to cyber-threats and we are ready to defend against them, working closely with our allies to deter, mitigate and attribute malicious cyber-activity. We are being very active in calling out the terrible cyber-activity by the Russian Government, and of course we will consider all levers of power to protect the UK’s security.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
A year ago, the former Foreign Secretary commissioned an equalities impact assessment of the Government’s aid cuts. We have been trying for almost that length of time to get the document into the public domain. Today is International Women’s Day. Will the Foreign Secretary publish the report by 4 pm today?
Elizabeth Truss
The hon. Lady knows that, in the Budget we are doing this year, we are restoring the aid budget for women and girls back to its previous levels and we are also restoring the humanitarian aid budget. However, it is a matter of policy that we do not publicly release equality impact assessments because they have a chilling effect and people cannot be honest internally. That is why we do not release them, but of course I am very happy to discuss the issue with her further.
Mr Speaker
I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for bringing us on to International Women’s Day. Today is obviously an important day for celebrating the actions of so many courageous women around the world. Will my right hon. Friend speak today about those who have been made particular victims, those who have been chased out of their homes, the young women who have been sold into trafficking and not supported as refugees, and those women who are even now being brutalised in north Africa as they are forced over the border as slaves into southern Europe? Will she please speak about the action that her Department is taking to defend those women and girls?
Elizabeth Truss
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point about how many women and girls are suffering, and covid has made that situation worse. That is why we are restoring our humanitarian budget, why we are restoring the women and girls budget and why we are working on our preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative to stop that happening, as well as increasing the amount of development spending we are using to tackle human trafficking, working with the Home Office. We are working on our international development budget, and we will be announcing it fairly shortly, along with our overall humanitarian strategy.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
I think the importance of the international events the House is dealing with this morning is a clear demonstration that the Department is not ultimately the right place for the protocol to be dealt with. In that vein, can I ask that the Secretary of State recognise the huge damage being done by the protocol? It is costing businesses in Northern Ireland £100,000 per hour. It has damaged the sovereignty of Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom. It is costing a 27% increase in haulage prices. Will the Secretary of State now set a deadline—an absolute deadline—to deal with this matter once and for all?
Elizabeth Truss
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am dealing with this matter. I met various European countries last week to discuss reforming the Northern Ireland protocol, which simply is not working. Communities in Northern Ireland are being treated unfairly and there is an issue with getting goods from GB into Northern Ireland. We have put forward a concrete proposal that will also protect the EU single market and we need to see movement from the EU.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I have the honour of representing one of the largest Chagos islands communities anywhere in the world and the vast majority of them were absolutely appalled at the Mauritian Government’s recent publicity stunt in planting a flag on the outer islands of their archipelago. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that we support the UK sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory?
Amanda Milling
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and let me be absolutely clear that the UK is in no doubt about its sovereignty over BIOT. We were disappointed that Mauritius turned a scientific survey into a political stunt; the raising of Mauritian flags on outer islands of BIOT was an unhelpful way to approach a bilateral dispute. We removed the flags planted by Mauritius on BIOT. There certainly seems to be a range of reactions from Chagossians to this event; it is also very interesting to hear about my hon. Friend’s constituents, and I pay tribute to him for all his work representing Chagossians living in Crawley.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
The Minister is cautioning against donations in kind to Ukraine because of the red tape our exports are tied up in as a result of the Brexit deal; I know that for a fact because I have explored it on behalf of a number of charities in my constituency. What action will the Department take to talk to EU counterparts and ensure the flow of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, given the complexity of sending second-hand goods and so forth abroad now?
Elizabeth Truss
What the hon. and learned Lady said is simply not true. The Polish Government, who the hon. and learned Lady should be listening to—and she should take responsibility here—have said that donations in kind generates
“disproportional amounts of additional work and cost, which proves ineffective and counterproductive”.
With all due respect to the hon. and learned Lady, I think the Polish Government know more about the situation on the border with Ukraine than she does.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
What discussions are the Government having with our overseas territories and Crown dependencies to ensure that the measures we are taking on illicit finance are being supported by them—that those same rules are being introduced in their own territories as well?
Amanda Milling
The UK and the overseas territories stand united in condemning the Russian Government. The UK sanctions regimes apply to all overseas territories, which are completely in step with the UK and our international allies in implementing sanctions against Russia.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
We know that the National Crime Agency is underpowered, but we also know we have a common interest with our European allies in the search for credible information about those oligarchs who should be sanctioned, so what steps are being taken to internationalise this search process to make sure we sanction those who should be sanctioned?
Elizabeth Truss
We are working with our international partners. I attended a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council along with the US and Canada. We are talking about enforcement and are sharing lists and information to make sure our crime agencies are able to tackle this illicit activity.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary said that one of the things that pained her the most was the sale of embassy buildings over many years and she hoped no more of it would happen on her watch. Will she cancel the proposed sale of 45% of our Tokyo embassy estate, which would deeply dishearten one of our closest allies at a time when we are seeking to strengthen the western alliance?
Elizabeth Truss
I share my right hon. Friend’s deep attachment to our Tokyo facilities and am working very hard with our officials on what we can do to make sure we retain our terrific presence, which is just over the road from the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, and any help my right hon. Friend would like to give me as chairman of the all-party group on Japan would be very welcome, including financial assistance and help with the Treasury.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
What representations has the Minister made to our counterparts in Kazakhstan on the security forces’ use of force on people protesting against living standards and on the oppression of peaceful protest?
James Cleverly
Following the outbreak of violence in Kazakhstan, my noble Friend Lord Ahmad met senior representatives of the Kazakh Government, including President Tokayev’s special representative. In those contacts, he underlined the need to ensure that law enforcement responses are proportionate and in accordance with Kazakhstan’s international obligations. He also stressed the importance of conducting the investigation into the unrest urgently, transparently and effectively.
Mr Speaker
I call Laurence Robertson to ask the final question.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
While the world rightly focuses on the terrible events in Ukraine, I remind the House of the terrible ongoing conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, where women in particular are suffering the most terrible attacks and there is also a potential famine. I know that the Minister is taking a deep interest in that, but can the Government do any more to help?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)
I thank my hon. Friend for continuing to shine a light on the terrible situation in Ethiopia. It is the world’s most severe humanitarian crisis. From north to south, 30 million people require life-saving aid, 5 million people have been displaced because of conflict and tens of millions of people are affected by the drought. Again, I urge all parties in the north of the country to lay down their arms and facilitate humanitarian access. Since December, one truck has got through, but 100 a day are needed. There is a high-scale risk of loss of life. We must continue to stand with the people of Ethiopia and, as my hon. Friend says, especially the women and girls on International Women’s Day.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Following the Foreign Secretary’s answer to me about the FCDO’s equalities impact assessment conducted in March 2021, I seek your advice on any other way to encourage her to fulfil her duty to the House, as is stated in the ministerial code, to be
“held to account, for…policies, decisions and actions”,
to be
“as open as possible with Parliament”
and to refuse to provide information
“only when disclosure would not be in the public interest”.
The Foreign Secretary said that the Government’s practice is not to formally publish equalities assessments and has added her view that that would have a “chilling effect” on the advice prepared by officials. However, that is confusing as a range of equalities impact assessments have been published in the past, such as for the Coronavirus Bill, and no one will be surprised that the former Department for International Development commissioned independent reviews of its assessment work and that the Independent Commission for Aid Impact also examined such issues. It is fundamentally deplorable that the Foreign Secretary has used the assessment to celebrate her Department but will not put the information into the public domain.
Mr Speaker
It is very important that scrutiny Committees have access to relevant papers and records to do the job that the House has delegated to them. The International Development Committee is best placed to assess what information is needed for its inquiries, and I trust that Members on the Government Front Bench have heard the hon. Member’s concerns and will respond to the Committee’s request in a timely manner and provide the papers.
Ukraine: Urgent Refugee Applications
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if she will make a statement on how her Department can speed up the urgent refugee applications coming from those leaving Ukraine.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Kevin Foster)
President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a barbaric and unprovoked attack and we stand shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainian people. He must fail in Ukraine.
This Government have brought forward a generous humanitarian offer to those Ukrainians who want to come to the UK to escape the conflict. Last week, the Home Secretary announced a new Ukraine family scheme for those with family ties to the UK, and we are extending the scheme further to include aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins and in-laws. The scheme went live last Friday and has already seen over 10,000 applications submitted, for which over 500 visas have been issued, with more being issued as we speak. We have also announced that we are setting up a new humanitarian sponsorship visa, and we are working at pace with our colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to set that up. We will also work with the devolved Administrations.
We have made significant progress in a short space of time, on top of the first phase of the package that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary set out to the House last week. I also remind the House that a crucial part of the application process is providing biometrics so that we can be sure that applicants are who they say they are. Sadly, we are already seeing people presenting at Calais with false documents claiming to be Ukrainian. With incidents like Salisbury still in our minds, the Government will not take chances with the security of this country and our people. Our friends in the United States, Canada and Australia are rightly taking the same approach as we are.
I would like to update the House on the measures that we are taking to speed up and process the applications and to ensure that we can help applicants as quickly as possible. We have surged staff to key visa application centres across Europe, particularly in Poland, and moved more biometric kit to support them. We have ensured that casework teams are standing by in the UK to process applications to ensure that there are no delays.
We will also establish a larger presence in northern France to help Ukrainians in the region. It is essential that we do not create a choke point at places like Calais, where dangerous people smugglers are present, and ensure the smooth flow of people through the system from across Europe. Alongside that, we are working with our embassies around the world to ensure that we use our diplomatic channels to support our efforts and to provide the latest information.
We have taken decisive action. We are now providing regular public updates on our casework numbers and we will continue to keep the House updated on this progress.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
I thank my hon. Friend for that comprehensive answer. It is very impressive that the Prime Minister and this Government have taken such a world-leading role, uniting the west in imposing one of the toughest sanctions regimes and providing military support for Ukraine.
However, the UK has always been generous in admitting refugees, especially in times of crisis in Europe, dating back to the Huguenots. Concerned constituents have contacted me, so will my hon. Friend tell the House how we can speed up the necessary processing of refugees leaving the truly awful situation in Ukraine? Will he also update the House on what is happening in Calais, so that they can be processed either there or close by with transport provided?
I understand that we require a process to securely check applications that are made not only for security reasons, but so that we can provide support in this country. However, we surely could speed the process up by, for example, rewashing biometric and other data that we already have. We need not only efficiency, but humanity when processing applications of refugees from Ukraine and we should warmly welcome those refugees to this country.
Kevin Foster
I thank my hon. Friend for the way in which he put his questions. He is right that we as a country have stood forward to support Ukraine, not least in supplying it with the weaponry that is being used to defend people’s homes and to push back this barbaric and unprovoked attack on their nation.
I appreciate that there are concerns. We are training new caseworkers, who, as of tomorrow, will take more decisions. We are looking to review what we can and to use some of the technology that we have—for example, around what we deployed for the British nationals overseas route and how that could be brought into effect. We are also reviewing some of the requirements on biometrics for under-18s to free up visa appointments in visa application centres.
On my hon. Friend’s specific points on northern France, we are looking to establish a presence in Lille and potentially looking at transport options from Calais to Lille. There are issues with providing particular application points at the port, but we are looking at how we can do it, and we expect that to be set up within the next 24 hours.
Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
It is deeply disappointing that the Home Secretary is not here to respond, given the gravity of the issue—especially after she gave wrong information to the House several times yesterday.
Two million refugees have left Ukraine. Other countries are supporting hundreds of thousands of people; the Home Office is currently issuing about 250 family scheme visas a day. Most people want to stay close to home, but some want to come here to join family or friends, and we should be helping them. Instead, most people are still being held up by Home Office bureaucracy or are being turned away.
Yesterday, the Home Secretary told the House twice that a visa centre en route to Calais had been set up, but it still does not exist. The Foreign Secretary has just said that it might be in Lille, nearly 75 miles from Calais. The Home Office said this morning that no decision had been taken. Which is it? Has it? Where is it? Can people get there yet?
The Home Secretary said yesterday:
“It is wrong to say that we are just turning people back”.—[Official Report, 7 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 27.]
But there are 600 people in Calais right now who have been turned back and are being told to go to Brussels, where the visa centre is open only three days a week, or to Paris, where people are still being told that the next appointment is on 15 March, a week away. In Warsaw, people are also still being told that the next appointment is on 15 March, a week away. In Rzeszów, the booking system seems to have completely broken down: this morning, they are sending people away.
The Home Office was warned by the chief inspector in November that the geographical spread of visa application centres was a real problem for vulnerable applicants, leading to difficult journeys, yet it did nothing about it, even when it was given weeks of warning by British intelligence that an invasion was coming.
Yesterday, the Home Secretary told me that elderly aunts were covered by the scheme. Two hours later, the Home Office helpline said that they were not. I welcome the inclusion of extended relatives, but the Government should not be continuing to change the system in a chaotic way, rather than opening it properly. Will the Government urgently set up emergency visa centres at all major travel points, do the security checks on the spot and then issue emergency visas for Ukrainians—for all family, but not just family—so that they can come here and the UK can do our historic bit to help refugees fleeing war in Europe, as we have done before?
Kevin Foster
The answer to the right hon. Lady’s points about setting up a facility in northern France was in the comments that I have just made about Lille and about setting it up in the next 24 hours.
On the numbers that the right hon. Lady cites, we are training more decision makers as we speak. We are pulling people in from across UK Visas and Immigration to ensure that there is an almost frictionless approach to caseworking, and we will see the number of visas issued ramping up each day.
But this is a complex scenario. As I touched on in my statement, we have seen people presenting themselves at Calais port pretending to be Ukrainian. [Interruption.] I appreciate that some Opposition Members may think that that is not an issue, but we need only look at some of the statements coming out of the Kremlin to see which countries are very much in the crosshairs of Mr Putin’s Russia and his regime. We only have to look back a short period to see the impact in this country of attacks by those pretending that they had come here to look at a cathedral spire.
We will move out to extend this. We recognise the desperate plight that there is; that is why we are working with countries on the ground, providing humanitarian aid and ensuring that we are helping to provide support as people cross borders. We are looking to ensure that we have a wide system that allows people to come here, and abandoning many of our normal requirements for countries. We recognise that it is not a time for the usual immigration process, hence the system that we are setting up. As we have said, we have the confidence that it will expand. We know that the British people will be generous. We know that when we move to open up the sponsorship visa, many people, including many of our constituents, will want to step forward.
I will just say that if we look at the surveys being done in Ukraine about which countries people feel are most on their side, it is notable which one regularly comes top.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
I am sorry that the Home Secretary is not here today to answer our questions. In response to my question yesterday, she said:
“I have already made it clear, in terms of the visa application centre that has now been set up en route to Calais, that we have staff in Calais”.—[Official Report, 7 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 28.]
That was untrue, and under any normal Administration that in itself would be a resignation issue. There is no visa centre at Lille yet, although earlier this morning the Foreign Secretary said that there was.
A week ago, the Home Secretary announced the introduction of a humanitarian sponsorship visa. There is as yet no humanitarian sponsorship visa. It is time that the Home Office granted a visa waiver, and allowed children and all adults with Ukrainian passports to come into the country now.
Kevin Foster
I understand that the Home Secretary clarified her remarks yesterday, and I have been clear about the position regarding the centre that we are establishing.
I do hear the appeal that has been made, but there is a reason why we believe it is right that key security checks are carried out before people arrive in the United Kingdom. We are, however, reviewing the specific position on the provision of biometrics by those aged under 18. We will act on the basis of risk and advice that we receive, including advice from our security services. We are a country that is in Mr Putin’s crosshairs, we are a country that has stood resolutely behind the Ukrainian Government and continues to do so, and we are a country that will welcome literally thousands of people in what is probably one of the biggest moves to provide shelter and refuge for a generation.
Mr Speaker
I call the Scottish National party spokesperson, Stuart C. McDonald.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I agree with the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale): it is time to stop messing about with the broken bureaucracy and to scrap it altogether, with no more visas required. That is how we can quickly fulfil our obligations to the people of Ukraine. Our European allies can do it safely and securely, so why cannot the Home Secretary? There are other ways to address our security concerns after the arrival of refugees, such as what we do with non-visa nationals and what we did with evacuated Afghans. The Minister should not quote Salisbury at us, because that has nothing whatever to do with this situation.
How does the Minister justify all the other massive restrictions on who can come here? Why can a cousin not join a cousin? Why do no non-family ties count at all? Crucially, why is it that many thousands of Ukrainians in this country—whether skilled workers, agricultural workers or students—cannot be joined by anyone under the family rules, just because they do not have permanent residence yet? People cannot wait months for possible community sponsorship.
Finally, let me ask this question again: does not the last fortnight illustrate just how ill-conceived the disgraceful Nationality and Borders Bill is? Under the Bill, a Ukrainian fleeing here to join a cousin or friend could be criminalised, offshored, imprisoned—all because there is no visa for them. That is utterly indefensible, is it not?
Kevin Foster
Having been closely involved in the evacuation from Kabul, along with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, I would remind the hon. Gentleman that we did carry out security checks on people who were leaving what was a very different and very dynamic environment, especially given the obvious threat, so the suggestion that we did not carry out any checks before that evacuation is not correct.
As for the launch of the sponsorship scheme, we do not see that taking months, as the hon. Gentleman suggested. We are already seeing people coming forward with generous offers of homes, jobs and wider support. A hotel in my constituency with a Ukrainian speaker is starting to look at the possibility of offering jobs and accommodation. As the hon. Gentleman knows, last week I had a helpful and productive conversation with the relevant Scottish Government Minister, and, to be fair, I know that the Scottish Government will also step up and do what they can.
The hon. Gentleman said that it was not appropriate to use the Salisbury example, but we do need to remember why we have these checks in place. It is because, as we have already seen at Calais, there are people presenting with false documents, and there are people making claims that are not true. However, I recognise that the House wants to see us getting on with processing, putting more people on to this work, and ensuring that we can, as quickly as possible, provide for a very large number of people to move into the UK. As I have said, this one of our biggest moves to provide sanctuary for a generation.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. Let me say to Members, so that they can help each other, that these exchanges will run until about 1.40 pm, so the shorter the questions and answers, the better it will be.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
Snails also move “at pace”. No date has yet been set for a humanitarian sponsorship visa scheme, and as a result people who are coming forward with generous offers are advising their Ukrainian friends to apply for visitors’ visas. But what of those who do not have passports? What of children who are completely undocumented? When my hon. Friend the Minister says that he is moving at pace, he should bear in mind that the pace needs to be a great deal faster.
Kevin Foster
It is possible for children and others to travel to the UK without a passport if permission has been granted. As a former Immigration Minister, my right hon. Friend will be familiar with that process. As for where we are at present, we are making sure that the process is being stepped up. We have extended the provisions, and of course the sponsorship route will provide a whole new opportunity for people to extend a generous offer and the hand of friendship to those who need sanctuary in the UK.
Mr Speaker
I call the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Diana Johnson.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I am grateful for the granting of the urgent question, but I think that a statement from the Home Office would have been a much better way of dealing with the confusion of recent days.
I believe we are united in the House in wanting to do the right thing for the Ukrainian people who are fleeing in fear of their lives, and to offer protection and sanctuary. The Home Affairs Committee has twice invited the Minister to come and explain how the Home Office is dealing with this. He has agreed to come next week and we are grateful for that, but we should not have to ask twice.
I want to ask the Minister why, on Sunday, the Home Secretary went on record to tell journalists:
“I am…investigating the legal options to create a humanitarian route.
This means anyone without ties to the UK fleeing the conflict in Ukraine will have a right to come to this nation.”
On Monday, Ministers seemed to have no idea about that. Can the Minister update us? Is this matter under consideration in the Home Office, given that there is clearly a great deal of support for the granting of a humanitarian visa?
Kevin Foster
As the right hon. Lady will know from my original letter to her, we felt that pulling officials away to do a session before the Home Affairs Committee tomorrow would have meant pulling them—and me—away from the preparations for bringing people to the UK. However, we also specifically said that we would seek to agree on a later date, and that could, perhaps, have been reflected in the statement issued on Friday.
Let me deal with the right hon. Lady’s more substantive points. We have the existing process for those who have relatives here, and we are extending it well beyond the normal relatives and dependants. Moreover, the wider sponsorship route will provide many other opportunities for people to come to the UK.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that most of the help with processing visas should be provided close to the Ukrainian border? What are the Government doing to increase processing there—in particular, in the small country of Moldova, which has taken more than 80,000 Ukrainians? Have we a presence there, and how open is that visa centre?
Kevin Foster
We do have visa application centres in the countries bordering Ukraine, and we have stepped up capacity there, particularly in countries that are in the European economic area. Normally a very small number of EEA nationals need to go to a visa application centre, so we have been bringing in resources from other areas to bolster those centres. There is, in fact, a centre in Moldova. I understand that it has moved to seven-day working, although obviously demand will be very high, and people can apply from any visa application centre where they can get an appointment; they do not need to be in a country immediately bordering Ukraine. As I have said, we continue to expand capacity, and we are considering the position relating to those under 18 and whether they need to provide biometrics.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I think the House would be more impressed by the Minister’s security concerns had his initial response not been to tweet, “Let them pick fruit.” He speaks about complex scenarios. Is he not even a little embarrassed that the United Kingdom, uniquely in Europe, seems to be finding it too difficult to tackle those complex scenarios?
Kevin Foster
Again, I would make the point that we have stepped up a system that will grant three years of leave, giving people more permanent status here in the UK and the security to move forward. As we have always said, there is a range of routes available. It should come as no surprise that those countries that are least popular with the Putin regime—ourselves, the US, Canada and Australia—are taking similar approaches.
Dame Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
The breadth of support that the UK Government are offering to Ukraine is fantastic, as is recognised by Ukrainians. It is shocking to hear the Opposition jeering at the prospect of the Government trying to protect the UK people from further such attacks as took place in Salisbury. Nevertheless, I agree with colleagues who are concerned about the speed of processing of these visas. In particular, in my own constituency I have someone whose sister-in-law is stuck in Ukraine and someone else whose aunt is stuck there. Can my hon. Friend give us an update on what exactly we are doing to facilitate family reunification?
Kevin Foster
I thank my right hon. Friend for her question. I would make the point that people do not need to wait in Ukraine if they are thinking of applying for the humanitarian family visa and if they are able to travel safely across Ukraine. We all recognise the reality of the barbaric approach that some Russian forces are taking to civilians. It is clear that there are regular breaches of international law and that war crimes are being committed, so there is a real issue about whether people can genuinely travel safely across Ukraine, but if they wish to, they can travel to a safe and democratic country across the border and make their application from there. As I have said, we have extended the definition, and we are rapidly expanding the caseworking teams to ensure that we can get through the applications and get people here so that they can be with their relatives in the UK.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
Does the Minister understand how poorly it reflects on this country that our system for processing Ukrainian refugees is so slow and shambolic? Even accepting the need for biometric tests and so on, why can they not be done on the spot? Why can this not be expedited so that these desperate people can come and join their families here in the UK?
Kevin Foster
Across the world, people are reflecting on the immense support that the United Kingdom and this Government have provided to the people of Ukraine. That is reflected quite regularly in comments by those who are in Ukraine. We are looking to speed up the process but it is important to carry out essential security checks for the reasons we have outlined.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
I hate to harp on about the phrase “at pace”, but can the Minister give some indication whether it will be weeks or months before the humanitarian sponsorship route is open? Separately, I take his point about security and the need for biometric checks, but I do not understand why those checks cannot be done in this country once we have got the people here safe and sound.
Kevin Foster
Those who are applying are actually in safe countries as we speak. As I have said, there is no requirement for people to stay in Ukraine to make an application if they can safely make their way across the border to one of the safe and democratic countries next door that we are supporting to provide support for those crossing the border. My right hon. Friend will know from his own experience that, for a range of reasons, if we bring people into the country we perform checks, but we certainly do not want to go down the route of using immigration detention powers while these checks are being undertaken. We do not believe that that would be appropriate at all.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
One visa centre in Poland has closed its doors and is no longer allowing walk-in appointments. It is 3° outside, and there is an 81-year-old woman outside, along with other women and children. There is plenty of room inside but the centre will not open its doors. This is complete chaos, and it is unacceptable. What is the Minister going to do about it?
Kevin Foster
I am happy to look at the particular example that the hon. Gentleman has cited, but we are surging staff and resource and we are conscious of the position there and of how we can increase capacity to ensure that we can get as many people in as possible. In particular, I have already touched on looking at whether children need to give biometrics. We will be guided on that by the security advice that we receive. That will mean that there will be large numbers of extra appointments, plus a cohort that will not need to submit biometrics.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
One way we can rapidly scale up capacity is to use technology. What is my hon. Friend’s view of the ability of Ukrainians with biometric passports to use the UK Immigration: ID Check app, which does apply and has been used by many applications from Hong Kong? May I commend that course of action to him?
Kevin Foster
We are looking at adapting the AUK2 app for Hong Kong special administrative region—HKSAR—passports as well as for British national overseas passports. Adapting it for BNO passports was relatively easy; HKSAR passports were slightly more complex. This is something we have been looking at, although it does bring certain challenges to ensure that passports can be read and that the process goes through appropriately, but it is something that we are actively considering because it would allow us to issue e-visas.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
From offers by individual constituents and the Welsh Government’s action in talking to Cardiff airport about welcoming refugees there, we can see support from the British people who are very keen to welcome Ukrainian refugees. However, I am immensely embarrassed that, while other countries across Europe have been welcoming them with open arms for three years without any questions about being part of particular family, the Minister is so determined that we should not have a broader and more welcoming system for all Ukrainians to come here.
Kevin Foster
I would point to the sponsorship system that will be set up, which will be open pretty much to many and all Ukrainians, although I remind the House that the vast majority of people understandably want to remain in the region. They will want to go home after the invader has been defeated and expelled from their country. The idea that all Ukrainians are looking to move elsewhere is not correct, but the sponsorship scheme will allow a wide and generous offer and we very much look forward to seeing offers to sponsor people coming forward from across Wales.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
The Minister has talked about training new decision-makers. How many are being trained today? What discussions have taken place with retired decision-makers and caseworkers, and what discussions have happened across Government with other people who are used to making decisions on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, to assess how they could assist with this issue?
Kevin Foster
I thank my right hon. Friend for his thoughtful question. We have 50 in training today, and we are bringing the whole of UK Visas and Immigration’s quite significant resource to bear on this. In the first instance, we will take decision-makers off other immigration routes, because they will be familiar with immigration decisions and will therefore be more likely to take immigration decisions more quickly in this area. We are also talking to other Government Departments about apprentices and others who can potentially backfill other parts of the immigration system. UKVI employs thousands of decision-makers and we are looking across the piece at those with experience that we can deploy in this area and then potentially backfill other parts with those from other Departments.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
I have a list here of everything my constituent has done to get his Ukrainian wife into this country. He started with an application on 12 February. They lost his family in the system. I have spoken to the Minister and I have been to the hub. Today my constituent emailed me four times to say that he was in Rzeszów, that the transport layer security—TLS—system was broken, that his appointment had not been registered and that there was no guarantee he would be seen. The final email said that he had been advised to leave the visa application centre, which had managed to process only seven people and was down from two clerks to one. He has been advised to go to the embassy in Warsaw. He needs biometrics, because nobody will look at him until he has them, but he is a UK national and all he wants is to get his wife and daughters back to Wishaw. Help!
Kevin Foster
The hon. Lady will realise that it would not be appropriate for me to go into the detail of individual cases on the Floor of the House, but I am very happy to speak to her afterwards to see what we can do to resolve the situation.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
As a former Immigration Minister, I am very sympathetic to the need to do appropriate security checks. I have publicly defended the Government on this issue, but we need to grip the pace of this, which will require Ministers to take decisions to move things along quickly.
The Home Secretary announced the humanitarian sponsorship route a week ago. I heard what my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) said about weeks or months, but I was thinking about days. I expect a Minister to be at the Dispatch Box by Thursday to set it out. We have to start working at the pace these events require, so will the Minister commit to an update on the humanitarian sponsorship scheme on Thursday?
Kevin Foster
The Government will be happy to update Members on Thursday on what is happening, whether through a “Dear colleague” letter or another appropriate forum. We intend that it will be weeks, not months, before we start welcoming people into the UK. This will be an unlimited offer that reflects people’s generosity, but I appreciate that we now need to get on and get it launched.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I have been in the Chamber since the start of business, and it is not often that I feel ashamed. I have listened to a range of Ministers make half-baked excuses for no action. The President of Ukraine will be speaking to us later, and this is when our hearts, minds and prayers are with the people of Ukraine. For God’s sake, will the ministerial team and the Government please get their act together and open the doors to these poor people?
Kevin Foster
We look forward to hearing the President later, and we reflect on how he has inspired his people in resisting the invasion, including with the arms we have supplied. We are, as we have outlined, surging decision makers, upping the capacity of VAC and considering whether under-18s should continue submitting biometrics, which would not only speed up their applications but free up appointments for others. We are moving caseworking resource from across UKVI to get through the applications, and we will continue to take further action to speed up the process. I hear what the House is saying.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
I thank the officials in the Portcullis House hub who are providing helpful advice to constituents.
We have been advised to get people to Rzeszów in Poland for biometric testing to support their application, but the word on the ground is that there are no biometric appointments in Rzeszów until the end of next month. When constituents’ families are sent to these posts for biometric testing, can the Minister confirm that the testing will actually be available?
Kevin Foster
I am concerned about that example. We will continue to look to increase biometric capacity. As I said, we are actively considering removing the need for biometric testing for under-18s and whether we can adapt the technology we used for Hong Kong BNOs who do not need to go to a VAC as part of their application, which would innately create further capacity for people to come through the system. We will continue to look at how we can surge and increase the capacity of our application centres across the region, not just the one that has been cited.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituents in Vauxhall want to see the UK make it clear that refugees are welcome. We need a clear and simple process in place for people seeking asylum, but vulnerable people need support before they get to the border. There are urgent humanitarian problems, including access to food, transportation, sanitation and hygiene facilities, mental health services, bereavement support and emergency healthcare, including for people living with HIV. Will the Minister please ensure that the UK’s asylum system begins with immediate aid for people who need to flee?
Kevin Foster
The hon. Lady makes some strong points. One of the reasons we are working closely with the countries bordering Ukraine is that, given the end of direct travel, it is extremely unlikely that people will make it to the UK in a day. Those who have just crossed the border from Ukraine will need a range of support, including medical support, and colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care are talking with the Polish health authorities because Poland’s hospitals are clearly beginning to become fairly full. We will need to look across western Europe for others to support them, including by potentially taking patients from those hospitals into the UK. I make it clear that people who enter our asylum system will arrive with status and will be able to get on with their life. They will not have to make a further application here.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Salisbury borders my constituency, so I fully accept the need for security checks, particularly on adult males. But the fact remains that the Republic of Ireland, with which we share a common travel area, has a population of 5 million and has committed to take 100,000 refugees from Ukraine, having already admitted more than 2,000. This country, with a population of 67 million, has come nowhere close to that. Why not?
Kevin Foster
First, looking at what we are doing, we estimate that about 100,000 people are potentially eligible for the family route, and we have an unlimited position on the sponsorship route, which could well see us exceed quite significantly the numbers offered by the Republic of Ireland.
Visas are now going out. As I said, nearly 500 had been granted as of 9.30 this morning, and more are being granted as we speak. We are surging decision-making capability and upping the biometrics process, which will quickly increase the numbers arriving in the United Kingdom, on top of the numbers we have already welcomed as we moved UK nationals and their families earlier this year.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
My constituent Michael Jevdokymenko has been contacted by his family, who have fled from Ukraine. They have no documents, no papers—nothing. They are at the border with a little three-year-old child. What assistance can we provide to give that family hope, to get them to Northern Ireland and to let them re-establish some semblance of normality? Where is the Christian compassion for which this nation was known?
Kevin Foster
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that example. We are conscious that people are leaving without the normal proof they might have of family relationships. It would clearly be inappropriate to insist that people try to get a marriage certificate or something like that if they have fled from their home. We have provisions that allow travel without passports and other documents, obviously once certain checks and nominations are done. Again, that is part of the process that is being established.
We are conscious that, even where people have access to documents, they might not have the full documents. We are also conscious that people will potentially have left in a hurry, so they may not have had time to bring particular documents. Not having a passport will not be a bar, but we will need to use other processes to identify them, which is not unusual in situations where we are moving people at pace.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
So much about this does not feel right, and my constituents know what they see. All of this is far too robotic. As the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) said, very little Christian compassion is being shown at the moment. Surely we are past the UK saying that we are going to have a generous scheme; it is time to deliver a generous scheme.
The family scheme is too slow and the humanitarian sponsorship scheme, as I raised with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities yesterday, is still being designed at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. I do not want to hear the Minister say that that is another Department, as he is the Minister at the Dispatch Box. At the very least, can we have a simple online gateway up and running tomorrow so that constituents who want to help can at least register their interest? There is so much compassion and desire to help, but people are not able to do so.
Kevin Foster
I recognise my hon. Friend’s concern. The vast majority of councils in this country, including my own, took part in the Afghan resettlement scheme, and many are already offering to take details and offers of help in preparation for the launch of the humanitarian sponsorship route. I encourage my constituents to do it, and I know he will be encouraging his constituents to think of what offers they can make. The compassion of this country is shown by the fact this will be an unlimited scheme, on top of the family scheme, and could potentially be one of the biggest movements into communities in the UK since the evacuations of the 1930s.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for his personal help, but my constituents share the absolute frustration at the speed at which the Government are moving on this issue. Can he get a grip on the situation in Warsaw? I heard today of people who are seeking to join their family in the UK but who are being told that there are no appointments available until at least 15 March, even though they have been in Poland for some time having escaped Kyiv. Will he publish how many staff have actually been posted to Warsaw, Bucharest, Budapest, Bratislava and Chisinau? Have we actually sent staff? Are all of them operating at seven-day capacity? How long do people have to wait for appointments in those locations?
Kevin Foster
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his points. We are surging staff into our visa applications centres; I am conscious of the fact that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office also has a separate system of posts and diplomatic presence there. We are looking at how we can expand the capacities, and I have touched on some other things we are looking at in order to remove the need for a biometric appointment entirely.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Yet again, we see the Home Office refusing to grasp the urgency of this crisis. Just like the Afghan resettlement scheme, these schemes are too limited and progress is too slow. My constituents are desperate to help and are offering their homes, but no sponsorship information is available. The Welsh Government are offering to help, as are Welsh local authorities. What discussions has the Minister had with them to facilitate this scheme? What estimate does he have of the number of sponsorships available in Wales?
Kevin Foster
On engagement with the Welsh Government, I understand that colleagues in the Department that lead on this have spoken to the Welsh and Scottish Governments about the provisions. Of course this will depend on how many sponsors come forward and how many people want to be part of welcoming people into their own homes and own community across Wales—I suspect we will see a generous amount. On urgency, we took 16,000 people out of Kabul in two weeks, we worked at pace and we are still evacuating people out of Afghanistan as we speak. We will soon be welcoming many thousands from Ukraine into the UK, alongside having the most generous sponsorship scheme that exists, given that it is completely uncapped.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Many of the Ukrainian refugees who eventually get here will be vulnerable women and children, not all of whom will have relatives here who can offer a roof over their heads. Have the Government given any thought to setting up some sort of portal or clearing house where offers of accommodation can be made and basic safety checks can also be made before vulnerable people take up those offers?
Kevin Foster
My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. We are talking about potentially vulnerable individuals arriving in a cohort, and we will need to make sure that basic safeguarding checks are in place, particularly where people are offering to welcome people into their homes. I know that my colleagues are closely looking at how that can be done, but without it becoming a barrier to enabling the swift movement of this scheme.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
A refugee is a refugee, regardless of the colour of their skin or their background. So I am deeply concerned about reports of refugees from a BAME background being stopped at the Ukrainian border and turned away. Does the Minister agree that such reports are despicable? What are the Government doing to ensure the safe passage of all refugees fleeing from this horrific conflict?
Kevin Foster
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the fact that Ukraine provided a safe haven for people leaving Afghanistan. It is not just one community living in Ukraine; like our own country, it is a set of ideals as a nation and it is not based on a particular ethnicity. It would be concerning to hear that people are being turned away at the Ukrainian border. Obviously, we do not control that border, as he will appreciate. There is also Ukrainian law to consider in relation to men aged 18 to 60, who are required to stay in Ukraine for military service, including dual nationals. Again, that is a decision taken by Ukraine. However, we would certainly be clear that race and ethnicity should not play any part in the decisions taken at that border on allowing people to leave Ukraine and enter safe and democratic countries next door, and then potentially move on to the UK via our schemes.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I appreciate that Ministers and officials are grappling with a horrendously complex situation, but it is worrying that some contradictory advice has been offered to Members. I have a constituent who has pre-settled status and I was told by the Members’ help desk on Thursday that she would be able to bring her two young children across. Yesterday, she emailed to say that, no, the published advice was against that. I went back to the help desk, where they said they were going to escalate the query. I am escalating it even further, to the Minister: does this lady with pre-settled status have the ability to bring her two young children into the UK?
Kevin Foster
This is probably one I may wish to take away and look at, in respect of the rules around the EU settlement scheme, particularly if this lady was here with pre-settled status during the time of free movement, because some particular rules apply to those people—again, they are free-of-charge application routes. I would certainly be happy to take that one away and get confirmation.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The Minister may be interested to know—I am very surprised he has not already mentioned this—that Citizens UK has set up a registration link for communities and individuals who want to register their interest in community sponsorship. Community sponsorship is a route by which people can come to the UK only if a scheme exists to which communities can apply. The delay in setting up the Afghan scheme was a disgrace, so will the Minister say when we will have a scheme? Community sponsorship is a lengthy process and it can take up to a year before a community group can be matched with a family to come here, so will he say what will be different about this scheme that will make it fit for purpose to meet the urgency of this crisis?
Kevin Foster
I recognise that a number of groups are encouraging people to register to help, and I welcome that—again, once the official scheme moves forward, that will be a welcome source of information. On community sponsorship, the hon. Lady rightly highlights some of the issue. On a wider point, we have announced that we are going to look at that, as we do think community sponsorship takes too long and too many barriers can be thrown in the way of it. On this scheme, our intention is for a minimised process that does not involve things such as local authority consent and some of the things we see in community sponsorship. This is much simplified and is about matching up those who are prepared to make a particular offer of accommodation and support, and those who are able to take that up, subject, as the hon. Lady would expect, to some of the safeguarding issues that I have touched on already.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
It is wholly appropriate to recognise the breadth and scale of support that the Government have given, as well as the significant steps that the Minister and his colleagues have taken. But we also need to recognise and understand the desperate plight of people fleeing such persecution and the risks they face. My constituent Yuri Nobles has returned to Ukraine to bring family members back but is struggling to get an appointment, like so many others here. In recognising the challenge the Minister faces and the challenge from the constituent, may I ask what consideration the Minister has given to extending expired biometric assessments, which can easily be extended to be made appropriate now?
Kevin Foster
As I touched on partly in my reference to the system that was used for British nationals overseas, we are looking at what role could be played by previously submitted biometrics and at those who have previously had visas to the UK in the recent past who possess a biometric passport. As this stage, we are conscious that where we can reduce the numbers who need to go to a visa application centre, it will free up capacity. As I say, however, our first thoughts have been looking at the requirements for those under 18 and we are looking at the final security advice on doing that.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
Using the risk from Kremlin operatives—who have rather easier ways of reaching this country than by posing as refugees—as an excuse for this mean-spirited and shambolic approach simply will not do. Until the Minister follows the advice of the right hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), are he and his fellow Ministers not going to have to keep coming back to this House to explain this shambles? Just do what the right hon. Gentleman suggested, and what the whole of the rest of Europe is doing, and offer visa-free entry for a limited period to Ukrainian refugees.
Kevin Foster
As I have outlined, there are clear reasons why we are doing this and we do believe it is right. Basic security checks are made for people arriving in the UK and this is not just happening in the UK; the USA, Canada and Australia are doing exactly the same.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
A professional couple from Malmesbury in my constituency tell me that they are in Poland trying to help their relations from Ukraine, who are very well-educated and English-speaking, of course. They tell me that they are sitting up late into the night tussling with the complexities of the forms involved, including one for a child who is one year old, to whom the form does not apply—it asks for his employment and so on. They tell me that the information they are getting on the website is quite different from the information they are getting on the ground; that, like so many others, they have been told they cannot have an appointment for at least another week; and that the hotels in Poland are full and therefore they have nowhere to stay. They just need the thing simplified. I would not go as far as asking for a visa waiver, and the Minister would not want to do that, but surely to goodness he could make the system simpler, simplify the form and cut the time taken.
Kevin Foster
It is a fair point and I am certainly happy to hear my hon. Friend’s feedback and what his constituents have encountered in more depth after the urgent question. As I say, more than 10,000 applications have been submitted to a scheme that went live on Friday, which indicates that quite a large number of people are getting through the process, but we certainly continue to consider how we can make it simpler and quicker and, as I have touched on, we are reviewing things such as the need for those aged under 18 to submit biometrics.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I am sure that, on International Women’s Day, I do not have to remind the Minister of the particular vulnerability of women in war zones. My Edinburgh South West constituent Oleg Dmitriev has two nieces in Ukraine. He tells me that they are reluctant to flee because what they are hearing on the news makes them think it will be very difficult for them to join their uncle in Scotland. They are asking him why they should risk their lives to get to a third country when the likelihood of their getting a visa to join their uncle in the United Kingdom is vanishingly small. What should Oleg say to his nieces?
Kevin Foster
I would say to Oleg that, first, we have extended the scheme to include nieces, and if they are his nieces and he wishes them to come to the United Kingdom, they will be able to get a visa to do so. As the hon. and learned Lady touched on, in respect of travel from and within Ukraine, people are in a perilous situation due to the barbaric actions of Russian forces. As we have said, a niece would certainly stand a good chance of getting a visa and they should certainly make an application.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I am proud of my constituents who are coming forward to offer as much help as possible and I am proud of the Prime Minister in the way he is leading the world, but the Home Office is cutting off their legs and it is simply not good enough. Does the Home Office recognise that this is a war the likes of which have not been seen for 80 years in Europe? We do not want to stand in this House and listen to plans and processes; we want dates and we want action. The Home Office must react far more quickly than it is doing and get to the point of hubs of people, get them processed and get them in. This is a disgrace. I ask the Minister, when he leaves the Dispatch Box, to go back to the Home Office and tell it to get a grip!
Kevin Foster
As I have already outlined, we are making quite a number of changes. We met officials this morning to push further ones through and we have extended the entitlements and who can apply. As I say, this will become one of the biggest relocations of people since the wartime evacuation. Let us just get this into perspective and scale: it is beyond what we have done for BNOs, what we have done over a number of years for Syrians and what we propose to do for Afghan nationals. This will show a generous side of the United Kingdom, alongside the support we have been providing for Ukraine more generally, which has created a very strong impression of the United Kingdom.
Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab)
Yesterday, I was speaking to a constituent, Stephanie, who was fighting back the tears as she told me how terrified she is about the security of her family, with whom she has lost contact. I am disgusted by the lack of urgency and compassion from the Government. Will the Minister say why the visa application centre in Brussels is closed? Why is it open only three days a week?
Kevin Foster
As we say, we have been surging staff into the region. We do not want to see people having to travel all the way to western Europe to make applications, having left their country and having made what is now an increasingly dangerous journey across Ukraine, particularly if people come into contact with Russian forces, who are showing minimal respect for international law, or perhaps none at all. As we say, we are surging staff and increasing processing capacity, and Members will start to see the impact of that very shortly.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
I am glad that the Home Secretary visited the Ukrainian social club in my constituency, with the Ukrainian ambassador, to hear directly from my residents. I have many Ukrainians in my constituency and a number have relatives who are still in Ukraine, where there are existing biometric records. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to look further at the ideas proposed by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), to see whether we can find electronic solutions?
Kevin Foster
The Home Secretary had a positive visit and our relationship with the ambassadors and the community has been strong, given the broad range of support we are providing to Ukraine. We are providing support not just in the form of lethal aid into Ukraine itself but to countries, including those with borders with Ukraine, that are now dealing with large numbers of people because, as I keep saying, the vast majority of people want to remain close to their homes because they want to go home once the invader has been defeated and driven from their country.
We are looking further at how we can use some of the work we have done in respect of things such as the Hong Kong BNO route and the reuse of biometrics and, as I have touched on a couple of times, at whether under-18s need to submit biometrics at all.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
This Government have some pretty strange priorities: apparently, they think nothing of overturning national security advice when it comes to granting a life peerage to the son of an ex-KGB agent, but they are apparently putting obstacle after obstacle in front of refugees who are fleeing unspeakable violence in Ukraine. Will the Minister listen to the voices from all parties urging him to allow refugees to come here first and then do the biometrics and other security checks here? Does he understand that simply to say they are already in safe countries is deeply insulting? They are traumatised, their families are split up and they might not have finance; we need to be doing much more, now.
Kevin Foster
I certainly would not dismiss the support that is being provided by the Polish, Hungarian, Romanian and Moldovan authorities. They are doing an amazing job of welcoming those who are coming straight over the border. We have on a number of occasions touched on why we believe it is right that we do basic security checks before people travel to the United Kingdom, but many of our other normal requirements are being waived. I do not think that some of the solutions potentially put forward around doing security checks here in the UK would necessarily reflect a warm-hearted approach.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
As it is International Women’s Day, we are looking at the experiences of women around the world. I have been asked whether it is difficult being a pregnant MP; the answer is no. I will tell the House what is difficult: being a pregnant woman in Ukraine and children being in a basement where they are being attacked. Stroud people want to understand what the chuff is going on. I know that the Minister cares and that the Home Office cares, but the picture is still confused and causing anxiety. Will my hon. Friend confirm that he will look at all biometric options to speed up the process? In particular, will he ensure that when websites and things say that people will get information back after 24 hours, the Home Office provides that information or changes the expectation and deals with it properly?
Kevin Foster
As I say, we are certainly keen to look at the position in respect of biometrics for under-18s. That would make a significant difference, particularly for family applications. Some final security advice on that is being considered but we are keen to move forward shortly. We are looking at some of the electronic means—as I say, for those who are not familiar with the BNO visa, if someone has a HKSAR passport that is biometrically enabled, they can apply from home without a visit to a visa application centre. We are looking at a range of options that could speed things up and remove the need to go to a VAC.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Germans are waiting in Berlin Central station to offer Ukrainian refugees their homes and their hearts. The people of Newcastle Central are no less generous, yet their Government greets war-traumatised families who have already crossed a continent with a demand that they go to Brussels or Paris for an unspecified amount of time, apparently because the Minister thinks they could be KGB agents. Will he say how long he expects Ukrainian refugees to wait in Brussels or Paris? What support is he offering, financially and in terms of transport, so that they can meet his ridiculous demands?
Kevin Foster
Ensuring the safety and security of our country is never a ridiculous demand. As we have already touched on, we will be opening up a centre in Lille, and we have certainly already touched on what we are considering in respect of children. We have an uncapped, unlimited system. Again, our position is very similar to what some of our core allies are doing.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
My inbox, like that of many others, has been overwhelmed by generous offers of support for Ukrainian families. My constituents are ready and willing to offer help to those in desperate need. The only barrier to their support seems to be Home Office bureaucracy. Now is not the time, Minister, for box-ticking and red tape; now is the time to do everything we can. No more excuses: we have to move the process forward and we have to speed it up. I am sorry, Minister, but weeks—weeks—simply is not good enough. These are women and children. We have to speed it up. Will he assure me that those kind offers of help from my constituents and the constituents of Members throughout the Chamber are not going to be wasted?
Kevin Foster
Those kind offers will certainly not be wasted. We are moving at pace to set up our system and to increase the numbers while doing the basic security checks to keep our people safe.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
This may be down to Home Office incompetence, or this may be being done for political reasons, and, if it is, may I tell the Minister that he has misread the country? Like other people in this place, I have been overwhelmed by constituents offering their homes and the spaces that they have to refugees from Ukraine. The local charity, New Beginnings, which has been operating in Ukraine for many years, is desperate to sponsor people with no family links coming to the UK from Ukraine. When will that New Beginnings charity be able to sponsor Ukrainians to come here? It needs to know that this week.
Kevin Foster
I do not want to get into political point-scoring on this particular issue. It is neither seemly nor appropriate to do so. In terms of the routes, as we say, we place our first priority on families and relatives, because we appreciate that the vast majority of relatives will be able to stay with family. We are working at pace to set up the humanitarian sponsorship visa, but, obviously, our colleagues in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will be leading on operationalising the actual sponsorship element of that to ensure that we can give the warm-hearted welcome that many want to see.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I am so proud to represent a vibrant Ukrainian community in my Colne Valley constituency. I am equally proud to have so many people in my community opening their hearts and ready to open their homes for these Ukrainian refugees. We have done so much on sanctions, on humanitarian aid, and on military aid, so why are we dragging our feet with all this bureaucracy? Will the Minister not only commit to put extra staff into these visa centres, but ensure that they are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week? All the helplines need to be manned 24 hours a day. Can he assure me that, by the weekend, thousands and thousands more desperate Ukrainian refugees will be safe here in the UK with their family and friends?
Kevin Foster
I hear my hon. Friend’s point. As he said, we are bringing in more decision makers—people from UK Visas and Immigration who are experienced in decision making—to ensure that, as soon as a decision is ready to go, we can get straight on and do it. We are certainly looking to expand, where we can, the visa application capacity. Again, we need to make sure that we have enough staff. We are looking at whether we can backfill that with staff from the United Kingdom. Again, this is more about staff availability than the actual physical structure. Sometimes local labour laws impact on operations, but we do not think that that will be an issue in this particular instance given the urgency of the case. Crucially, as I have touched on a couple of times, we should look at whether we can remove entirely from some cases the need for an appointment—for example for under-18s—and at whether we can use the tech that we use for the British national overseas visas. Many BNO applicants never go near a VAC; they just use our ID with their passports. Again, that deals with the point about capacity without the need for any extra appointments.
Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)
Last week, I raised the case of my constituent and his wife who were advised by the Government helpline to come back from Poland to Lviv to collect her spousal visa. After my intervention, they were told to go to the VAC in Warsaw. An hour ago, they emailed me to say:
“We are just out of the VAC centre in Warsaw and again we have been told that they don’t print visas and they can’t help us. This time, according to the worker, their visa vignettes are printed in the UK and sent to the VACs. Unsurprisingly, the VAC didn’t know how to help us. They didn’t even have access to the Ukrainian database. I find it shocking that the Home Office couldn’t arrange that access over two weeks.”
Can the Minister advise me when my constituent and his wife can come home safely to Glasgow?
Kevin Foster
Certainly, no one should be being advised now to go into Ukraine to get visas or for any other purpose. I am very happy to pick up the case to see what has happened in this particular instance. Certainly, a person should be able to collect a visa from any VAC, but I hear what is being said, I do not doubt it, and I am happy to pick up on it.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
I met with four of my Ukrainian constituents last week. They have been bowled over by the generosity shown by the people of Ipswich, particularly by the Polish community. There is actually a lorry approaching the Ukrainian border today, carrying £8,000-worth of gifts from the Polish community. I have two questions. I met with Olena whose family are currently stuck in Kharkiv. Can I have a quite update on the possibility of a humanitarian corridor for her family to get out of Kharkiv, not to Belarus and Russia, but to a safe European country? Secondly, Viktoria said that if some of the people who are eligible for the family scheme do not want to take up that option can it be transferred to somebody else very close to them who might not strictly qualify for the family route?
Kevin Foster
Certainly, in terms of the situation on the ground in Kharkiv, we have to be very careful about how we take President Putin’s offers of humanitarian corridors, not least because they are rarely respected and often may well be used as a cover for breaches of international law that then follow. We need to be quite careful about the whole concept of humanitarian corridors. I have already said that travel across Ukraine is extremely dangerous, and that people should not wait until they have any form of visa. If they can, they should get into a neighbouring country and then seek to come to the United Kingdom. Certainly, with the family route, people can either sponsor the family, or, see whether there is space available. The wider sponsorship group will come in if there is someone they know and love in Ukraine, whom they would like to sponsor, or if there is someone who has managed to get to a safe bordering country, whom they would like to sponsor to come here.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
I just want to give an example of a constituent who is trying to help his niece who has fled from Ukraine, because it backs up all the things that the Minister is hearing from his own side about how just completely unsustainable this system is. Last Friday, they spent the whole day waiting for a form from the United Kingdom for a visa. Of course with the biometrics, they had to give a lot of complex information. After they had given all that, they were then asked for bank details and documentation that the niece who had fled from Ukraine just did not have with her. It is now three days since that, and there is no sign of a decision, which had been promised within 48 hours. My constituent said:
“I simply cannot put into words how angry and desperate we are becoming because of this shameful situation.”
What is the Minister actually doing to fix that chaos? That is a live situation and that is actually what is happening.
Kevin Foster
I can fully appreciate why asking for bank details and the things that we might normally ask for in the immigration system might be an entirely unreasonable request to somebody who has escaped their home in Ukraine with whatever they could carry. I am very happy to look at that case to see whether our decision makers are acting appropriately in terms of what they are asking for. I do not think that it is appropriate, for example, to be asking for bank details from Ukraine at this time.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. We have to leave that there. We have done eight minutes more than was allocated for the urgent question. Clearly, with this crisis ongoing, there will be other opportunities for urgent questions and statements. More than 20 people were still rising to speak at the end of the urgent question. We will look to ensure that they get prioritised in future.
Points of Order
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In the past 24 hours, the Foreign Secretary has twice accused me of seeking to slow down the UK Government’s ability to sanction individuals during the passage of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018—once, before the Foreign Affairs Committee, and, again, this morning during departmental questions. She made similar accusations against my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) before he corrected her and she was compelled to apologise for having got the facts wrong, gallantly blaming her staff for the quality of her notes.
The accusations that the Foreign Secretary made against me do not stand up to scrutiny—I am using parliamentary language here, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am particularly aggrieved by the Foreign Secretary’s suggestion that I, in her words,
“wanted changes to make it tougher for us to sanction oligarchs”.
At no point during the passage of that Act did I seek to slow down the Government’s ability to sanction individuals who posed a threat to the UK—quite the opposite. I was one of those who pushed for the inclusion of Magnitsky sanctions in the Act—sanctions against Russian oligarchs, which were then blocked by the Conservative Government who shut down the relevant Committee debate after half an hour to prevent the issue being put to a vote.
I welcome Conservative Ministers’ belated conversion to the importance of such measures, but not the Foreign Secretary’s attempt to rewrite history. The comments of mine to which she referred were explicitly about Ministers using so-called Henry VIII powers to amend primary legislation without parliamentary oversight, not what she has intimated.
Given these points, Mr Deputy Speaker, would it be in order for the Foreign Secretary to come to the House at the earliest opportunity and correct the record?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. As the Speaker and the team from the Chair have said, we are not responsible for the content of contributions made by Ministers. However, her point has been heard on the Government Benches and, if an error has been made in this instance, I hope the Foreign Secretary will seek to correct it as quickly as possible.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I was at the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday when the Foreign Secretary made those allegations. She alleged that I had said things in the Third Reading debate on 1 May 2018. I did not take part in the debate on Third Reading in 2018, although in fact I did speak on that day, and if I say so myself it was a particularly fine speech—[Interruption.] Nobody else is going to say it, so I might as well.
The serious point here is twofold. First, the Foreign Secretary came to the Select Committee determined to say those things and had clearly not checked the basic facts before she came to the meeting, which would suggest a degree of deliberate recklessness about what she was going to say. Secondly, she then prayed in aid a document that she said she had in front of her, which was some notes from officials that had apparently been incorrectly written out. You will know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the convention in this House is that if a Minister prays a document in aid, they must provide it to the House. Can you ensure that the Foreign Secretary provides those notes? I am concerned that somewhere in the Foreign Office there is a file on me that is full of lies and inaccuracies.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. I have no doubt whatsoever that the speech he gave was outstanding. However, as far as his other comments are concerned, the answer is the same: the Treasury Bench will have heard his comments and I hope that, if any errors have been made, the Foreign Secretary will correct them as quickly as possible.
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) talked in her point of order about the Foreign Secretary’s suggesting that she could not read her notes because her officials had not written them very clearly. In topical questions, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) about who signed off a trade deal, the Foreign Secretary told the House that she did not know and that those deals were always signed off by officials.
Can you tell me, Mr Deputy Speaker, following the right hon. Lady’s comments today, whether the Government have made any attempt to bring forward a statement to explain a change in the policy of ministerial responsibility? If they have not, have they made any suggestion that officials will now come to this House and answer questions and that Ministers are not responsible for them? It sounds to me as though the Foreign Secretary is getting a bit of a track record here of blaming things on everybody but herself.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I have been given no indication that any Minister will be making a statement today. Should that change, the House will be informed in the usual way.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You will be aware that the House of Commons has just published a report by the independent expert panel on the conduct of Mr John Bercow. It says, in small part, that,
“21 separate allegations were proved and have been upheld. The House may feel that his conduct brought the high office of Speaker into disrepute.
This was behaviour which had no place in any workplace. Members of staff in the House should not be expected to have to tolerate it as part of everyday life.”
I concur. There were many people in this House, including me, who tried to raise this matter on several occasions when John Bercow was Speaker, but nothing was done. Not only has John Bercow been shown to be of a disreputable nature, but in some ways this House has been brought into disrepute. Will there be any occasion for the Leader of the House to come to the House and make a statement about this damning report about John Bercow, and to give us an opportunity to debate how on earth this terror of bullying could have lasted so long?
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Mr Bercow has been shown in this report to be a “serial bully” who displayed “undermining behaviour” towards the staff of this House. The report describes a catalogue of dreadful conduct that is clearly unacceptable, risks damaging the reputation of this House and must never be allowed to happen again.
I have a couple of questions. First, there are a number of records of Mr Bercow’s period in office throughout the building, which must be seen on a potentially daily basis by his victims. In light of this report and the need to set history in context, is there any intention on the part of Mr Speaker or the Speaker’s Office to put explanatory plaques alongside them—for example, next to Mr Bercow’s portrait in Speaker’s House?
Secondly, is it in order to ask whether the Leader of the Opposition is happy to tolerate such bullying behaviour within his party, or whether he intends to expel Mr Bercow from the Labour party?
Thirdly, what can we do to ensure that such behaviour does not happen in the future?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank both hon. Members for their points of order. Clearly, this puts the Chair in an invidious position. Regarding any plaques being erected or what will follow on from the report, I have not had an opportunity to read the report myself at this time, so I cannot comment on it. However, there will be a business statement on Thursday at the normal time, and I suggest both Members turn up for that and ask the Leader of the House directly what will now transpire following the publication of that report.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is in the light of the many questions today during the urgent question about the humanitarian sponsorship pathway that the Government have announced. Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, in response to a question from the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), said of that humanitarian sponsorship policy that,
“more details will be announced later today and later this week.”—[Official Report, 7 March 2022; Vol. 710, c. 17.]
I have checked on the departmental website and with the Vote Office, but there is no sign of any announcement being made yesterday as promised. Given the urgency and the questions raised today, what more can be done to hold the Secretary of State to account for the promise he made yesterday to this House?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the right hon. Lady for her point of order. As I said earlier, Ministers are responsible for the answers they give. However, after today’s proceedings, some of which I have chaired, I think Ministers will be in no doubt whatsoever of the urgent desire for more details of the sponsorship scheme and that it should be clarified as quickly as possible. I hope the Treasury Bench will have heard that.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On Thursday 3 March in a statement on the attack on Ukraine, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport answered my question on further support for the BBC World Service from her Department by saying that the World Service,
“is funded through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, not my Department”.—[Official Report, 3 March 2022; Vol. 709, c. 1205.]
I believe that in her response the Secretary of State may have inadvertently misled the House. The BBC World Service is chiefly funded by the UK licence fee, not by FCDO, although FCDO provides additional funding. Can you please advise on how I can have the record corrected, Mr Deputy Speaker, or whether it is possible to have a fresh response from the Secretary of State?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Again, I am grateful for advance notice of that point of order. The Chair is not responsible for the content of contributions made by Ministers, but I am sure the hon. Member’s point has been heard on the Government Benches. Mr Double is going to be incredibly busy passing back some of those messages to Ministers—he is doing it as we speak, so let us hope the new technology is working properly; I think I can see smoke coming from his mobile phone—so the messages will get through to the relevant Ministers. We must move on now, because we have two Opposition day debates and presentations of Bills.
Bills Presented
Official Development Assistance Equalities Impact Assessment (Women and Girls) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Layla Moran, supported by Daisy Cooper, Wendy Chamberlain, Sarah Olney, Sarah Green, Helen Morgan, Christine Jardine, Munira Wilson and Wera Hobhouse, presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament an equalities impact assessment of the effects on women and girls of the decision not to spend 0.7% of UK gross national income on official development assistance in each financial year until that target is again reached.
Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 268).
Women Leaving Prison (Safe Accommodation) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Daisy Cooper, supported by Wendy Chamberlain, Layla Moran, Sarah Olney, Sarah Green, Helen Morgan, Christine Jardine, Munira Wilson and Wera Hobhouse, presented a Bill to place a duty on the Lord Chancellor to ensure the provision of safe and secure accommodation for all women leaving prison; to require the Lord Chancellor to review support provided to women leaving prison with the objective of preventing such women becoming homeless; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 269).
State Pension Underpayments (Divorced Women) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Sarah Green, supported by Daisy Cooper, Wendy Chamberlain, Layla Moran, Sarah Olney, Helen Morgan, Christine Jardine, Munira Wilson and Wera Hobhouse, presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to expand the scope of the legal entitlements and administrative practice exercise to correct state pension underpayments to include underpayments to divorced women; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 270).
Gender Pay Gap Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Sarah Olney, supported by Daisy Cooper, Wendy Chamberlain, Layla Moran, Sarah Green, Helen Morgan, Christine Jardine, Munira Wilson and Wera Hobhouse, presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to review the effectiveness of gender pay gap reporting requirements.
Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 271).
Surgical Mesh (Support) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Sarah Green, supported by Daisy Cooper, Wendy Chamberlain, Layla Moran, Sarah Olney, Helen Morgan, Christine Jardine, Munira Wilson and Wera Hobhouse, presented a Bill to make provision about support for women who have suffered ill health as a result of the use of surgical mesh; to require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the merits of establishing a redress scheme for such women; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 272).
Maternity Services (Rural Areas) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Daisy Cooper, supported by Wendy Chamberlain, Layla Moran, Sarah Olney, Sarah Green, Helen Morgan, Christine Jardine, Munira Wilson and Wera Hobhouse, presented a Bill to place a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure equal access to maternity services for people living in rural and coastal areas to those living in other areas, including access to the same range of birthing methods and locations; to require consultant-led maternity services to be available within 45 minutes of an expectant mother’s home; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 273).
Planning (Women’s Safety) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Christine Jardine, supported by Daisy Cooper, Wendy Chamberlain, Layla Moran, Sarah Olney, Sarah Green, Helen Morgan, Munira Wilson and Wera Hobhouse, presented a Bill to require an assessment of the impact on women’s safety to be published as a condition of planning approval for major developments.
Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 274).
Miscarriage and Stillbirth (Black and Asian Women) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Munira Wilson, supported by Daisy Cooper, Wendy Chamberlain, Layla Moran, Sarah Olney, Sarah Green, Helen Morgan, Christine Jardine and Wera Hobhouse, presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament annual reports on progress in reducing miscarriage and stillbirth rates among Black and Asian women.
Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 275).
Rape (Conviction Rates) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Wera Hobhouse, supported by Daisy Cooper, Wendy Chamberlain, Layla Moran, Sarah Olney, Sarah Green, Helen Morgan, Christine Jardine and Munira Wilson, presented a Bill to establish an independent review of rape conviction rates and of the effects on the victims of rape; and to require the Secretary of State to act on the recommendations of the review.
Bill read the first time; to be read a second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 276).
Institutes of Technology (Royal Charter)
Tuesday 8th March 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Institutes of Technology (Royal Charter) Bill 2021-22 View all Institutes of Technology (Royal Charter) Bill 2021-22 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for Institutes of Technology to apply to receive a Royal Charter; and for connected purposes.
At first blush, this might sound like a somewhat arcane issue involving an unlikely combination. The world of royal charters and the Privy Council approvals process may feel a million miles away from the new institute of technology agenda, but when I explain the reason for this proposal, then all should, and I hope will, become very clear.
One of the greatest challenges facing our country is the so-called skills gap—the shortfall between the demands of modern industry and business for suitably qualified entrants and the supply of people with those very qualifications. For too long, there was a dislocation between what our businesses actually needed and what was being provided educationally. A range of studies have identified the lack of people in our country with higher technical skills and the economy’s growing need for even more skilled technicians. Without change, productivity rates will slow or even fall, which means lower wages and an economy no longer at the cutting edge of innovation.
The policy response was, rightly, the creation of institutes of technology. IOTs are a new type of provider designed specifically to deliver the technical STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—skills, mainly at levels 4 and 5, that employers and our economy need. Their main characteristic is a model of collaborative work involving partnerships between further education providers and higher education providers with a proven track record, and, vitally, employers, this time with employers right at the heart of decision making and the development and delivery of the curriculum.
Following a rigorous competition, 12 wave 1 IOTs were established, supported by £170 million of capital grant funding to invest in state-of-the-art equipment and facilities. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) and I pushed the Department for Education hard for Swindon to be selected, and we were delighted when Swindon and Wiltshire Institute of Technology was announced as part of the first wave. It received capital funding of over £17 million and launched last year with a range of new courses based on both campuses in Swindon. My hon. Friend, with whom I have always worked as part of our joint team for Swindon, strongly supports this Bill too. As well as delivering against their own work programmes, I am glad to see that the IOTs are involved in the delivery of key initiatives in the 2021 skills for jobs White Paper, such as the skills accelerator, the in-work skills pilot, and the higher technical qualifications growth fund.
Our 2019 manifesto committed to introducing a further eight IOTs. The Department ran another competition, and I am glad to say that a further nine proposals have now been selected to become new IOTs. These are backed by an additional £120 million of capital grant funding, bringing the total to be invested in IOTs to £290 million. That will mean that there will be 21 IOTs across England comprising over 75 further education providers and 34 universities, and over 100 employers, including Microsoft, Nissan, Bosch, Babcock, Fujitsu and many more. They are delivering a wide range of technical courses in STEM sectors such as construction, advanced manufacturing, digital and cyber- security, agritech, aerospace, automotive engineering, healthcare and laboratory science. Being employer-led, IOTs can tailor their provision to react quickly to the current and evolving technical skills needs of employers in the areas that they serve. There might be a skills shortage in areas such as transport or in supporting the fourth industrial revolution, which requires new skills in artificial intelligence, data and innovative technologies. I believe that IOTs can help to plug that gap.
IOTs also play a vital part in levelling up skills across the country by providing local people with the skills they need to pursue rewarding jobs and local businesses with the skilled workforces that they need; by acting as catalysts of regional growth, helping to halt the draining of talent out of overlooked and undervalued areas of the country by training local people for the jobs of the future today; and by helping to create a workforce that is ready for future and further technological change and changing working practices.
The Government have always rightly seen IOTs as
“the pinnacle of technical training”,
and the next step is to cement that status. Learners and employers alike need to see IOTs as the go-to provider of levels 4 and 5 technical STEM provision, benefiting not just themselves but the economy as a whole. Choosing to study, say, engineering at an IOT must be seen as an equivalent alternative to studying at degree level at one of our best universities.
To firmly establish IOTs as the pre-eminent organisations for technical STEM education, I want to ensure that successful IOTs may apply to receive a royal charter, securing their long-term position as anchor institutions within their region and placing them on the same level as our world-leading historic universities. I am confident that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Alex Burghart), and the Department he represents here today will support this initiative and that a new process for IOTs to apply will—sooner rather than later, I hope—become a reality.
All this comes within an even wider context. I am glad that skills reforms are already well under way, with apprenticeships, T-levels and IOTs, of course, all being part of this and being interlinked as well. At long last, we are building a technical education system that is going to drive prosperity at a local level as well as at a national one. The indicator of success is the Government’s very own target of 200,000 more people successfully completing high-quality training every year by the end of the decade, including 80,000 more people completing courses in areas of England with the lowest skill levels.
Skills have to be part of the levelling-up agenda. That is why I welcome the new future skills unit, which will use data and evidence on where skills gaps exist and in what industries. Data will be our great ally. On top of this, thousands more adults will be able to access free and flexible training, and get the skills needed in sectors that are booming, such as green technologies, digital and construction. This is all part of an additional boost to expand skills bootcamps to support employers across the country, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to get the skilled people they need to grow. The levelling-up White Paper has the right goal—to support a high-wage, high-skill economy by building skills and human capital, particularly in those places where they are weakest. This includes supporting local people to realise their career aspirations without having to leave their communities, and ensuring that local employers have access to the skills they need to grow and thrive.
The mission for productivity, pay, jobs and living standards also supports the Government’s commitment to employment and ensures that people have the opportunity to access quality jobs and make progress at work. In Swindon, I have seen for myself the excellent facilities being used to teach and train apprentices in the higher-level healthcare and science pathway, with courses delivered by dedicated NHS professionals with continuing frontline experience. The work of important local employers such as Nationwide has helped develop courses in digital skills, and collaboration with local universities such as Oxford Brookes and the University of Gloucestershire is adding even more value to those courses, with full degree qualifications on offer. In short, IOTs are not going to work if they act as remote islands. They have to be part of a mosaic of local provision, giving people choices and clear routes to achieve the qualifications that will serve them well in their chosen careers.
When I was a Law Officer, in conjunction with the Privy Council Office, I used to check and approve royal charters for a range of public and private bodies. The threshold for acceptance is a high one: in essence, they should be conferred only when appropriate, on bodies that are beyond political controversy. I believe that nothing I have said today about IOTs is a matter of political controversy, and that IOTs fall into a suitable category for consideration of the approval of royal charters. As I said at the beginning of my speech, what seems like a dry procedure is in fact the opening of a door to new opportunities and an effective means of ensuring that skills qualifications, which are a vital way of increasing productivity, get the recognition they clearly deserve and that IOTs, which offer life-changing opportunities to thousands of people, will be a permanent part of our educational landscape.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Sir Robert Buckland, Chris Skidmore, Carolyn Harris, Robert Halfon, Richard Graham, Theo Clarke, Sir Robert Neill, Kelly Tolhurst, Mrs Pauline Latham, Jo Gideon, James Daly and Edward Timpson present the Bill.
Sir Robert Buckland accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 18 March, and to be printed (Bill 277).
Opposition Day
National Insurance Contributions Increase
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House calls on the Government to cancel its planned 1.25 percentage point rise in National Insurance Contributions that will cost families an average of £500 per year from April 2022.
Six months ago today in this Chamber, I set out Labour’s opposition to the Conservatives’ national insurance tax hike. It was clear to us then that this was going to be a heavy burden on working people and businesses who could ill afford it. Since that time, the situation has worsened, but the Conservative party has not altered its wrong course. Filling up the car with petrol is more expensive, energy bills are soaring, and the cost of the weekly food shop is rising. It all adds up. Inflation is now 5.5%, the highest level since 1992, and is forecast to reach a massive 8% next month, outpacing people’s pay rises—if they get one at all. Growth is expected to slow further. The stark reality is that over the past 12 years, the Tories have become the party of high taxes because they are now the party of low growth.
This morning’s report by the Resolution Foundation finds that the average household will experience a £1,000 hit from tax rises and energy price increases this year under the Conservative Government. The Treasury Committee rightly highlighted the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast, which stated that
“the policy mix chosen by the Chancellor”
at the last Budget
“will act as a boost to inflation”.
Just focus on that for a moment: the Chancellor’s own policy choices are boosting inflation. The Government should have acted when the cost of living crisis started growing last September and well before it spiralled out of control in December, with costs soaring and inflation heating up.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is devastating lives and livelihoods, and we must do all we can to stop Putin’s aggression. What is happening in Ukraine will have a cost of living effect here at home, too. When the facts change, so should the Government’s policies; people cannot afford Ministers carrying on regardless of worsening circumstances. The Chancellor must show some understanding of the real-world consequences of his policies for working people and businesses.
The spring Budget will take place two weeks tomorrow, on 23 March. If the Government cannot commit to halting the national insurance rise today, they must do so then, two weeks before it comes in on 6 April and hits working people and employers hard. Today is an opportunity for the Conservatives to show that they get it, and do not want to make the cost of living crisis even worse than it already is.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The hon. Lady is making an important speech. She is right that the national insurance rise will cripple families who are already struggling to get by, but does she agree that what makes it worse is that not a penny of the money raised will go into the hands of hard-working carers who desperately need it? In a community such as mine that is above the national average age, with a need for more carers, that means people without care or with inadequate care.
Rachel Reeves
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. That is the great deceit at the heart of this national insurance tax rise. I will address some of those details in a moment.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
I fully support what the hon. Lady is saying. Does she agree that some of the measures we have seen for dealing with the cost of living crisis—for instance, the energy rebate—might now make matters worse? That rebate works on the basis that it will be repaid over subsequent years, and will only really work if energy prices normalise or fall, but all projections now indicate that energy prices will rise and rise, so the Government’s interventions are going to be inflationary and add to the problems people are facing.
Rachel Reeves
I fully agree with the hon. Gentleman. A buy now, pay later scheme for energy prices, based on the premise that prices are going to fall, does not bear any relation to the facts. That is why I say, when the facts change, so should the Government’s policies. They should not just carry on steering the boat in the wrong direction, towards the storm.
It is fair to say that the Prime Minister’s word has recently been deeply discredited, but let me remind the Chamber what he previously said about tax:
“Read my lips: we will not be raising taxes on income, or VAT, or national insurance.”
This is not just another of the long list of broken vows from a leader who has a fleeting relationship with truth and accuracy. This manifesto breach now belongs to the entire Conservative Government and especially the Chancellor, who seems not to want to take responsibility for his own tax rises. Let us not forget that last March, a year into the pandemic, the Chancellor said,
“We’re not going to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance, or VAT.”
This is not just the wrong thing to do; it is a broken promise. It is a clear and flagrant breach of the Conservative party’s own manifesto. They promised the public that they would not do this, and now they are going back on their word.
The Chancellor is not here to defend his new tax on jobs—I do not know why—but it is becoming increasingly clear that rather than help people now when they really need it, the Chancellor is telling his colleagues and briefing newspapers that he will make people wait until an election, when he wants to make a new set of promises to win people’s votes. People need help now and the Government should act now, not play games with people’s living standards. Voters are smarter and savvier than the Chancellor assumes. They have already seen through his buy now, pay later loan scheme, meant to help with energy bills. It is not too late for the Government to look again at Labour’s proposal for a one-off windfall tax on oil and gas producers in order to cut household energy bills by up to £600 this year. The case for our proposal gets stronger by the day, and the Chancellor should adopt it, but instead of easing the cost of living crisis, the Conservatives are the cost of living crisis.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The hon. Lady is making a very powerful speech and some excellent points with which I agree. Does she agree that the Government are gambling with taxpayers’ money, rather than investing it? They are gambling that the price will go down, when we all know it will go up, and they are not looking to those people who have made a massive profit over the past two years, both from the energy crisis and in the pandemic, to try to relieve the burden on those who have been hardest hit.
Rachel Reeves
Politics is about choices; the hon. Lady makes an important point. This Government are making the choice to increase taxes on ordinary working people and those who employ them, while on the Opposition Benches, we say that those who have benefited from the high energy prices should pay a bit more in tax to relieve the pressure on ordinary working people. We have a Conservative Minister who goes on the TV and radio and says that energy companies and the North sea oil and gas companies are struggling right now. Tell that to my constituents, the hon. Lady’s constituents and all our constituents who are struggling to pay the bills, while the profits keep coming in for the big oil and gas producers.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady not agree that what she is saying is all smoke and mirrors? If a tax is put in for one year, that will not pay for the continuing costs over future years. What she is doing is simply misleading the public.
Rachel Reeves
If we raised those taxes now on North sea oil and gas companies, we could bring in money that could be used to relieve pressure now. I think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s constituents in North East Hertfordshire would be pretty pleased to have money off their bills this year, rather than the buy now, pay later scheme that we get from this Chancellor.
Why is the Chancellor not listening? The Conservatives’ rise in national insurance will hit almost 30 million working people. The TUC rightly argues that it is wrong to hit young and low-paid workers while “leaving the wealthy untouched”. The British Chambers of Commerce describes the Government’s policy as
“a drag anchor on jobs growth”.
The CBI put it bluntly and said that it will
“hurt a business’s ability to hire staff”.
On Sunday, the Federation of Small Businesses warned:
“Slamming small firms with a jobs tax hike will put the brakes on investment, upskilling and growth within communities most affected by the pandemic.”
The Chancellor must know what business organisations and trade unions are saying. We can only conclude that he is consciously disregarding their experience and views. We know from research by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research that job-intensive sectors will be disproportionately hit hard. The Conservatives have deliberately designed a tax hike that will hit people working in hotels, restaurants, transport, retail and wholesale especially hard.
Rachel Reeves
I will give way to the hon. Lady, and then to the hon. Gentleman.
Dr Johnson
I wonder if the hon. Lady can help me, because I am slightly confused. She has talked about a windfall tax on the energy companies, but she is then conflating that with the NI rise. The NI rise is not to pay for energy bills, as I understand it, but to pay for health and social care. Last week, she wanted to use that windfall tax to spend on reducing energy prices, as she has said today. She cannot use one tax to do two things. What will she use the tax for, were she to bring it in? In particular, if she were to cancel the NI rise—I do not want to increase taxes; I am a Conservative, so of course I do not want to do that—how would she pay for the care and healthcare of those vulnerable constituents who we know need it so badly?
Rachel Reeves
The average household in the hon. Lady’s constituency will be £1,200 worse off because of the tax increases and the price rises happening as a result of her Government’s policies. As she well knows, we would use the windfall tax to relieve pressure on household gas and electricity bills. The hon. Lady might oppose that, but I suggest she puts that on her leaflets and puts that to the voters in her constituency at the next election.
Several hon. Members rose—
Rachel Reeves
Sorry, I said I would give way to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I will do that and then I will make a little more progress.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Lady for putting forward her point of view. My party and I supported her party on a previous Opposition day in relation to a tax on oil and gas. Today the hon. Lady is, on behalf of the Opposition, putting forward something that is equally important. In my constituency of Strangford, fuel prices are up 50% and grocery prices are up between 25% and 30%. Does she agree that while for some the national insurance contributions increase will be a weightless straw, it could well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?
Rachel Reeves
The hon. Gentleman speaks powerfully on behalf of his constituents, who are struggling with the double whammy of prices increasing, particularly gas and electricity bills, at the same time as this Government are piling on pressure after pressure with higher taxes on the same people who are paying those higher bills. He is absolutely right that people can only take so much, and the national insurance contribution tax hike is, as he says, potentially the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Politics is about priorities, and it is about choices. So who has the Chancellor chosen to protect—not to tax more? Those who earn huge incomes from a large portfolio of buy-to-let properties or those making large sums from selling stocks and shares will not pay a penny more tax on that income. The super-rich will not be paying more. Roman Abramovich and billionaire oligarchs are not being made to pay more tax. In fact, some of those trying to relinquish their assets now appear to be using offshore vehicles to avoid paying tax. Lubov Chernukhin, wife of Putin’s former finance Minister, and mega-donor to the Tory party, has reportedly lobbied Ministers against higher taxes for the wealthy. As luck would have it, she will not be paying any more tax, unlike people across Britain who work for a living and keep our economy going.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has mentioned not taxing buy-to-let landlords who have a number of properties. I do not think she is aware that the permanent secretary for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities came to the Select Committee yesterday and confirmed that, where properties are let with council tax and rents being paid in the same bill, the council tax rebate of £150 will go not to the tenant, but the landlord. If the landlord owns multiple properties, as long as they are not owned by a corporate entity, they will get multiple amounts of £150. Some of the landlords are going to be extremely well off, and tenants will have to go and apply to the discretionary fund to get any help at all.
Rachel Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for bringing that to the House’s attention. It is exactly why Labour said that the warm home discount should be expanded to ensure that the money goes to the people who need it, not the landlords.
At the same time as the Government are asking hard-working British people to pay more in tax, they are writing off billions of pounds in fraud. Ordinary people are paying for this Government’s waste. The Chancellor repeatedly ignored warnings about the holes in his covid business support schemes, resulting in £4.3 billion of public money being written off. That does not even include the amounts lost to bounce back loan fraud, including taxpayer cash handed out to drug dealers and organised criminals. That fraud currently stands at £4.7 billion, so that is £9 billion and counting handed to fraudsters. Then there is the colossal Government waste during the pandemic, with £8.7 billion lost on unusable personal protective equipment, all paid for by the taxpayer. Billions has been spent on crony contracts that have not delivered, and every single cheque has been signed by the Chancellor.
Rachel Reeves
Let me just finish this point. Yesterday, we saw a whole new meaning to burning through money. After wasting billions on unusable PPE, the Government are literally burning it to get rid of it—putting taxpayers’ money through the furnace. The Conservatives’ promise to get value for money for taxpayers has gone up in flames. Taxpayers do not want to keep picking up the price of these dodgy contracts, fraud and waste. I will be very interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s views on that.
Richard Graham
I am grateful to the hon. Lady. The difficulty is that this is a debate about the national insurance contributions increase; it is not a debate about her wide range of thoughts on all sorts of other aspects of the economy. The problem with this particular debate is that this additional tax, which is hypothecated exclusively for health and care, will make a huge difference to millions of people across the country, including in Leeds, who have been waiting for elective surgery, want to see social care resolved and need the extra funds for it to happen. In addition, it is progressive, because the top 14% of taxpayers will pay half of the revenue raised. Surely she would approve of that.
Rachel Reeves
The hon. Gentleman knows that the average household in Gloucester will be £1,299 worse off because of the double whammy of tax increases and price increases. I think they would be pretty concerned about the amount of taxpayers’ money that is being written off in fraud and waste—money that is being burned by the Government.
Despite waste and fraud costing more than this year’s national insurance contribution rise will raise, the Prime Minister says that the tax rise is necessary. That is the great deceit. On the steps of Downing Street in 2019, he claimed to have a plan for social care. Yet almost three years on, we know that the Government’s approach to social care will not stop people selling their home to pay for care, it will not deliver a penny more to improve care today, and it will not add a single minute of care and support for those who need it. Even then, NHS waiting lists are set to rise even further for the next two years. The Government will not fix the problems with our social care sector or our NHS. Never before have taxpayers been asked to pay so much and got so little in return.
It is time for the Chancellor to urgently change direction. The national insurance tax rise was wrong in September and it is even worse in March. It is the wrong tax at the wrong time: the cost of living is higher, inflation is out of control, wages are not keeping up, energy bills are going through the roof and family finances are stretched, yet the Chancellor refuses to back our windfall tax plans to help.
The Chancellor has not turned up today, but my message to the Minister is that he must turn up to the spring Budget with a plan to make a difference to the cost of living. The Chancellor’s tax rise should not go ahead. MPs can send the strongest signal today by backing our calls to cancel the national insurance tax increase next month. They know full well that our country believes that it is time to change course.
The Conservative Government are not doing enough to cushion the blows. In fact, when it comes to the tax rise, they are piling on the pressure and making matters worse. They must think again and back Labour’s motion today.
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Simon Clarke)
The world has been appalled by Russia’s unprovoked, unjustified and illegal invasion of Ukraine. Every one of us has been shocked by the scenes of sheer horror that have unfolded over recent days and moved by the bravery of ordinary men and women defending their country against a merciless enemy. As the Prime Minister wrote at the weekend, the Ukrainians’ valour has helped to unite the international community.
We cannot let down that brave nation in its hour of need, which is why we are calling on the world to join forces and maximise our economic pressure on Putin’s regime. That means going further than the unprecedented sanctions that are already in place, including by working with our allies to further isolate Russia from the international financial system and by expelling more Russian banks from the SWIFT network. The cost of inaction against Putin’s war machine would be too great to contemplate; we have seen the price of appeasement before.
We must brace ourselves, however, for the fact that a robust united global opposition to Russia’s unprovoked aggression will have costs of its own. I am acutely aware that the conflict has economic repercussions that largely stem from a higher global energy price that, over time, may spill over into other commodities including wheat. Those repercussions are being felt across the world, including here at home.
That is why, this financial year and next, we will provide over £20 billion to help the public with the cost of living. That includes over £9 billion of direct support with higher energy costs for about 28 million households, with £200 for every household in Great Britain through the energy bill support scheme and a further £150 for every household in council tax bands A to D in England. In total, that means that about 80% of households will receive £350 of support. That builds on our further support for heating bills including increasing the warm home discount, the winter fuel payment and the cold weather payment, which together provided £2.5 billion to households last winter. The £500 million household support fund has been helping the most vulnerable with the cost of essentials over the past months.
More broadly, we are taking further steps to support people’s finances. We have cut the universal credit taper rate by 8p from 63p to 55p and we have increased the work allowance by £500 a year, which will ensure that nearly 2 million people keep more of what they earn and will put an extra £1,000 a year into their pockets.
Christine Jardine
Does the Minister appreciate that, for Opposition Members and our constituents, and possibly for many of his constituents, that now seems too little, too late and inappropriate for the situation in which the country finds itself?
Mr Clarke
I do not demur; we are faced with a serious challenge on the cost of living. The Government entirely accept that and are working to address it, but we must address it in a smart and financially sustainable way. A £20 billion package is a major commitment to support families across the UK. Of course, we continue to keep all our options under review to ensure that we can act in a way that is commensurate with the severity of the situation.
From next month, we will increase the national living wage by 6.6% to £9.50 an hour for those aged 23 and over, which will benefit more than 2 million workers across the UK by £1,000 a year. We have also frozen fuel duty for the 12th year in a row. That is on top of the help that we are already providing to those on low incomes with their housing costs and council tax bills.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
On freezing the fuel duty, if the Minister has been to forecourts recently, he will know that the cost of petrol and diesel has gone up tremendously in the last few weeks. What has been the impact on the Treasury’s coffers from VAT receipts as a result?
Mr Clarke
We have forgone a tremendous amount of revenue through the freeze on fuel duty. On VAT, we obviously continue to look closely at the revenue situation. It is sometimes a misapprehension about the way that the VAT scheme works to the Treasury’s benefit. There is often a focus on domestic fuel and the impact that it is having on our income. To that point, the more that people spend of their discretionary income on domestic fuel costs, which are VAT chargeable at 5% as opposed to the full rate of 20%, the less that the Treasury recoups. In that regard, we have to be careful about some of the arguments around that.
Now that I have set out some of the context of the Government’s response, I will return to the specifics of the debate—the need for the health and social care levy and the rationale behind its operation. Last month, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care explained to the House that there is now a significant backlog of elective care as a result of the pandemic, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) alluded to. More than 6 million people are waiting for elective care in England and more than 300,000 people are waiting longer than a year. The Government have set out a clear plan to tackle the backlog, but we must deal with that most pressing of issues and the levy will allow us to do that.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
Many things have happened in the last few weeks, but we must reflect on the fact that, for the last two years, we have been in the worst global health crisis for years during which the Government spent £450 billion to support people’s livelihoods. Any Government would need to look at themselves and recognise the enormous issues that that has created. It is simply unsustainable to continue to pay for services without looking at how we can gain more revenue for the Treasury. That is a sensible financial decision that any Government would have to make in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
Mr Clarke
I agree with my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) said that when the facts change, we should change our policy, but the point is that the facts have not changed. The covid backlog has not changed and the damage that it has done to our ability to deliver the healthcare that people need has not gone away. Governments have recognised the importance of tackling our social care issues for a long time, but there is no record of action. This time, things are different. We believe that it is only right that in an advanced and wealthy country such as the United Kingdom, people should know that their loved ones will have dignity and financial certainty if they require care. The new levy will allow us to achieve both our health and social care aims.
Dr Caroline Johnson
The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) talked about politics meaning choices. I have listened carefully to both Front-Bench speeches and I heard that the Opposition want to remove the health and social care levy but not how they will pay for social care instead. Perhaps the Minister heard something I did not. Could he enlighten me?
Mr Clarke
I heard a lot of warm and fairly vague phrases, but I did not hear a concerted plan, and that of course goes to the heart of this question. The hon. Member for Leeds West said in her speech that the voters are smart and savvy, and I agree with her, but they know an Opposition playing politics when they see it.
The £12 billion average annual investment, which is of course a recurring investment—that is the crucial point—to meet a recurring need, will tackle the elective NHS backlog, while ensuring that the health service has the resources it needs over the coming years. It will strengthen our adult social care system, allowing us to invest at least £500 million to give our army of extraordinary social care workers new skills, and it will enable the Government to roll out the long-awaited reforms to funding for families through a cap on adult social care costs.
This is a transformative policy that will tackle serious and long-standing issues, but to fund such a significant increase in permanent spending we have had to make the tough but responsible choice to increase taxes. Only a broad-based tax such as income tax, VAT or national insurance can raise the sums needed for such significant investment. Using NICs as the base has several advantages. First, it means the levy will be paid for by employers, employees and the self-employed, including, from April next year, by workers over state pension age.
Secondly, this is a progressive way to raise funds because those who earn more will pay more: the top 15% of taxpayers will pay half the revenue. A basic rate taxpayer will pay about £3.49 per week, while 6.2 million—6.2 million—of the lowest earners will be exempt entirely from the levy and most small businesses will not be affected at all.
Mr Betts
The Minister talks about health and social care, but will he confirm that there is not a single penny in this extra funding to enable local authorities to cover their social care costs in their budget, which they are struggling with, or to improve the level of the social care they are offering? This crisis has now been going on for years and years, and the Government have promised to fix it. Given that this is a permanent increase in funding, will he also confirm that we are not going to see a tax cut in the next couple of years, just before the election—up today, down tomorrow?
Mr Clarke
On the hon. Gentleman’s point about our support for local authorities, we are giving £1.6 billion extra in each year of the spending review we announced in October to support local authorities with the challenges they face. Of course, the levy will fund £5.4 billion of investment in social care over the next three years, so it is a serious response to a serious challenge.
To return to the advantages of the way we have structured the levy, the third design advantage that stands out is that we have also announced an equivalent increase in dividend tax rates. There is therefore fairness across the spectrum in how this is being paid for.
I know there are some who ask why we need to raise tax at all, and instead say that we should borrow to fund permanent increases in spending. Throughout this speech I have outlined all that the Government have done to protect people’s finances as we recover from the pandemic and deal with the rising cost of living, and those actions mean our economy has made a strong recovery from covid-19. Our GDP has rebounded, and over the past months job vacancies have hit record highs, while the unemployment rate has fallen sharply. However, it is easy to forget that all those steps come at a huge cost. Covid casts a long shadow across our economy. Indeed, our debt is at its highest since the early 1960s. As I have reminded the House on many occasions, that high level of borrowing leaves us susceptible to shocks, including changes in interest rates and inflation.
Dr Caroline Johnson
My right hon. Friend is making some excellent points about the importance of balance in our finances. One thing my constituents will want to know as we spend all this money from the health and social care levy is that it is being well spent and used very efficiently. What can my right hon. Friend tell me about how he will ensure that the money is spent efficiently and with the best possible productivity?
Mr Clarke
Making sure that we spend taxpayers’ money wisely is the central duty of any Government. It is something that, as Chief Secretary, I work very hard on with officials and Departments to make sure that we scrutinise spending in the way that delivers best value.
Some fairly spurious points have been raised about our record on issues such as PPE procurement, and we need to remember what I think could best be described as the brass neck of the Opposition in calling us out on this issue, when I think the hon. Member for Leeds West suggested at one point that we should procure our PPE from historical theatre re-enactment companies or fancy dress companies. Procuring PPE at pace brought with it some inevitable challenges, and it is vital that we had the resources to deal with the situation we faced at the time.
Richard Graham
The debate this afternoon is fascinating in a number of ways. The first one is that the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) rightly pointed out that Government is about choice. I remember vividly coming into this place in 2010, when the maximum someone could earn before paying tax was £6,000. It is now £12,500, which means £1,000 more in take-home pay for millions of our constituents. My right hon. Friend has confirmed that more than 6 million taxpayers will not be paying anything at all towards the 1.5% increase in national insurance, which will pay for their families’ and their parents’ hospital care and social care.
Mr Clarke
I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend has said, and it is a reflection of the fact that we have taken sensible measured steps against what has been a recurring series of unprecedented challenges—the financial crisis, our exit from the European Union, covid, and now the backdrop of conflict in Ukraine. All these things have had a major impact on the world around us, but our focus has consistently been on supporting people to do the right thing and to protect their finances.
Sir Oliver Heald
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the rise in the national living wage should not be ignored and is important in helping people at the bottom of the income spectrum? It is right to take such measures, but the Opposition’s asking for more money the whole time but not being prepared to put in any resource is a ridiculous smoke and mirrors job.
Mr Clarke
It is, and my right hon. and learned Friend is precisely right because, in the end, it is poorest who will lose out the most if we lose control either of our public spending or of inflation. To illustrate, a 1 percentage point rise in both inflation and interest rates would increase spending on debt interest by nearly £23 billion a year, and that threat is not a notional one. In January 2021 we spent £1.6 billion on servicing our debt, but in January this year we spent £6.1 billion. We cannot fund increases in spending on our health service and social care by increasing borrowing. Members will surely agree that to leave ourselves vulnerable at this time by further increasing our debt burden would be highly irresponsible. These are not always easy choices, but we will be the ones to reconcile the need to reduce our debt burden with the growing pressures on the state, and that means responsible choices about taxation.
Mr Clarke
I have given way many times, and I am afraid that I must make progress.
The Opposition claim that they would instead grow the economy to finance their choices. With all due respect to the hon. Member for Leeds West, that is not a credible solution to an immediate problem. I remind the House that this is the same Opposition who want to place a windfall tax on our vital North sea oil and gas producers—companies that already pay a headline tax rate on their profits of more than double the rate of corporation tax. With investment in the sector hitting an all-time low in 2020-21, such a tax on oil and gas would not be an appropriate solution. It would only create uncertainty, deter investment and displace the investment that we need in clean, renewable technologies.
As the Chancellor has recently set out, we firmly believe in lower taxes. The pounds generated by our country are better spent by individuals and businesses than by Government. However, cutting tax sustainably requires hard work and prioritisation, especially when demands on the state are growing. We must reach our goals in a responsible way that addresses our challenges, too. This levy is the best and most equitable way to raise the funds needed to protect health and social care across the United Kingdom, and I await any credible explanation from the Opposition of how they plan to cover these costs in a responsible way.
I will end by saying that this Government recognise the difficulties that people across this country are facing right now. We know times are hard, and we are working hard to alleviate that pressure, but as a responsible Government we must not shy away from difficult decisions. It is only by meeting such challenges head-on that we will succeed in building a health and social care system that is fit for the future and that truly supports our citizens at every stage in their lives.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. Before I call Richard Thomson, let me say that there is clearly a lot of interest in this debate. As Members know, exceptionally, we are suspending the House at 4.45 pm to take the President of Ukraine’s speech, and we will then move on to the second Opposition day debate. May I therefore ask Back Benchers to focus on the length of their contributions so that we can get in as many people as possible?
Richard Thomson (Gordon) (SNP)
That we are currently experiencing the gravest cost of living crisis in memory should not be in the least bit a controversial thing to say. It has been caused by inflation from a number of fronts: the shortage of labour caused by Brexit and the ending of free movement; the increased trade frictions as a direct consequence of Brexit; covid-19 and all that has befallen us over the last two years; and, most recently, the rapidly increasing costs of energy. Amidst all this it is absolutely extraordinary that any sentient, competent Government would seek to pile on the agony by increasing national insurance contributions for employers, employees and the self-employed.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Richard Thomson
I will give way shortly but first want to make some progress, because this represents a shattering of the Conservatives’ manifesto promises—and I am sure the hon. Member will want to be fully cognisant of this before he takes to his feet to chide me. On page 2—the inside page—of the Conservative party’s 2019 manifesto, entitled “Get Brexit Done: Unleash Britain’s Potential”, we had an introduction from no lesser a personage than the Prime Minister himself, rather grandiosely titled “My Guarantee”, which said:
“We will not raise the rate of income tax, VAT or national insurance”.
That was signed off with the Prime Minister’s signature, and it was a statement quite literally not worth the paper it was written on.
Several hon. Members rose—
Richard Thomson
I am spoiled for choice; I give way to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne).
Anthony Browne
The hon. Member makes some very valid points about the rise in the cost of living in the UK, which we absolutely accept is a real challenge, but he puts many of the reasons for it down at the feet of the British Government; does he not accept that this is a global phenomenon? Does he not accept that the increase in energy prices is a global phenomenon affecting all countries around the world, that the crunch in the supply chains resulting from the global pandemic is a global phenomenon, and that inflation is higher in America and Germany than in the UK—and in the latest figures UK inflation is below the OECD average?
Richard Thomson
For a moment there, I was going to ask the hon. Member if he would give way to me. Yes, I do accept most of those things but, as I also set out very clearly, there are those aspects that are exogenous and global and there are those, such as through Brexit and from the poor response to covid in many respects, that are entirely self-inflicted. I am happy to draw a distinction and I hope that, on reflection, the hon. Member might do so, too.
Let us not be in any doubt about the enormity of the crisis facing us. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research has warned that the number of UK households classed as destitute could rise by nearly a third to more than 1 million this spring after the Government bring in their national insurance increase. Ofgem recently announced that millions of householders will see their energy bills rise by £693 as a result of the increase in the energy cap from April. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation warns that the energy price cap rise 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. Energy UK recently warned that household energy bills could rise by another £1,000 by October as wholesale gas prices continue to soar, with households facing the prospect of bills between £2,500 and £3,000 this year. Consumer prices, as measured by the consumer prices index, were 5.5% higher in December 2021 than a year before, the highest inflation rate recorded since 1992. And of course we must not forget that the Bank of England increased interest rates from 0.25% to 0.5% and forecasts that real household disposable incomes are set to fall by 2%.
The UK Government’s “Health and Social Care Levy” police paper claims:
“This levy provides a UK-wide approach which enables us to pool and share risks and resources across the UK”.
In accepting that, we should be absolutely clear about whom the risks are being pooled among. We must be in no doubt whatsoever that the upcoming national insurance hike is a tax on jobs as well as on individuals, when people are already suffering. The increase will not touch property income, pensions or income from savings, but will fall squarely on the shoulders of those who are salaried or whose income is drawn from profits.
We have heard about figures showing that the top proportion are paying higher amounts, but we would expect that. What I am interested in is the marginal rate of tax, because that is the true measure of fairness—how much of someone’s income they are having to give over as a result of a taxation measure. Let us look at one group in particular: our students. This national insurance hike will mean that, if student loan repayments are included, graduates earning just over £27,000 will pay a marginal tax rate in excess of 42%. We have heard that government is about choices and it is clear from the choices this Government are making that the combined effect of their policies will hit the lowest earners, the youngest earners and those with the least economic assets the hardest.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is asserting that the poorest will be worst hit by this, but Treasury analysis of the impact of tax and spending decisions on households in ’22-23 in cash terms clearly shows that the bottom eight deciles—80% of households—will be better off as a result of the Government’s combined tax and spend decisions, including on national insurance. What does the hon. Gentleman say to that?
Richard Thomson
I say that I very much doubt that, and there is analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that suggests very differently, but again this comes back to the marginal rate of tax and there is no doubt that this is going to have a greater impact on the marginal rate of low earners than that of higher earners.
Richard Graham
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member has made some very good points but I do believe he has inadvertently misled the House by claiming that those who are least well-paid will be paying the most on the tax when we have just heard from the Chief Secretary that over 6 million earners will not be contributing a penny towards the cost of the national increase rise. Mr Deputy Speaker, may I give the hon. Member, through your offices, the opportunity to withdraw his earlier remark?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
That sounds like a debating point as opposed to a point for the Chair.
Richard Thomson
Again, I refer the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) to the concept of the marginal rate of tax and ask him to look at the totality of the impact—if he had been patient I would have happily given way; he had no need to resort to such devices.
On raising additional resources for health and social care, as we are invited to believe this levy is supposed to do, it is surely much fairer as a general principle to spread the burden by increasing income taxes across the board on both earned and unearned income, as well as to look again at areas such as inheritance taxes and capital gains, so that the totality of the wealth of the nation can be taken into consideration in sharing the burden. There is a real danger in my view, particularly as a result of localised property price inflation, that this policy will further widen economic, social, generational and geographical divides, baking that unfairness into the social and economic settlement for decades to come. We have a Government who like to talk the language of levelling up while doing the exact opposite on personal and business taxation. We will be paying the costs of that in reduced growth and lower incomes for many years to come.
That is the problem from a social justice perspective, but it is almost every bit as bad from a policy making perspective. Apart from moneys going to the NHS in England and an unspecified amount eventually trickling through to social care in England, we still have only the sketchiest idea of what this resource will be invested in. There are significant whole-system problems in health and social care in England which predate covid. That is not to say things are great everywhere else, but I get absolutely no sense that the UK Government have started to embrace the systemic issues that cause the blockages and poorer outcomes that are there and that money will only go so far to solve, including the high levels of unmet need, staff shortages and poor workforce pay and conditions, as well as the fragile provider market. In that sense, the Government are doing what they routinely like to criticise others for and focusing on inputs rather than outcomes, and surely outcomes for people in health and social care should be driving the reform that is needed.
It is not in doubt that there was a pre-covid pandemic crisis in health and social care, let alone the post-covid one, but that will not be remediated either by this policy or by the Prime Minister’s utterly bogus repeated claims about building 40 hospitals. Reform requires thought as well as resource, but surely fairness demands that the resource for that reform comes primarily from those with the broadest shoulders and an economy that is able to and is growing sustainably and productively.
I support Scottish independence and want full tax powers for Scotland, and I have no doubt in my mind that an independent Scottish Government would not be using the equivalent of national insurance in such a way for this purpose. Until that changes, we are stuck with and reliant on the Conservatives—out of all character—prioritising the interests of those on lower and middle incomes over the most wealthy.
Anthony Browne
The hon. Member stresses the importance of a sustainably growing economy. Would he like to congratulate the Government on their economic response to covid, which means that we had the fastest growing economy in the G7 last year and are predicted to do so this year? Groups from the International Monetary Fund to the OECD have congratulated them on their response.
Richard Thomson
I do not think that is true, but, even if it was, those economies that fall the furthest rebound the fastest.
We seem to be reliant on the better nature of the Conservative Government—one that sadly is often lacking—with them somehow going against all their instincts to protect the interests of lower and middle-income earners over those of the highest. I shall not be holding my breath on that front.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. As I said earlier, about 15 people want to speak, so Members should be looking towards five to six minutes and not going over that mark.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)
When we discuss whether we should have the national insurance contribution rise, we ought to look at what we intend to use the money for, because, after all, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned, it is a hypothecated tax. The Government are looking to address two crucial elements to improve to our society, which are the covid backlog—currently more than 6 million people are waiting for treatment, of whom 310,000 are waiting for more than a year—and adult social care, where there is a desire widely held by constituents of hon. Members across the House to cap care costs. Such reforms would assist 150,000 people with their care costs at their time of greatest need. There is a degree of consensus that they are good proposals and must happen—we need to spend the money—so the real question is not whether we spend the money but how we pay for them.
Mr Betts
The hon. Member mentioned the 150,000 people who will benefit from the cap on care costs, and they are disproportionately people in more expensive homes. Where in that funding is the help for the 1.5 million people that Age Concern has assessed should be entitled to social care but have now been excluded from the provisions?
Jerome Mayhew
The hon. Member made a number of interventions on the Minister, and I refer him to the full responses that were given.
The question that I take from that is: how we will pay for the proposals? It seems to me that there can be only three answers. We can take money from other priorities in Government, we can borrow, or we can increase taxation. So far, I have heard no suggestions of other areas of Government spending that should be reduced. The Opposition typically move to defence spending as a simple way of extracting money for other commitments, but that is unlikely to be an area of future reductions in today’s environment; in fact, I submit that it will be the opposite.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
The hon. Member is seeking suggestions. What does he think about the £8.7 billion of personal protective equipment that has been incinerated and gone up in flames? Surely nobody in their right mind would suggest that that is a good use of public money. Is it not possible to claw back some of those costs from the suppliers, if indeed the supplies were defective?
Jerome Mayhew
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his intervention. I suggest that a very good use of public money was emergency funding for PPE when we most desperately needed it in a national lockdown. It was inevitable that there would be a trade-off between speed—everyone in the House was cheering the Government on at the time—and maximising the effectiveness of every single contract. I hope that the Government make no apology for the speed with which they dealt with the crisis. They should be commended for that.
It has also been suggested that we should crack down on fraud. The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) referenced a £4.7 billion headline in covid-related fraud, but she failed to give the Government credit for the actions that they have taken to address that. We have the Taxpayer Protection Taskforce, which has recruited 1,265 staff. We also have the work done on powers for the Insolvency Service and Companies House to link company directors directly to their bounce back loans, which has been used on 61,758 companies, catching loans worth £2.1 billion. The combination of those two factors means that the new estimate, which she did not find time to refer to, is not £4.7 billion but £3.3 billion. Fraud is therefore reduced to an estimated 7.5% of contracts, which is at least within spitting distance of the average for Government programmes of, I am sorry to say, as much as 5%.
Anthony Browne
My hon. Friend makes a valid point about the need to increase spending to pay for social care and has raised the different ways of doing that. Does he agree that if we are to increase spending sustainably, we need a sustainable source of money and that a one-off windfall that occurs in just one year cannot fund long-term commitments? Cutting back on fraud in one particular year cannot fund long-term commitments.
Jerome Mayhew
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Even if we recovered all of that £3.3 billion, that would be for a single year only. The great mistake that the Opposition have made is to conflate single events—a windfall tax is another example—with ongoing revenue needs.
The next option is to borrow money. Of course, that is the easy response, and that really is the Opposition’s position, even if they cannot bring themselves to admit it from the Dispatch Box. However, that is not free money, because we have to service the debt and, eventually, we have to repay it. So we are passing the responsibility on to our children and our grandchildren for tax cuts now, which is essentially what the Labour party is arguing for. Our servicing of debt already cost an estimated £64 billion last year, which is £955 for every single member of the population. Because of inflation, which is a global phenomenon, and the likely rise in interest rates, that is forecast to rise to £75 billion for this financial year. The hon. Member for Leeds West says that the Government have a policy of buy now, pay later, but what could be a better description of Labour’s response to this pressing need? We want to improve social care, and we need to have a covid fightback, and we have got to pay for it.
There is the option to borrow, but, as I said, it is our children and grandchildren who will pay that price. I therefore believe that the Government are quite right to balance the increased social spending that we want to achieve with the tax necessary to pay for it. If we look at the total measures that the Government have brought in, we see that they are deeply progressive. Treasury analysis shows that they are net positive for 80% of households, whereas Labour’s plan to remove the national insurance contribution would actually help the top 10% the most—by more than £1,000. Surely that is not Labour’s policy.
No Conservative Government want to raise tax, but it is our duty before cheap popularity to be responsible custodians of national finances. That is a lesson that Labour has never learned.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I am afraid that I will have to put a time limit on speeches of six minutes; otherwise, it will not be fair on others.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
I rise to support the motion from my right hon. and hon. Friends. We all remember too well that during the 2019 general election campaign, just over two years ago, the Prime Minister said to voters:
“Read my lips, we will not be raising taxes on income or VAT or national insurance.”
The Chancellor of the Exchequer was also keen to point out that his plan was to cut taxes for the lowest paid through cutting national insurance. It is clear that the Government have blatantly broken their promises to the country on national insurance, as they have on international development and the pension triple lock.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), the shadow Chancellor, mentioned, things have changed in the six months since the national insurance contributions increase was announced back in September. It is clear to many Opposition Members that the Government need to rethink the planned rise in national insurance contributions. In these extraordinarily difficult times, if the rise goes ahead, it will see people’s incomes squeezed even more. People are finding it more and more difficult just to survive and that is before we see the increase in national insurance contributions and the huge increase in energy bills that will have a heavy impact from April.
In my constituency and across the country, we are all hearing stories of huge sacrifice. Families are facing a real cost of living crisis, with energy bills set to rise again in April—
Gerald Jones
No, I will not. Given that oil and gas producers in the North sea have posted huge profits during the pandemic, why do the Government not halt their unfair tax rise, back a windfall tax to help to fund a cut in VAT on home energy bills and ease the burden on working people?
Government Members have also called on the Government not to go ahead with the rise. They have urged Ministers to make tackling the cost of living their No. 1 priority and noted that this year will be exceptionally hard for families, so why are the Government still not listening?
The Government claim that this situation is down to the pandemic, but in March last year—a year into the pandemic—the Chancellor promised that national insurance would not go up, saying:
“We’re not going to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance, or VAT.”
He added:
“Nobody’s take home pay will be less than it is now”—
another broken promise.
Analysis from the New Economics Foundation shows that 2.5 million working households will be hit by the Tory double whammy of cuts to universal credit and the increase in national insurance, losing out on as much as £1,170 next year. That is all at a time when we know that the price of food, the price of petrol and the cost of rent are going up and families are genuinely fearful about making ends meet.
There are other ways to raise that money, but the Chancellor wants the country to believe that this is the only way to do it. Half of Britons say that they could not afford an additional £50 a month on their cost of living. The Government should halt the national insurance rise so that people see their cost of living concerns ease. Surely the Minister recognises that stopping the rise would provide immediate support and help families at this really difficult time.
We know that citizens advice bureaux have seen a huge increase in debt advice services and that is before we reach April, when there will be the national insurance rise and the increase in energy costs. Labour has long called for the national insurance rise to be halted so that it does not make the cost of living crisis worse.
Gerald Jones
No, I will not. The Federation of Small Businesses warned that
“this increase will stifle recruitment, investment and efforts to upskill and improve productivity in the years ahead.”
The trade unions have joined the FSB in that regard. The FSB stated:
“The Government’s regressive jobs tax hike will put jobs at risk, stifle start-ups and prevent new jobs from being created…It could mean 50,000 more people out of work after it takes effect in April. That means 50,000 livelihoods harmed—50,000 people who would otherwise be at work in our economy.”
The TUC also says that it is wrong to hit young and low-paid workers while “leaving the wealthy untouched”.
Surely the Government must recognise that we are in a totally different situation from when the rise was announced six months ago. The economic outlook for thousands of families across the country is much bleaker, so I urge the Government to change course, support today’s Opposition motion and help to ease the pressure on families in Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and right across the country.
Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The Opposition are right that the rise in the cost of living is a crisis causing pain for many households across the country, particularly those on low incomes. As I said in an intervention, this is a global issue. The inflation afflicting the UK afflicts almost every country around the world. The energy price rises and the rise in food costs are as a result of global phenomena that are affecting countries such as US and Germany, where inflation is far higher than it is in the UK. In fact, if we look on an international basis, we see that inflation here is pretty middle of the road, although it is very concerning.
I will tell the House what else is very serious, as well as the cost of living crisis: the waiting list crisis that we have after the pandemic, with 6 million people waiting for elective surgery. There is also the social care crisis, which has bedevilled Governments for decades. They have always put it in on the “too difficult to do” pile and not done anything about it. We need to tackle those really serious issues and they require a serious, sustained increase in funding. The question is: how do we do that? How do we get that amount of money?
The national insurance increase will raise about £12 billion a year, when we do all the sums and cut out the costs. We can raise that amount of money only from three sorts of taxes: national insurance, VAT or income tax. If we put this on VAT, there would be an increase in the cost of living. That would go straight through to inflation.
The windfall tax that the Opposition propose would raise £6 billion or so, which is half the amount and would just be for one year. That cannot pay for a sustained increase in social care funding and the waiting list backlog. The question that I was going to ask if I had been allowed to intervene earlier, including on the shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves)—I notice that she has disappeared from her own debate, which is interesting—[Interruption.] It is the Opposition’s debate, not ours. I was going to ask how the Opposition would sustainably raise £12 billion a year to pay for the NHS. As I understand it, the Labour party has no solution to or proposal for that. Labour’s proposal to cut national insurance therefore basically amounts to a tax cut to starve the NHS of much-needed funding. I am astonished that the Labour party, of all parties, which likes to see itself as the party of the NHS, is proposing to do that.
We could ask, “Why choose national insurance rather than income tax?” There are various reasons for that. One of the most powerful is that it would be half paid for by businesses—there would be 1.25% for employees and 1.25% for businesses—whereas income tax is paid directly by earners.
National insurance is also progressive. I find it alarming when Labour Members keep saying that it is not. I wonder what understanding of economics they have. A progressive tax means that those on higher incomes pay more. That is clearly the case with national insurance. The top 14% will pay 50% of the whole tax. It is a tax that Labour increased in 2003 to pay for healthcare.
There are problems with national insurance. It does not normally go on dividends or on pensions, but this increase will, and it addresses a lot of the inequities of normal national insurance. Unlike income tax, national insurance can also be—and indeed, is—ringfenced legally and operationally for the NHS, so that we can be sure that this money is going towards the systemic problem of healthcare and social care that I mentioned earlier.
It is clearly important to tackle the cost of living. I completely understand Opposition Members’ concerns about raising taxes. I see myself as a low-tax Conservative, and I do not vote for tax rises with any joy in my heart, but what the Government have done is give support on household bills directly through the £200 energy bill support scheme—the rebate—and the £150 off council tax for houses in bands A to D. Eighty per cent. of houses will benefit from that, and the total package is about £9 billion a year. That goes directly to people’s pockets from April onwards. They will notice it straight away, and people want immediate support, not long-term aspiration.
I find this whole debate quite beguiling. I have spent my adult life watching the Labour party argue for higher taxes to fund the NHS. Today, in this debate, Labour Members are arguing for lower taxes in order to starve the NHS of money. This whole debate is about not the opportunities for the NHS but political opportunism, and I do not think it brings any credit on the Labour party to be so flagrantly opportunistic and economically illiterate as it is being today.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I place on record my dismay that the Government have chosen to hit working people and businesses with a national insurance rise at the worst possible time—when one in six working households cannot make ends meet, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research; when the number of jobs that pay below the national minimum wage and the living wage is still more than two and a half times higher than at pre-pandemic levels; when inflation is forecast to reach 7.25% next month, the highest level since August 1991.
We already have the highest level of inflation for three decades, but I am afraid that everything we know about the implications of Ukraine tells us that it will only get higher in the next few months. Everywhere we turn, prices are going up far faster than anyone can keep up with—at the supermarket checkout, at the petrol pump, in gas and electricity bills. Adding in mortgage rises, rent rises and council tax rises, we face a perfect storm of inflationary pressures that we have not seen for an entire generation.
I do not think that anyone has really levelled with the public about what the implications of a protracted war in Ukraine will be for prices. Things are going to get a lot more difficult before the pressure eases off. Just look at how the mere suggestion of a boycott of Russian gas and oil has pushed trading prices sky-high. That resulted from comments from the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, that conversations about a boycott were taking place—one can only imagine what would happen if people moved beyond conversations and a boycott actually took place.
It is not clear to what extent the price spikes are being exacerbated by speculators who are seeking to take advantage of the situation. Nor do we know whether a real effort by OPEC countries to increase production would mitigate it, or what impact the conflict will have on food prices over the medium term. The reality is that western Europe, trapped by its reliance on Russian energy, is forced to buy fuel that pays for the war that pushes up the price of energy further still. I fear that until more home truths are spoken about what it will take to break the cycle, we will continue to see prices rise and the war continue.
I recognise that addressing the issue is not solely within the Government’s gift. Grasping the nettle will be a continent-wide effort, but we must look at what the Government can control. There is an opportunity today to act on the national insurance increases. It beggars belief that we are looking at tax rises at the same time as prices are rising and bills are skyrocketing at levels not seen for a generation. This is the wrong tax at the wrong time.
Justin Madders
I am sorry, but the hon. Member has just spoken. If he did not get his point in then, he has missed his opportunity.
The tax rise was wrong back in September when it was first proposed, and even more wrong now. That is not just the view of Opposition Members; the cross-party Treasury Committee has highlighted that the increase in national insurance contributions for employers will lead to higher costs being passed on to consumers. If we speak to anyone in social care, they tell us that that is pushing them into unviability.
Data from the Institute of Directors in January demonstrated that more than a third of businesses would respond to the increase by raising prices and passing on the burden to customers, yet again increasing inflationary pressures. The same report also said that nearly a fifth of businesses would consider employing fewer staff as a result of these rises. Almost three quarters of companies in manufacturing say that they are also very likely to pass on the costs to customers, so it is no surprise that Make UK has said that the proposal is “illogical” and “ill-timed”.
We know that some areas will be worse hit than others. Analysis shows that the north-east and the midlands—areas that rely on wages rather than income from investment and properties—will be hardest hit. That is not levelling up, is it? Trapping the country in a low-growth, high-tax cycle and hitting working people with tax rise after tax rise is the opposite of levelling up.
Within four years, the average household will be paying £3,000 a year more in tax than when the Prime Minister first came to power. There is nothing to give families the security that they would get from the fully funded measures that the Opposition have proposed to keep energy bills down, which would be paid for by a windfall tax on North sea oil and gas producer profits. In my constituency alone, 12,500 families would be £400 better off as a result of the tax, and our plan would mean almost all households making savings on their bills. Nor would an extra £40 charge be hidden away and come out of people’s bills in a few years’ time, regardless of whether they had benefited from the scheme in the first place.
We see the effects of the current crisis playing out every day. One example in my constituency relates to housing affordability. Housing is a basic right, but with affordable and council housing in short supply, reliance upon the private rented sector has increased. However, a recent search of properties available in Ellesmere Port showed that of the 13 properties available—a minuscule number to start with—only two came within a rental liability level that would be covered by the local housing allowance, while the rest ranged from £30 to £225 over the rates. In Neston, the results of a search are even worse: all the properties were well over the LHA. In fact, it is now incredibly rare to see any properties offered at a rental value equivalent to the LHA. How on earth can we expect people to put a roof over their head in that situation, let alone pay for energy bills, food or council tax bills?
This will be an ongoing crisis, and there is no solution from the Government. Everywhere we turn, from housing to heating to eating, prices are going up. People face some really tough times ahead unless something is done now. Let us not add to that impossible burden. Let us scrap this national insurance increase right now.
Duncan Baker (North Norfolk) (Con)
I have said many times in this place that I represent the oldest demographic in the entire country. Hon. Members might expect me to say that North Norfolk is beautiful; it is my home and it is where I grew up. People come to live there all their lives, retire there or come back for years and years. If I knock on a door, there are two things that my constituents say they care about. They care about their health, and they recognise that with the dreadful situation we are in, the conflict we are seeing and the shifting of geopolitical plates, we have to have a competent Government looking after the economy. In pretty much any polling across the country, the most important factors that people care about are their health and the economy.
As I said in my intervention on the Chief Secretary, we have spent £450 billion, an eye-watering amount, on safeguarding the jobs and livelihoods of millions and millions of people—working-class, everyday people whose jobs have been saved. As a consequence, we are now in £2.2 trillion or so of debt. I find it staggering that the Opposition think that we can just amble out the other side of a global pandemic and everything will be normal. It simply cannot be, and we must and should be honest about it.
The health and social care levy is needed. We have heard all the statistics that show why: to repair the backlog in elective surgery and repair the social care system that we need in this country. According to reports, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) said, £12 billion a year is needed—a colossal amount of money. We cannot raise £12 billion a year by making savings or cuts to other services that have been ravaged throughout the pandemic that we have just come through.
Social care is a subject that I have spoken about many times in this Chamber—obviously I would, with the demographic I represent. We should not underestimate the herculean efforts of our carers. It is completely right that we hail our nurses through the pandemic. Imagine the care and patience someone needs to be a dementia nurse or a palliative carer. It is about time we fixed that—it is about time we grabbed the nettle and did it. This is a Government who are finally gutsy enough not to be derailed, no matter how difficult the situation. They will not be pushed off track; they will deal with it.
Before I came to the House I was a finance director, and I remember that when automatic enrolment came in, the situation was very similar. The initial levy was 1%, and what was being said then was what is being said now—people would be desperately worried about the cost, they would not pay for it, and they would opt out. What happened? Ninety per cent. of people stayed in the scheme, because they saw the value of what it was doing in the context of the marginal extra amount that they were paying.
The same will happen in this case. No one wants to see tax rises—we all agree on that—but the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. If we end up funding services properly and taking care of our elderly people properly—and we have the opportunity now to reform the social care sector and fund the NHS in this way—the 1.25% about which Members are so concerned today will dissipate, and for that reason we have to be entirely sensible.
Anthony Browne
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for the need to increase spending on health and social care in the long run. Does he share my concern about the fact that, while proposing a cut in national insurance, Labour Members have no answer to the question of how they would fund ongoing health and social care services, and the fact that cutting national insurance would inevitably lead to their cutting those as well?
Duncan Baker
This is the great problem in the House: we are constantly being told that what we are doing is wrong, but there are never many opportunities to ask, “What would you do?”, and that is the case again today. Yes, we have heard about the one-off windfall tax on the energy companies, but that has been dismissed for very good reasons. If anyone is able to come up with a sustainable way in which we can generate £12 billion to improve the situation that we are discussing today, I should very much like to sit here for the rest of the afternoon in order to hear it.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
I want to speak about quite a few matters, but first I want to focus in the plight of younger people—and by “younger people”, I mean people under 40, not just people in their 20s. I am talking about everyone in that younger slice of the population.
We have talked about the last massive increase in inflation, which, in 1992, reached the same levels of increase that it has reached in recent times. I am 35; in 1992 I was six, and I did not know what the rate of inflation was because it did not really matter to me. For a significant period I have been living in a property that does not belong to my parents, and I have a 10-year-old and an eight-year-old. There are many, many people like me out there, people who have been living their lives and paying their bills and have never seen an inflation rate like this, have never seen the increases that are coming down the line, and have never felt the massive squeeze that we are feeling now.
This is a cost of living crisis, one that is unprecedented for members of my generation who are having to face these massive costs, and it is compounded by the UK Government’s terribly poor decisions. It is compounded by the fact that people in Scotland must pay massive fees for attending university in England. It is compounded by the fact that people will be paying off student loans throughout their lives; indeed, they will never be able to pay them off. It is compounded by the fact that we do not have a real living wage, and that is even worse for people who are younger than 23 or 25, because the UK Government refuse to provide a single living wage. The “national living wage” is a pretendy living wage, because people cannot actually live on it. The Government refuse to provide a single set rate, apparently believing that somehow a 20-year-old can survive on less food or less electricity than someone older.
It is ridiculous that the Government are doing this. People my age and younger do not have savings on which to rely. As I said in the House some years ago, the average household has less than £100 in savings—and that was pre-covid, before the period during which people’s incomes have been so massively squeezed. People my age—younger people, people under 40—cannot just dip into their savings in order to fund the massive increase in energy bills that is coming, and the massive increase that is coming as a result of the national insurance hike. This is the least sensible time to be introducing a national insurance hike. People will be paying a massive amount more purely because of the choices of this Government—purely because the Government are choosing to fund health and social care in this way.
We in Scotland went into the 2019 election spending more per head of population on our NHS than the UK Government was. We went into that election calling for the UK to up its spending on the NHS. In Scotland, we are making different choices. We are making better choices. We are already funding the NHS at a higher level per head of population than England is, and we are already increasing the Scottish child payment to make sure that the number of children in poverty is decreasing. The Resolution Foundation says that the UK Parliament
“is on track to be the worst parliament on record for income growth”.
I do not want to see a world being created by this Tory Government where my children’s generation will be poorer than my generation and where my generation are poorer than my parent’s generation, but the UK Government continue to bake that in.
If the UK Government want to make money and reduce public sector net debt, a great way to do that is through immigration. In 2016-17, migrants reduced public sector borrowing by £4.4 billion. We would get to £450 billion pretty quickly if we added up the amount of positive benefits we can get from migration. If we made better choices—if we chose to not spend money on weapons of mass destruction, for example—we could have more money to spend on the NHS. We should be making better choices that reflect and assist the wellbeing of the population. This is a political choice. The Government have been asking people at the bottom of the pile for more than a decade to just pay a little bit more and cope a little bit more with austerity for a little bit longer, and now they are in the midst of a cost of living crisis where families’ energy bills are going to be shooting through the roof next month, with a £639 increase a year for every household.
In that time, the UK Government are ploughing ahead with this increase on national insurance. This is going to compound the increases that are being put in place. The increase will be nowhere near covered by the Government’s increase to the national living wage or by the universal credit taper rate. None of that will cover the cost that my constituents are being asked to pay to fund something that could be funded from somewhere else. The UK Government are choosing to balance the books on the backs of the poorest constituents that we have, and they need to change track now.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The idea of trying to raise a specific allocated funding source for social care came from a report in 2018 jointly done by then Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee—it has changed his name so many times, I have to think what it was called at the time—and the Health and Social Care Committee. We raised the idea of a national insurance increase but we were very specific about the caveats. We said that no one under 40 should pay it, because young people have been disproportionately hit by the impact of the banking crisis, the austerity measures and then covid. That is exactly the same way the Japanese raise their funding for social care. We said that the threshold at which people start paying national insurance should be higher, which this proposal does not do, and that the ceiling should be raised, which I think the Government now accept should be done. We also said that people on a high private pension should pay, but there is no proposal from the Government for that.
The Government are saying that when the levy comes in formally next year, people of pensionable age who are working will pay, but for this next year, 2022-23, those of pensionable age will not pay anything at all for the national insurance rise, which seems particularly strange as the money that will be spent will disproportionately help older people. We also said that people who are getting unearned income should pay. The self-employed pay national insurance based on their profits but not on a whole range of self-employed income, which would be a very different tax—a very different premium indeed. The changes to the cap will disproportionately benefit people in the most expensive homes, who will pay less of their asset when they die than people with lower value homes. We said that, rather than deal with this convoluted arrangement with the cap, everyone above a certain threshold of home value should pay a percentage of that asset towards the social care premium on their death. That again would be a much fairer way to raise money.
What we have here is a regressive form of taxation. I accept that people at the lower end—the people at the very bottom—on a £10,000 income will not pay, but beyond that, the hit to family incomes is going to be much greater for a family earning £30,000 than for a family earning £130,000. And at the end of the day, this does not deliver more money for social care. It should not be called a social care premium. It delivers the money through the disproportionate raising of the cap, which I have explained. It does not give any extra money for councils to fund the gap in social care funding, which has grown wider over the last 10 years. As social care funding has gone up and council budgets have shrunk, the amount for other services has shrunk with cuts of up to 50%—the National Audit Office has done an excellent report on this—whether it be planning services, environmental services, bus services, libraries or road repairs. We are looking for a funding stream that will stop that happening. There is no more money for local authorities to provide social care to the 1.5 million people that Age UK believes would have been entitled to social care 15 years ago and do not get it now.
At the same time, we will see a disproportionate rise in national insurance premiums hitting some of the poorest families hardest. What else will the Government do to fund local councils? They will make sure that councils have to put up council tax by around 3%. Council tax is a disproportionately unfair tax for poorer families. Look at the relationship between the value of homes and the amount of council tax people pay. The Resolution Foundation did a very interesting analysis five years ago showing that the level of council tax paid by those at the top end was 3.3 times higher than those at the bottom end, but the value of homes was, on average, 6.8 times higher at the top end, and that gap has grown larger as the value of houses has grown over the years and there has not been a council tax revaluation since 1991.
We have a double whammy. On top of the increases in food and fuel prices, which are disproportionately hitting poorer families, we have a disproportionate national insurance rise and disproportionate council tax increases, too. The Government should stand back and consider how we fund social care properly and fairly on a long-term basis, while at the same time addressing the problems of unfairness in council tax through revaluation and reconsidering the bands so that people in lower-value homes do not pay a disproportionate amount of council tax compared with people in higher-value properties. That would be fair. Let us see some fairness from the Government in addressing our future funding needs. They should not continue with the national insurance rise and the council tax increase this year, as they disproportionately hit the poorest families hardest.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who spoke powerfully about a number of the challenges facing households across the country. I particularly support his comments about the inadequacy of the council tax regime. I very much hope that the work of the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru will bring about a more progressive system, at least as it relates to Wales.
I urge the Government to cancel the planned national insurance increase. If they cannot bring themselves to do so, they should at least postpone its implementation. It has been said a number of times in this debate, but it is worth repeating, that now is not the time to place a further cost on families and businesses. The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) mentioned in her opening remarks that when the facts change, so should our policies. It is worth repeating that the situation in which we find ourselves is drastically different from last week, let alone last year. It is important that the Government consider that fact.
The cost of living crisis has been well discussed this afternoon. Inflation is surging and could exceed 8% in the coming months, if some estimates are correct, as energy, food and other essentials become even more expensive. The situation is especially acute in rural areas like mine in Ceredigion, where rising fuel and energy prices are inflicting a heavy toll on household finances. Nearly a fifth of households in Wales are not connected to the gas grid, and in rural areas like Ceredigion the figure can be as high as 80%, meaning they are completely unprotected from spikes in energy prices. Indeed, constituents of mine have seen the price of heating oil treble since September, and many have been informed this week that delivery to our area is currently unavailable. With rural fuel poverty already at some 14%, I fear for my constituents if the situation continues. I support the Bill proposed by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Drew Hendry), which would at least bring off-grid homes into some sort of regulatory arrangement that would mitigate them in respect of some of the more volatile differences in the energy market. Rising energy costs are matched by rising fuel costs, and in rural areas the lack of public transport infrastructure forces many to be dependent on private car use. Some 80% of commuters depend on the car, so it is a real concern when pump prices increase by some 10p a litre in a matter of days. I have been told that some stations in my constituency have seen increases of 15% or even 20% in the past week or so.
That is why the proposed national insurance hike, which will increase tax on average earnings in Wales by more than £250, is so mistimed. Wales already has the highest poverty and child poverty rate among the four nations of the UK, with almost one in four people, and 31% of our children, living in poverty. As we face potentially the worst drop in living standards in more than half a century or, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) said so clearly and eloquently, in a generation, households can ill-afford this tax hike and neither can our businesses. From Brexit to covid, with all the corresponding supply chain disruption, loss of business and inflationary pressures, there is growing evidence that businesses just cannot withstand further pressure. Indeed, there is a risk that by increasing national insurance contributions, the Chancellor will increase the cost of employment, which will be reflected either in job losses or in even higher prices to the consumer down the line. We need targeted relief, perhaps through a reformed rural fuel duty relief scheme, to help with costs for the motorists in my area, who do not have the luxury of public transport infrastructure to use just to go to the shop or to attend work every day. This would help hard-pressed communities weather this crisis, rather than what the Government propose to do, which is to increase the tax on them.
The decision to increase national insurance contributions is a choice, and we have heard a lot about that this afternoon; politics is always about making difficult choices. People across Ceredigion have told me loudly and clearly that this is the wrong choice for the situation in which we find ourselves.
Rebecca Long Bailey (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
The Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation have both said that the NI rise is disproportionately loaded on to younger and lower-paid workers compared with a rise in income tax. In addition, inflation is expected to hit at least 7.25% in April, council tax is going up in most places and energy prices are expected to rise by a whopping 50%. Of course the Government will say that they have offered support in the form of a £200 energy “discount” that consumers must pay back over the next five years, but that is, in essence, loading even more debt onto cash-strapped households. Labour’s analysis shows that, combined with the £444 increase in energy bills expected next financial year for a household that gets the Chancellor’s loan and council tax scheme, most households will still be more than £1,000 worse off in 2022-23. I must impress on the Minister that it is not just households who will be devastated by this NICs rise; businesses are also warning of the effects it will have on them and on the overall economy. For example, Make UK says:
“The cost burden on business is continuing to escalate and, while some of these increases are due to global events, Government must avoid shooting business in the foot with an entirely self-imposed decision.”
The Federation of Small Businesses says that the Government must reverse this decision and go further, removing all employer contributions for apprentices, which it says will result in more workplace opportunities for young people.
So today’s motion is right: the Government must cancel their planned NICs rise, because it is clear that these reforms are illogical and unfair. On unfairness, for those paid a wage above the NICs threshold, which is due to be £9,880 from April, the Government will ask for an extra 2.5% of wages towards the costs of social care, because the 1.25 percentage point increase to both employee and employer NICs will each come out of workers’ take-home pay in the end. Those who are self-employed and paid in dividends have been asked to contribute an extra 1.25 percentage points from their wages, but if a person’s income is derived from interest payments, rents, capital gains or pension annuity, they will not see any increase at all. Happy days for them.
It is clear that our social care system needs urgent reform and investment, but raising national insurance contributions at just the time when our communities and businesses need to be shielded from the cost of living crisis they face is not the answer. At the very least, the Government must cut the rate of VAT for household energy bills as soon as possible and must levy a long-overdue windfall tax on oil and gas companies to generate an income stream. They must expand and increase the warm home discount, prevent the cost of supplier failure from going on to bills and significantly increase universal credit to offset soaring inflation. They must also increase public sector pay and the living wage.
The Government must address the long-term structural failures that the privatisation of our energy market has caused by recognising that public ownership is central to addressing the costs and energy security crisis that our energy system faces and would also create a revenue stream, just like the revenue streams created by countries such as France with their own publicly owned energy companies.
We are long overdue a frank discussion and examination of fairness in the tax and social security system. We must look at taxing income from wealth—such as interest, rent and capital gains—on a basis comparable with that for earnings from work. As the New Economics Foundation has suggested, the Government should examine the idea of a living income, which would link social security payments to a decent minimum income guarantee.
This is the time for the Government to wrap their arms around households and businesses, not to hit them with an illogical tax hike. Only when households and businesses are supported will they be able to emerge from this cost of living crisis stronger and more buoyant than they were before.
Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)
In an intervention earlier, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is no longer in his place, talked about the 1.25 percentage point increase having the potential to break the back of families—being the last straw, as it were—and he was right. I often look across at Government Members and wonder whether they have any capacity for understanding the pressures that families face. Under a previous leader they used to talk about the just about managing, but those who were just about managing—the JAM—are toast under the circumstances that people currently face. On International Women’s Day, we should spare a thought for those mothers who are already struggling—now, before the increase comes in—to feed their children and heat their homes.
The Office for National Statistics says that those who earn below the average wage will pay up to £255 a year. That is a significant amount of money for people who do not have it. If someone’s household budget is already blown, £255 a year is devastating. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) pointed out the disproportionate effect of the national insurance increase on young people and the lowest-paid, and that is the case, but it will also hit business. The Federation of Small Businesses has pointed out that the increase will affect businesses by, on average, around £3,000 per year. It says that will put the brakes on investment, upskilling, apprenticeships and, of course, community growth.
Government Members like to say that Brexit has nothing to do with the crisis we are currently in but the ONS points out that since Brexit—incidentally, a Brexit that Scotland did not vote for and roundly rejected—the cost of producing goods has gone up by 13%. That is forcing up prices, increasing inflation and sucking the oxygen out of exports. Some 4,300 fewer businesses are exporting now than were exporting in 2019. That is a shocking figure. These are UK companies that are no longer exporting. Their exports to the EU are down £20 billion. All of this means less money in the economy and less money getting through to our communities—especially in Scotland and especially in places such as the highlands and the north of Scotland where we rely on Europe for fishing, seafood, fruit and veg and clothing. Many small and medium-sized enterprises are losing market and money. It is no wonder that the FSB has described this act as “chilling”.
This national insurance increase, which will stall planned wage increases, comes on top of household pressures gradually crushing ordinary households across the nations of the UK. As the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake) pointed out, rural constituencies are disproportionately affected. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out that we are seeing inflation of 8%, but for basic foodstuffs it is even higher. Things such as margarine are up 45%. Rice, one of the cheapest foods, has seen an increase of 344%. These are real effects on real people in real households, and they will be facing these pressures every day.
In the colder climate in rural areas, the costs are higher for fuel and for transport. For those in off-gas grid areas, it is not only about the £800 increase—as it was. It will now be more. It may cost £2,000 a year for the average household, but it could be £4,300 a year for energy costs. That is an astonishingly hard bill to pay for people who do not have a lot of money. This is another straw that will hurt them. An often used phrase is that people have to choose between heating or eating. Many of my constituents do not have that choice any more. They cannot choose the heating because there is just no money for it in the budget. People are being pushed into extreme fuel poverty and actual poverty, and they no longer have a choice.
The Government should scrap the national insurance hike. The Chancellor’s payday loan will not help, as it has to be repaid and, as we have just heard, that just exacerbates the problem. Council tax help is not enough. People need an emergency package. The Government should turn that £200 payday loan back into a grant that is paid to people directly. The £1,040 universal credit cut should be reversed. The Government should adopt the Scottish child payment across the nations of the UK and bring in a real living wage, not the “pretendy” one, as it was called earlier. They should scrap the bedroom tax; Scotland is having to mitigate that at the moment, but it should not be there. Let us scrap it.
I call on Members to support my ten-minute rule Bill to regulate off-grid gas supplies. The Government should make the changes: scrap the benefit cap; take away the hideous rape clause; and remove the barriers so that people are able to afford their very existence.
There is a lot more that we could cover today. This subject affects people’s income, affects their livelihood, affects the development and the growth of their children and affects their families into the future, but there is no time to cover it all. The one thing that this Government could do today, because they know that it is unpopular with their own Back Benchers, is to scrap this national insurance hike.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate.
Like the constituents of all Members of this House, my constituents are experiencing a cost of living crisis, but for many in Easington, this is not a new or a temporary crisis. We need only look at food poverty and the normalisation of the use of food banks, many of which have been overwhelmed after a decade of Tory policies. In 2010, the Trussell Trust distributed around 40,000 emergency food parcels; last year, more than 2.5 million parcels were delivered. Shocking though those figures are, they do not even count independent food banks, such as those that operate in my constituency, including the much-valued service run by the East Durham Trust and the Dawdon Community Centre. Those figures, which show the exponential increase in food bank usage, are a sign of economic failure. People should be angry at a growing, Government-imposed cost of living crisis in which millions of families are experiencing hardship, as some of them have for more than a decade now.
There is no doubt about it: the Conservative party is making life harder for ordinary families. As many Opposition Members have said, poverty and policies that lead to increased poverty and inequality are a political choice—a political choice that the Government party has made in this case. Prices are rising: food, energy, fuel, diesel, petrol and housing costs are rising. Government Members were all elected on a promise not to increase taxes, and that includes national insurance contributions, which I understand the Prime Minister himself personally signed off.
We know that the Prime Minister’s political promises, whether made at the Dispatch Box or in an election manifesto, are ephemeral. An average worker’s income will be cut by more than £250 a year due to this national insurance hike. It will wipe out the council tax rebate that Ministers have referred to, as well as half of the Government’s mandatory energy loan.
The majority of my constituents will not see the benefit of capping social care costs because of the relatively low value of their properties. The Government’s policies make the poorest pay to protect the assets of the wealthy and the inheritance of the richest in society; I will come back to that in a moment. They will entrench poverty and economic inequality for generations to come.
This is a bad policy and a bad tax for the communities I represent, who face a social care tax double whammy next month. My constituents suffer not only from the policies of the national Conservative Government, but locally from the Tory-led coalition and alliance on Durham County Council. I quote the Tory leader of the Conservative group, who holds the finance portfolio on the council:
“There is no crisis in adult social care in County Durham. Members must take their information from our council reports and not from primary school level BBC National news reports.”
We have all been put firmly in our places.
Councillor Bell, I am sad to say, is being supported and facilitated by the Liberal Democrats, the Green party and the independents. They will be raising the council tax adult social care precept by 3% in Durham, despite having been elected on a manifesto promise that there would be zero increase in council tax. My constituents are being hit by two Tory taxes to pay for the cost of social care. Of the national insurance contribution we are discussing, I am not sure any of it will go to social care, but we shall see.
I will pick up on a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) about the inherent unfairness of council tax. That tax disproportionately hits the poorest living in low-value properties. In my Easington constituency, of more than 40,000 hereditaments or properties, 75% are in band A. A home in band A in Easington, valued at £80,000, is paying around £29.75 a week in council tax. In contrast, a Russian oligarch’s band H home in Kensington, valued at £125 million, pays just £50.52 a week in council tax. It is a disgrace.
The Government have the wrong priorities, and last night’s votes on the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill showed that. We do not need more tax—we need fairer tax. They should scrap the national insurance tax hike, work with me and others and with the Fairer Share campaign to scrap council tax, and support a proportional property tax to counter the cost of living crisis.
Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)
Having listened to the debate this afternoon, I want to draw the few Members on the Conservative Benches back to what our motion is actually seeking. It is very clear: it is asking the Government to cancel the planned 1.2% rise in national insurance contributions that will cost families, on average, £500 per year from this April. The issues around funding for health and social care, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) outlined, are long-standing. This did not start during covid, and it has not been addressed by this Government for successive years. When 50% of Britons are saying that they cannot afford this additional increase in the cost of living, we are asking the Government to address this and cancel this rise now to support families.
Across my constituency of Vauxhall, the reality of a cost of living crisis is nothing new for many residents. They have been trying to make the pennies last for many years. The ill effects of the universal credit system, the erosion of workers’ rights and an utter failure to tackle the housing crisis have left so many Vauxhall residents—
Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I would like to ask her about the housing crisis. In my constituency, in Reading and Woodley, many residents suffer, as she says, from the rising cost of living, but they suffer particularly because of the great increases in mortgage and rental costs. Will she focus on that matter, and will the Minister also look into it?
Florence Eshalomi
My hon. Friend makes a really valid point. In London, the big issue of the cost of living is being pushed up by the cost of our housing crisis, and this is experienced right across the country. Household costs continue to go through the roof, including for many people in insecure tenancies and people in the private rented sector who are also hit hard.
The rise in national insurance will do nothing to alleviate the suffering felt by my constituents but will simply combine with booming fuel prices to push more and more of them into poverty. The effect of this cannot be overstated. More than 8,000 people in Vauxhall already live in fuel poverty. That means that they cannot afford to keep their home warm without dropping into poverty. How have we got to a state where thousands of people in the centre of one of the richest cities in the world, in one of the richest countries in the world, are having to make the impossible choice between living in poverty or living in a cold home? That is the reality for many of my constituents.
The Government can point as much as they want to extenuating circumstances, but they cannot hide from the failures on their own doorstep that have made the events of the past couple of years unnecessarily hard. Neither can it be said that the solutions they offer are sufficient, or progressive enough, in alleviating the costs of households. While the Government have proclaimed to be living with covid, the reality for many people in Vauxhall is that they are still reeling from insufficient support during the pandemic, and local industries face a long tail of this crisis. These include self-employed people who were unfairly excluded from Government support. Many of the people who have contacted me built up personal debt during the pandemic to stay afloat, only to be hit now with the double whammy of the national insurance and energy cost hikes.
In the lead-up to the 2015 general election, the then leader of the Conservative party talked about fixing the roof when the sun is shining. At the same time, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition took a wrecking ball to the effective schemes introduced by Labour that were fixing a million roofs every year. The result is that, with the heavy rain of the fuel price crisis on the horizon, our housing stock still suffers from inefficiencies that will mean that more and more households face impossible choices in the next couple of months.
On this International Women’s Day, I pay tribute to the women across Vauxhall who are working around the clock behind the scenes to make ends meet: the women who are juggling insecure zero-hours contract jobs to pay their bills; the women who are forced to return to work early because of the crippling costs of childcare; the women who are at the forefront of working with our young people caught up in violence, running to the scene and reassuring the community when there has been a tragic incident; and the women who will continue to go without just to ensure that their extended family members or the people they are caring for are supported. They are the very same women who will be hit by this national insurance crisis.
The tangibility of many households in Vauxhall’s ability to cope is close to a tipping point. While there are things that the Government cannot control, they must use all the levers they have available to ensure that households stay afloat. Refusing to impose a national insurance rise now is one of those levers, and it is one that the Government must use if they have the interests of households up and down the country at heart. I ask Conservative Members to reassess their commitment to supporting working families and cancel this rise.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
We will now have a five-minute time limit so I can get everybody in.
Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
Having listened to contributions from across the House this afternoon, as well as extensively reading around this subject, it is indisputable that we are facing the worst cost of living crisis in 30 years. As other Members have said, it is—as always—the poorest in our communities who are going to pay the highest proportion of their income to meet essential needs. In the current climate, the Government should seek to increase people’s income, not add extra financial burdens on those who can least afford them. That is what the Welsh Government are trying to do within their financial limitations because, in the words of the Welsh Minister for Social Justice, Jane Hutt:
“We are determined to do all we can to support our people with the bills they are facing”.
The solutions, though—as the Bevan Foundation, a well-respected think-tank in Wales, points out—lie with this UK Government, so let us look briefly at some of the facts and figures. Median pay is now at its lowest rate, and real pay is falling. It is not me saying that; the Governor of the Bank of England and the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee have also said so. Real pay is falling, as the Trades Union Congress has said, and social security payments are falling, as the Chancellor has said; indeed, he said so last October when he took £20 in universal credit from those on the lowest incomes in society. The 3.1% ceiling on uprating social security imposed a few weeks ago now looks like a 5% cut, if the Resolution Foundation’s inflation predictions are correct.
At the same time, costs are going up. Worst of all, the energy price cap has increased by 54%—almost £700 over the next six months. Food bills are going up, rail fares went up last week, and as others have said, council tax bills are going up. On top of this, next month, the national insurance contributions of both employers and employees are going to increase. As the Resolution Foundation said in October:
“The average combined impact of the freeze to income tax thresholds and the 1.25 per cent increase in personal National Insurance contributions is £600 per household”,
and the expected rise in taxes and energy bills will lead to an average £1,200 per year increase in costs for households from April. The Tory Government and the Chancellor are taking money away from working people and small businesses who can least afford it. Others have already eloquently evidenced this, and it is demonstrated by organisations such as the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which estimates an increase in destitution, and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s own data.
I have heard a lot from Government Members about, “Well, what can we do?” This Labour party will keep challenging the Government here in Parliament, but we will also continue to work with our trade union colleagues. I will continue to stand with trade unions, taking action to defend those on low and middle incomes who are cast aside by this Government. The Chancellor needs to increase Government spending in the Budget to boost investment and allow public services to cope with higher inflation—that is necessary, but not through increases in the cost of living for those on low and middle incomes. We need to shift the burden to those who can afford it, which requires major interventions in the economy at the spring statement.
We have heard calls for a major additional benefit uprating, with which I fully agree. We also need to hear proposals for significantly increasing the national minimum wage—I support a £15 minimum wage—and for taxing wealth. There are lots of ways of doing that, such as a windfall tax on North sea oil and gas; a one-off wealth tax, as advocated by the Wealth Tax Commission; an increase in capital gains tax, as proposed by the Trades Union Congress; progressive national insurance contribution changes—which this one is certainly not; it is regressive—or an increase in dividend taxation, as the Institute for Public Policy Research and others have advocated. There are far more progressive ways to fund social care and the NHS. This increase is not progressive, and I urge the Government to withdraw it immediately. Diolch yn fawr.
Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), and the shadow Chancellor, my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves), for selecting this extraordinarily important debate. A long and bitter winter is at last coming to an end, but while my constituents look to Westminster for a helping hand to see them through the enormously difficult months ahead, this Government are instead planning to deal millions of hard-working people and small businesses a cataclysmic tax hike at the very worst time. Even before Putin commenced his barbaric onslaught on the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine and sent shockwaves across the global economy, thousands of my constituents were grappling with spiralling inflation, rising food costs and soaring energy prices.
Time and time again, I have warned this House about the devastation being inflicted upon constituencies like mine in Birkenhead, with parents going hungry so that their children can eat, old-age pensioners who have worked all their lives freezing in their homes because they cannot afford to put the meter on, and kids without even a mattress to sleep on. That is the grim reality confronting our country today. Now, Britain’s billionaire Chancellor is threatening to shove millions of hard-working families off the precipice and into the deepest depths of destitution with this senseless hike in national insurance contributions.
While Ministers are asking my constituents, some of the poorest in the country, to dig deep to pay for the mess that the Conservatives have made in health and social care, the Chancellor and Prime Minister have been quick to assure their friends in the City—those with the broadest shoulders of all—that they will not be called upon to play their part. There should be absolutely no doubt about whose side this Government are on. Let us be clear about exactly what this tax hike will mean for the people I represent. A single-parent family earning minimum wage in my constituency will be forced to hand hundreds of pounds more over to the taxman each year, while the landlord who charges them extortionate rents for damp and draughty houses will pay exactly zero pence more.
For 12 long years, Government Members have turned their eyes away from the immense human suffering that austerity has inflicted upon my constituents in Birkenhead and on communities across the UK, but they can plead ignorance no longer. This historic cost of living crisis will spare no corner of our country, and however they vote later today, they will do so in the full knowledge of what this catastrophic tax hike will mean for the people who elected them to this place. The country will not soon forget the fact that when they were given the opportunity to stand up for working people in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis in recent memory, Tory MPs shrugged their shoulders and slinked away.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab)
Listening to Members on the Government Benches this afternoon makes me believe that they are living in an alternative universe, because during this pandemic, the number of billionaires has increased and the richest 1% have increased their wealth exponentially, while more are suffering in-work poverty and are increasingly reliant on food banks. We are the fifth richest country in the world, and that should not be happening.
A recent report from Oxfam found that an annual wealth tax on billionaires and multimillionaires in the UK could pay the salaries of £50,000 new nurses, permanently increase universal credit by £20 a week and build 35,000 new affordable homes. It also said that the revenue could cover the cost of the health and social care levy twice over every year, completely eliminating the need to raise national insurance and place the financial burden on those least likely to afford it. What have the Tories actually done? They have chosen to hit the lowest paid and the youngest the hardest. The very key workers who kept our country going throughout the pandemic are now struggling to put food on the table. Research by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union showed that 40% of its members were eating less because of a lack of cash, and nearly 10% had run out of food altogether because of a lack of money.
The choices that this Government have made are driving working people into food poverty, so does the Minister agree that their record of giving bankers a billion-pound tax break while voting to raise taxes on working people and cut social security and pensions in real terms is an absolute disgrace? Inflation is predicted to rise above 8%, but benefits are increasing by only 3%. This is the worst time to increase national insurance contributions, as it will hit working people hardest and mean that they will have to decide whether to eat or heat.
My constituency has some of the highest child poverty rates in the country, rocketing to 29.3% compared with the national average of 19.1%. One quarter of children in my constituency live in absolute poverty, although more than half of those families have at least one parent in work. Our NHS and social care systems are on their knees after a decade of Tory cuts. They should be funded by a wealth tax on the super-rich, not by a tax rise on the poor, who are already being hit hardest by the crushing cost of living crisis that is expected to worsen after April with a 54% increase in the cost of energy, food and fuel.
Instead of supporting and resourcing local government to provide gold standard in-house social care services with decent pay and conditions for workers, the Tories have systematically defunded councils for 12 years. They have cut £450 million in Liverpool alone, with a further £34 million of cuts in the pipeline. No matter how the Government try to dress it up, the perfect storm of low pay, insecure work and tax hikes on working people means that the finances of millions of families across the country are on the brink of catastrophe.
We cannot allow the Government to continue to turn a blind eye to the skyrocketing levels of poverty that they are presiding over. We must take urgent action to reverse the cuts to public services and local government, implement a £15 an hour minimum wage to boost the income of the lowest earners, reverse the cuts to social security and pension payments, and scrap the national insurance contributions hike. The worst of the cost of living crisis is yet to come. Enough is enough: it is time to make the wealthy pay their fair share and alleviate the burden on the working classes.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South) (Lab)
I rise to speak in support of the motion calling for the Government to cancel their planned 1.25% rise in national insurance contributions, which will cost families an average of £500 a year from April 2022. Many of my constituents have been telling me that they are struggling with the increase in the cost of living. I spoke to a mother of a disabled child living in Dallow, who was scared about whether she could afford to pay her rising gas bill as she needed to keep the heating on for her disabled child’s condition. Similarly, in Farley, an older couple with serious health conditions who live on a fixed income are struggling with increased food prices and energy bills.
Many of my constituents have also been in touch about petrol price increases and have pointed out that the Tory cost of living crisis is being further exploited by sharp and often inconsistent rises at different petrol stations. People are driving to different areas in desperation to find the cheapest one to save a few pounds so that they can get to work. Will the Minister set out what action the Government are taking to tackle the large increases in petrol prices and any apparent profiteering that is taking place?
The reality is that people are really worried about their future and in just a few weeks, there will still be a devastating set of tax hikes. According to the Resolution Foundation, the average combined impact of the freeze in income tax thresholds and the 1.25% increase in personal national insurance contributions is about £600 per household. Combined with the £444 increase in energy bills expected in the next financial year for a household that gets the Chancellor’s loan and council tax reduction, that means that most households will still be more than £1,000 worse off in 2022-23.
It is clear that the Conservative Government are choosing to increase national insurance on working people and businesses at the worst possible time. The increase is deeply unfair because it will hit 27 million workers directly in their pay packets while leaving other forms of income, such as from buying and selling property, owning multiple buy-to-lets and dealing in stocks and shares, untouched. Many of my constituents do not have such wealth and assets, which is why it is unfair and why Labour has long called for the national insurance rise to be halted, so that it does not make the cost of living crisis worse.
In response to points made by Conservative Members—I am sad that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) is no longer in his place—I say that the tax increase is regressive. Figures from the income tax calculator published in The Guardian a few weeks ago show that earners of £100,000 a year could end up paying proportionately less in national insurance than those on middle incomes if the increase goes through. They will pay just 7% of their overall salary, which is the same proportion as someone on £20,000 a year. The Treasury’s claim that this is progressive is not borne out when those earning between £30,000 and £50,000 will be the hardest hit by far. Someone on £50,000 a year will pay national insurance contributions of about 10% of their gross salary after April, and those on £30,000 will pay about 9% of their gross salary. From April, it will be about 13.25% on most earnings up to £50,000, but just 3.25% on any income above that threshold. We in the Labour party know that people need help now, and that is why the Government should act now.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I call the shadow Minister, James Murray, and I do hope that hon. and right hon. Members will listen to the wind-ups. I realise that a lot of people have come in for the next business, but we have had a long debate and we want to hear from the shadow Minister and the Minister.
James Murray (Ealing North) (Lab/Co-op)
Today, we have heard from hon. Members representing people across the country about why it is so important that the Government cancel their national insurance hike on working people and their jobs. My hon. Friends the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), for Easington (Grahame Morris), for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter), for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) all spoke powerfully about how so many of their constituents are struggling with the costs of living and how those pressures have been rising rapidly in recent months. My hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) and for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) spoke about the fundamental unfairness of the Government’s approach with their national insurance hike.
In September last year, the Government pushed their national insurance hike through Parliament in a day. From the very start, it was clear that this was a deeply unfair tax hike that would hit working people and their jobs. We urged the Government to think again and reverse course, but they refused do so, and they have kept refusing to reverse course, despite people facing mounting difficulties in making ends meet. Inflation, already at its highest rate in decades, is forecast to hit 8% in April. Energy bills that have been rising rapidly are set to soar next month, and now the crisis in Ukraine will bring even greater pressure on the cost of energy, petrol and food. Yet in four weeks’ time, the Government’s tax rise will kick in, costing the average family £500 a year. It is the worst possible tax rise at the worst possible time.
Back in September when the Government pushed this tax rise through Parliament, we immediately knew how unfair it would be. The Government’s own published assessment of this tax rise made that clear. Their tax information and impact note, which Ministers had to approve, set out what effect this tax rise would have. The note looked at this tax rise from a number of angles, including how it performed against the Government’s so-called family test. As hon. Members may remember, the family test was introduced by David Cameron in 2014. When the then Prime Minister announced this new test, he said he wanted to
“strengthen and support family life in Britain”.
His plan to do so was to make sure that
“every single domestic policy that government comes up with will be examined for its impact on the family.”
That test was applied to the national insurance increase last September, and the outcome of that test was to warn of
“an impact on family formation, stability or breakdown as individuals, who are currently just about managing financially, will see their disposable income reduce.”
That warning alone should have given Conservative MPs reason to stop in their tracks and think again. They should have stopped and listened to the Institute for Fiscal Studies warning of this tax rise involving
“a large, unjustified and problematic bias against employment and labour incomes”.
They should have listened to the TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, warning of the hit faced by young and low-paid workers with this tax rise. They could have listened to any of the many voices against their plans, as the impact of this tax rise on people’s ability to make ends meet was clear back in September.
The impact on jobs and businesses was clear then, too. Again, the Government’s own assessment made that clear. It admitted the tax rise would impact on business decisions on wage bills and recruitment. The Federation of Small Businesses described the tax rise as
“devastating for small businesses and the local communities they serve.”
The British Chambers of Commerce described it as a
“hammer blow to jobs growth”.
Despite all those warnings, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor refused to think again. The Conservatives refused to listen to our calls for those with the broadest shoulders to contribute more. Their response to the low-growth, high-tax economic cycle they have created was to make working people foot the bill.
Even if some Conservative Members managed to hold their noses and vote with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor last September, it is astonishing that they still feel able to do so after all that has happened since then. Energy bills have been rising fast and now are set to soar. We know that energy bills will rise by an average of more than £600 this April. Inflation is already—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I said this a few minutes ago but as I have a larger audience I think it is worth repeating. We have been having a debate, the shadow Minister and the Minister are responding to that debate, and hon. and right hon. Members want to hear what they have to say. I hope those present will do them the courtesy of being quiet, so we can listen to the shadow Minister first and then the Minister.
James Murray
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I said, if Conservative Members managed to hold their noses last September to vote with the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, it is truly astonishing that they still feel able to do so now after all that has happened. Energy bills have been rising fast and are set to rise by more than £600 in April. Inflation is at its highest rate in decades and is set to rocket to 8% next month.
What is more, the Government’s arguments that they need this money for social care have been left in tatters. Not only have they failed to produce a plan to fix social care, but we know that Ministers looked the other way as billions of pounds of public money were handed out to fraudsters and written off. They ignored the warnings on fraud, they were careless with waste and they are now expecting working people to foot the bill for their mistakes.
If that was not bad enough, it is now clear that private sector workers will be asked to pay twice. As our new analysis shows, private sector workers will face a double whammy as almost all the rise in their employers’ contributions is set to be passed on to workers through lower wages.
Ministers, and indeed some of their Back Benchers, often try to pretend that the cost of living crisis is entirely the result of global factors, but that argument simply does not hold true. Most damagingly, it ignores the fact that the Government could, and should, be doing far more to help people to make ends meet. The truth is that decisions by this Government over many years have left us uniquely exposed to rising gas prices. From cutting gas storage, to leaving our homes poorly insulated and failing to invest in renewables and nuclear, this Government’s approach means that rising energy costs hit people in the UK much harder than they should.
The truth is that the Government have failed to step up and offer people the help they need with energy bills now. Labour’s plan is to give everyone £200 and those in greatest need £600 to help to meet energy costs. That would be funded with a one-off windfall tax on North sea oil and gas producers’ profits. The alternative from the Chancellor is to land everyone with a buy now, pay later loan and to announce a council tax rebate that some of those in the greatest need will never even see.
The truth is that, when it comes to the tax rise we are debating today—an unfair tax rise on working people, a tax rise of £500 for the average family, a tax rise on businesses and jobs—the responsibility begins and ends here. Conservative MPs voted six months ago for that tax rise. Last week, the Minister admitted to me that the Government recognise the impact the tax rise will have on working people. Today, they have a chance to change course.
Today, we are asking all Members to join us in asking the Government to think again. When the Government first introduced this tax rise on working people and their jobs, it was blindingly unfair. Far from asking those with the broadest shoulders to contribute more, the Tories showed their true colours and went straight for a tax rise on 27 million working people. Since then, the case against the tax rise has got stronger and stronger. With energy bills rising and about to soar and with inflation set to hit 8%, the struggle for millions of people to make ends meet is getting harder by the day. Now is the time to change course and help people to face the tough months ahead. Now is the time to send a message to the Chancellor ahead of his Budget on 23 March. Now is finally the time to do the right thing and cancel this unfair tax rise.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Frazer)
It is a privilege to close the debate on behalf of the Government and I echo the words of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury about the situation in Ukraine. Our thoughts are, of course, with the men, women and children struggling to comprehend and respond to the day-to-day realities of the Russian invasion.
I turn to the specifics of the motion and the health and social care levy. We must—and we will—press ahead. In fact, as the hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray) recognised, legislation has already been debated and enacted. Introducing the levy was a tough but responsible choice, which is what good government is all about.
My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Jerome Mayhew) said that these are good proposals and that we need to spend the money on health and social care. The levy is a means to tackle a number of crucial ends: tackling the backlog in our national health service and aiding its recovery from the challenges of covid, while finally enacting long-term reform of social care, an issue that too many Governments have ducked for too long. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) said, other Governments have simply put it on the “too difficult to do” pile. As he recognised, it needs serious and sustained funding. A record £13 billion a year on average will now be invested in the NHS and social care by way of a new UK-wide 1.25% ringfenced levy based on national insurance contributions and an equivalent increase in dividend tax rates.
Many Opposition Members, including the hon. Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders)—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. It is getting very noisy again. Please respect the Minister, who is winding up the debate. Let us listen to what she has to say.
Lucy Frazer
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was just highlighting the number of Opposition Members, including the hon. Members for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), who challenged the Government, as others have, on their approach to the cost of living. But the plain truth is that we recognise the pressure that people face. We have done what we can to ease that pressure and will continue to explore other measures.
Frankly, our actions speak for themselves. During the pandemic, we provided more than £400 billion of direct support to the economy, protecting millions of jobs and livelihoods. The hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Beth Winter) said that we should invest more, but we are spending more than £600 billion on gross public sector investment over the course of the Parliament.
The hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) said that we should have acted on the cost of living in September. But we did. The Government are providing support worth more than £20 billion across this financial year and next that will help families with the cost of living. We provided that funding not just in September; we have consistently tried to support those on the lowest incomes. As the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) mentioned, it is important that we support those who need it most and, since 2010, Conservative Governments have kept lower-paid people out of tax. The income tax personal allowance threshold has increased by over 90%, meaning that a typical basic rate taxpayer now pays £1,200 less a year than they would have done without our changes.
A number of Members have discussed whether the system we are introducing is progressive. The hon. Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) and the hon. Member for Cynon Valley challenged that, but it obviously is when 14% of taxpayers are paying 50% of the tax and the highest 2% of taxpayers are paying 20% of the tax. As well as that, the levy will ensure that those on the lowest income get the most support. In our reformed system, total social care spend on the least wealthy 20% of older adults will be £4.24 billion in 2021-22 in a steady state compared with £0.51 billion on the wealthiest 20% of older adults. That shows that the lowest wealth quintile continues to receive the most state support.
The hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) and the hon. Member for Luton South said that we should cancel this tax because it was unfair, and they both quoted the IFS. When we introduced this levy, Paul Johnson, the director of the IFS, said that this was an “overall much needed” reform to social care and that
“unavoidable pressures on the NHS are being funded through a broad based and broadly progressive tax increase”.
I turn to the very important topic of fiscal responsibility. As my hon. Friends the Members for South Cambridgeshire and for Broadland commented, if we do not bring in this tax rise, the alternative is more borrowing. We cannot and should not abdicate our fiscal responsibilities. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Duncan Baker) said, we spent £400 billion during the course of covid. We are in debt and we need to be honest about the situation. Our level of debt means that we are vulnerable to shocks, including changes in interest rates and inflation. The public finances are stronger as a result of our early, bold action to support the economy during the pandemic and because we did not shy away from tough choices.
Our new fiscal rules demonstrate fiscal responsibility and will keep the public finances on track in the years to come. [Interruption.] The hon. Members for Gordon (Richard Thomson) and for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) talked about young people, but if we do not bring in these taxes—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. I do not think the Minister will speak for that much longer, so please will hon. Members keep the noise down and hear what she has to say?
Lucy Frazer
If we do not bring in this taxation, we will have future generations left paying bills in our stead.
In conclusion, this has been an important and constructive debate concerning issues that matter deeply and on which we as a Government will not compromise. Being in Government is about making the best possible decisions on behalf of the British people. The health and social care levy is emblematic of that responsibility. It is the right policy at the right time for the right reasons.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House calls on the Government to cancel its planned 1.25 percentage point rise in National Insurance Contributions that will cost families an average of £500 per year from April 2022.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I will now suspend the sitting. The Division bells will ring two minutes before we resume informally to hear President Zelensky’s address.
Mr Speaker
I will take points of order from the leaders of the main parties before we return to the Opposition day debate.
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Never before in all our centuries of parliamentary democracy has the House listened to such an address. In a great European capital, now within range of Russian guns, President Volodymyr Zelensky is standing firm for democracy and for freedom. In his righteous defiance, I believe he has moved the hearts of everybody in this House.
At this moment, ordinary Ukrainians are defending their homes and their families against a brutal assault. They are, by their actions, inspiring millions with their courage and their devotion. Today, one of the proudest boasts in the free world is, “Ya Ukrainets”—I am a Ukrainian.
This is a moment for us to put our political differences aside. I know I speak for the whole House when I say that Britain and our allies are determined to press on—to press on with supplying our Ukrainian friends with the weapons they need to defend their homeland, as they deserve, and to press on with tightening the economic vice around Vladimir Putin. We will stop importing Russian oil, and my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary will update the House on that tomorrow. We will employ every method that we can—diplomatic, humanitarian and economic—until Vladimir Putin has failed in this disastrous venture and Ukraine is free once more.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Every one of us has been moved by the bravery, the resolve and the leadership of President Zelensky. Invading troops marched through his streets, shells rained down on his people and assassins seek his life. No one would have blamed him for fleeing, but instead he has stayed in Kyiv to lead the Ukrainian people and to fight. He has reminded us that our freedom and our democracy are invaluable. He has prompted the world into action where, too often, we have let Putin have his way. He has inspired the Ukrainian people to resist and he has frustrated the Russian war machine. He has shown his strength, and we must show him and the Ukrainian people our commitment and our support.
Labour stands for the unity at home and abroad that will isolate the Putin regime. Labour stands for the toughest sanctions that will cripple the Russian state. Labour stands for providing Ukraine with the arms it needs to fight off its invaders. Labour stands with President Zelensky, with Ukraine, with democracy. Slava Ukraini.
Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. President Zelensky, we salute you. We stand with the people of Ukraine on the basis of the act of aggression—of the act of war—of Putin. We must do all that we can to send support to Ukraine and to send the weapons that they need to defend themselves, and to make sure that we sanction the regime in Moscow, that we deliver the clearest message to President Putin that this will end in failure for him, and that he will face justice at the International Criminal Court. We must stand in this House, throughout these islands, throughout the western world, in defence of democracy, in defence of sovereignty. Peace, justice and the sovereignty of Ukraine must prevail. Let us make sure that we stand with our friends and that we stand with those who have been bombed. We must make sure that those who need our support, who need our sanctuary, will find a welcoming hand in these islands. Mr President, we thank you. We salute you. Slava Ukraini.
Ed Davey (Kingston and Surbiton) (LD)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Hearing the words of President Zelensky should embolden us all. They serve as a reminder of all that we stand for and of all that so many Ukrainians are so bravely fighting for—a bravery exemplified by President Zelensky himself. We should never take for granted our values of democracy, of freedom and of our security. Though we in this House may disagree on many things, we stand together for those values, and we stand together with the Ukrainian people.
It is right that we strengthen our support for Ukraine with military aid and with the toughest of sanctions. It is in that support that we should also recognise the people of Ukraine and, indeed, President Zelensky. I am sure the whole House would agree that President Zelensky should be granted one of our nation’s highest honours—an honorary knighthood. I look forward to the day when we welcome back to this House President Zelensky in person.
Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. We commend President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine and we stand with them in this their time of strife, but our response will not be judged by the volume or strength of our applause for President Zelensky. It will be judged by the volume and strength of our response to his request for help—for practical military support and for humanitarian assistance for the people of Ukraine. We pray for their success. We dare not let them down.
Mr Speaker
I also thank the staff and the contractors for making this happen. When you leave the Chamber, please hand in your headsets on the way out to whoever you got them from.
Rape and Sexual Violence
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House commemorates International Women’s Day; regrets that under this Government conviction rates for rape have reached a historic low and that the typical delay between reporting an offence of rape and the completion of the resulting criminal case is over 1,000 days; calls on the Government to introduce minimum sentences for stalking and rape, to raise minimum sentencing for spiking and to implement Labour’s survivors’ package for victims of rape and serious sexual violence to restore trust in the criminal justice system; and further calls on the Government to begin an immediate assessment of the impact of setting up specialist rape offence courts on the significant Crown Court backlog of rape cases, as recommended by HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate.
Today is International Women’s Day, a day when we celebrate the achievements and progress of women. On the day President Zelensky addressed Parliament, I start by paying tribute to the brave women and girls of Ukraine—those who have left their loved ones behind as they flee war, those who have had to endure childbirth in bunkers and those who remain in the country facing Russia’s aggression. I know hon. Members on both sides of this House want to offer them our full solidarity.
International Women’s Day is also a time to reflect on some of the challenges we still face at home, among the gravest of which is rape and sexual violence. Tackling and preventing violence against women must be a national priority. Women and girls must feel safe to walk home at night, feel able to have a drink in a pub or nightclub and live free from the fear of an abusive partner. When women report a rape, they must feel that the criminal justice system is working for them, not against them. Yet, due to the problems of our justice system in ensuring that victims of rape and sexual violence receive justice, the sad truth is that we have seen the effective decriminalisation of rape.
The latest Office for National Statistics crime figures for 2021 show that sexual offences recorded by the police are at record highs. Rape accounted for 37% of those offences, and the latest Home Office data shows that just 2.9% of reported sexual offences and 1.3% of recorded rapes result in a charge or summons. Let that sink in: only in just over one in 100 reported rapes is someone charged. Those are record lows. Not only that, but in the tiny minority of cases that are prosecuted, victims now face more than 1,000 days’ delay from the report of the offence to completion at court—an unacceptably long wait for a survivor to access justice.
Meanwhile, Her Majesty’s Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate found that in cases involving rape and serious sexual offences, nearly half of CPS letters lacked basic empathy, and only 19% of letters were of the right quality. The Victims’ Commissioner found that only one in seven victims believed that they would receive justice by reporting the crime to the police. That is a sign that victims are losing faith in the system. Inadequate support, along with delays, means that 41% of rape cases now end with the victim’s withdrawing their support. No wonder many survivors feel the system is working against them, not for them. That is completely the wrong way around.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and hope the Minister is able to respond to this point as well. I have previously mentioned that women who are subjected to rape are not entitled to criminal injuries compensation if they have had a prior conviction, whatever that conviction might be. That means that if they are then a victim of rape they are entitled to no compensation. Does my hon. Friend agree that this is completely unfair, and that just because someone may have a committed a crime in the past, that does not mean that when they are raped they should not have some compensation for the suffering they faced?
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point so passionately. She is absolutely right, and of course this needs to be looked at and changed.
The impact of these failings in the criminal justice system is all too real for many of those with lived experience of it. One survivor at a recent roundtable I held along with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) told us that while they had come to terms with what had happened to them, they could not come to terms with how they had been treated by the criminal justice system. Survivors continually tell us that they often feel as though they are the ones being investigated or standing trial, and that lengthy court delays compound and extend their trauma. One survivor said:
“I still have flashbacks to the whole process and ask myself what I could have done differently. The defendant had help on what to expect in court, but all I had was someone saying ‘if you tell the truth then that’s enough’—well I did tell the truth but it wasn’t enough.”
Another said:
“It was my belief that all of this extra pain and suffering being endured by myself in order to go through the investigation with only a slight chance of it going to court wasn’t worth it in my opinion. Especially since I would have had to face my perpetrator in court and I was told it most likely wouldn’t end up with a prosecution anyway.”
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for the excellent comments she is making in emphasising the importance of hearing the voices of survivors of sexual assault. Will she join me in congratulating my constituent Anna Robinson, who has written a play about her experience of sexual assault and going through the criminal justice system with the many failings and delays in it? The play, which is touching and moving, and also funny, is playing at the Alphabetti theatre in Newcastle right now and is a marvellous example of the victim finding a voice.
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and the tribute that she pays to her constituent Anna Robinson. It sounds like a fantastic play, and I am sure she has shown great bravery and courage in using her experience to shine a light on the difficulties that women face.
The cases that I referred to are not unique. The recent criminal justice joint inspectorate report said that the criminal justice system is failing victims of rape and that widespread reform is needed. Despite all this, action from the Government has been lukewarm and lacks urgency. We welcomed the end-to-end rape review, but it took over two years to publish it, and we are now one year on from that with little noticeable change. The review’s commitment to developing a better understanding of the impacts of trauma on rape victims and survivors across the criminal justice system, and the important commitment to taking a more suspect-focused approach to rape investigations, was encouraging and welcome. Yet even so, the review’s proposals were just piecemeal ideas without the funding and real accountability to make the change needed, and there was a concerning lack of urgency in the timescales put forward. The scorecards, which are a useful tool for transparency, completely lacked an equalities analysis, meaning that there is a blind spot in understanding justice outcomes for rape victims and survivors who are black and minoritised, deaf and disabled, or LGBT+. As long as this information remains missing it will show a fundamental lack of commitment to making our justice system work for everyone.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
I want to speak on the point of making the justice system work for everyone. My constituent Michelle recently wrote to me because she has a stalker who is the father of her child. He has abused her, threatened her, and turned up on her doorstep and her mother’s doorstep. She spoke to the police, who said that she should apply for a non-molestation order, but she does not qualify for legal aid because she works full time and, as a single parent, she cannot pay solicitors’ fees. Will my hon. Friend comment on the fact that there are women like Michelle falling through the cracks in the justice system, and something needs to be done to help them?
Ellie Reeves
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that important point and shining a light on the dreadful situation her constituent is facing. Stalking is a really serious crime, and later in my speech, I will say a little bit about what Labour would do to be tougher on stalkers.
One of the commitments made by the Government in the rape review was to return to 2016 charging levels for rape cases, but at the current rate of progress it will take 29 years to reach that target, and even then it is not a particularly ambitious target. In the absence of effective leadership, the Labour party has put forward a plan to reverse the trend of falling prosecutions, to ensure victims can once again have faith in the system that is supposed to protect them. Our survivors support plan would fast-track rape and serious sexual assault cases through the police, Crown Prosecution Service and courts; establish a pre and post-trial survivors support package, including a full legal advocacy scheme for victims and better training for professionals about myths and stereotypes; and appoint a Minister for survivors of rape and sexual violence to investigate and tackle the root causes of delays in the system and act as a champion for victims. We would also end lenient sentences for rape and stalking by introducing new statutory minimum sentences, as well as toughening up sentences for spiking.
It is unacceptable that rape victims are waiting years post-charge for a court date, especially given the comparatively small number of cases that are going through the system. Rape survivors are often the most vulnerable and traumatised, but waiting for trial means they cannot move on with their lives and cannot access counselling for fear that their counselling notes will be disclosed at trial.
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)
The hon. Lady is making a good speech. There is an important point about judicial listing that we as a House have never really addressed, which is dealt with in the inspectorates’ report. Out of something like 52 cases they looked at, 34 were relisted at least once during the process, so the victim, having waited one or two years, then waited again while the case was kicked out of the list and put in at a later date. We never talk about that in Parliament because it is seen as a judicial function, but does the hon. Lady think it is time we did?
Ellie Reeves
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to mention the joint inspectorates’ report and what it said about this issue. The inspectorates looked at 54 rape cases, 32 of which were adjourned more than once; one was adjourned 21 times, often at 24 hours’ notice. In their report, the inspectorates recommended that the Ministry of Justice immediately group adult rape cases into specialist rape offence courts, which called on the Government to look at implementing a year ago. It is not difficult to imagine how those courts could be set up using the existing court capacity, with a few courtrooms in every Crown court centre allocated to dealing with rape cases and existing ticketed judges hearing the claims. Best practice around separate entrances and exits for accuser and accused could be enforced, and safe space rooms could be available. Today, we ask the Government to begin an immediate review into setting up specialist rape offence courts to help clear the significant Crown court backlog, so that rape victims are not waiting nearly three years for their cases to get to court. I hope the Minister will back this call.
Allowing victims to give their evidence and be cross-examined pre-recorded, known as section 28, also has an important role to play in speeding up cases. It has applied to child and vulnerable witnesses for some time, and the equipment to hear evidence in this way is available in every Crown court in the country. Labour has long called for section 28 to be rolled out to victims of rape and serious sexual violence. It would mean victims could give their evidence as soon as possible, improving the accuracy of their testimony, relieving some of the stress and anxiety while waiting for trial and allowing them to pursue pre-trial counselling, yet in the Government’s end-to-end rape review, all they offered was an extension of the existing section 28 pilot from three Crown courts to a further four. The Government finally said in December last year that they were committed to rolling out section 28 for intimidated witnesses, yet we are still waiting for that to happen. Even in the pilot areas, the inspectorate’s report found that section 28 is not being used consistently by the police or the Crown Prosecution Service.
We are three years on from the Government announcing their end-to-end rape review, yet section 28 is being used for rape victims in only a handful of Crown courts, and even then the necessary training and awareness are not fully in place. Warm words and promises are all very well, but without the political will to make things happen, the pace of change will be far too slow for thousands of victims.
One of the things that survivors tell us time and time again is that they feel the criminal justice system is working against them. With no right to their own legal support, they can find themselves trying to navigate a complex and opaque system on their own. One victim said of their journey through the criminal justice system:
“I felt unsupported by the prosecution lawyer. I did not know his name or how he was going to advocate for me. I had only met him 10 minutes before going into court. The whole experience is traumatising. I completely understand why people do not report rape to the police.”
Other victims have told me that the demands to disclose all the data on their mobile phones going back years made them feel like they were the ones on trial, and that they were unsure of their rights when it came to the digital strip search. That is why under Labour, rape victims would have a legal advocate from the moment they reported their case to the police station, right through to trial. That advocate would be there for them every step of the way, driving up standards in the criminal justice system and reducing attrition rates, but the idea is nothing new. A pilot of that scheme was trialled in Northumbria in 2020, and it found that legal advocates substantially improved best practice in the police and CPS and led to an overall improved victim experience. It would cost just £3.9 million annually to replicate this scheme across England and Wales. If the Government were truly serious about this issue, they would roll it out in a heartbeat.
As well as fixing these problems with the criminal justice system, we need to see sentences that deter potential offenders and send a strong signal that violence against women and girls will never be tolerated, but the public are losing confidence in the Government on this, with polling showing that seven in 10 women consider action to stop sexual harassment, rape and domestic abuse to be inadequate. That is why we are announcing that a Labour Government would toughen sentences for spiking and introduce minimum sentences for rape and stalking.
There is currently no statutory minimum sentence for rape, only a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. While the starting tariff in the sentencing guidelines is five years, that can be reduced. In 2021 alone, seven rape convictions were referred to the Attorney General’s Office through the unduly lenient sentences scheme. They had initial sentences ranging from two to five years. Despite that, none of the cases was referred to the Court of Appeal. Truly appalling crimes are receiving lenient sentences, yet the Government are not doing anything to tackle it. Labour would introduce a new statutory minimum sentence of seven years, which better reflects the seriousness of the crime and the lives it destroys.
Sentences for stalking and harassment do not reflect the fear and distress they create for the victims of these crimes, who are very often women and girls. Despite a record number of convictions for stalking in 2019, more than half of those convicted got community or suspended sentences. Labour would create a new minimum custodial sentence of five months for stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress. A court would have to impose at least the statutory minimum, unless there were exceptional circumstances.
Despite a surge in reports of spiking to the police in recent years, there have been no more than 66 prosecutions in any year since 2010, and only 512 in total between 2010 and 2020. Conviction rates have also plummeted, with just 0.56 convictions per prosecution over that time period. Under pressure from Labour, the Government have agreed to a review into spiking, which we welcome, to find out how widespread it is and who is being targeted, but the review does not explicitly cover sentencing, and it must. We need tougher spiking laws to deter people from committing this awful crime, and a Labour Government would seek to introduce tougher sentences by referring the issue to the Sentencing Council for new guidance. I hope the Government will agree to do that.
Under the Conservatives, rape prosecutions are at a record low, so perpetrators are left on the streets and can reoffend, which leaves women and girls less safe. The Conservatives call themselves the party of law and order, but how can they say that when they have effectively allowed rape to be decriminalised on their watch? Until we have a Government who are ready and willing to commit to the actions needed to drive up rape prosecutions, victims will continue to be failed by the system. The Opposition have a plan to put things right. Is it not about time that the Government backed it?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
As colleagues will appreciate, time is pretty short, so it is likely that I will introduce a time limit of five minutes once the Minister has sat down.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Victoria Atkins)
I have had the privilege of debating International Women’s Day for several years, but never has one been set in such an atmosphere or against such an international backdrop as the horrific invasion of Ukraine. We are incredibly honoured to have heard moments ago from President Zelensky, who is facing enormous threats to his personal safety and that of his country and fellow citizens. I will address the debate in the same spirit of international unity on this great day when we celebrate and mark our hopes and aspirations for women around the world.
The last 13 days have shown how precious democracy is across the world. We in the United Kingdom have a long and proud history of democracy, but it is something that we must protect, cherish and nurture. We in this Chamber are the personification of the importance of democracy in our country. It is through contributions made here, and through the work of Back-Bench MPs and Ministers, that we deliver change through democratic processes in our great country.
We are already hearing of terrifying incidents of violence against women and girls in Ukraine. Of course, we have seen the absolutely heart-rending experiences of women and girls fleeing their home and their country to seek safety and sanctuary elsewhere in Europe. We stand with them and with all women and girls who are living through conflict in this terrible time. I take in genuine spirit the tone in which the debate has been raised and I invite, as we have as a Government, scrutiny of the measures that we are taking to address violence against women and girls.
We have taken a hard and honest look at how the entire criminal justice system deals with rape and serious sexual violence. We have acknowledged that in too many instances, it has simply not been good enough. Since the publication of the rape review last year, however, we have learned lessons and we have brought and are bringing measures into place to build change.
When these devastating crimes happen, we want victims to come forward and feel confident to report them and to seek justice. That involves many stages of the criminal justice process from the moment a report is made to the police to the conclusion of the case. On the global stage and on British streets, we are working tirelessly every day to ensure that women and girls feel safe and that they know that they can trust the criminal justice system to punish perpetrators. We are breaking biases, supporting victims and making the changes that the public expect.
Emma Hardy
As I raised with my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), when rape convictions are completed and somebody is found guilty, the victim is sometimes unable to get criminal injuries compensation because she may have prior convictions that are unrelated to sexual assault, as happened to my constituent. I have raised that in Parliament before and I was promised a meeting with a Minister, which has not yet been forthcoming. In the spirit of co-operation, I hope that on the issue of sexual violence, the Minister will look again at eligibility for criminal injuries compensation.
Victoria Atkins
The hon. Lady has raised an important point and I undertake myself to meet her to discuss this—very much so.
This Government have taken decisive and measurable action in the last 12 months to make our system stronger. I stress the word “measurable” because this is how we are going to drive change across agencies over the coming months and years to address the issues highlighted in today’s debate. We are focusing on preventing these horrendous crimes from taking place in the first place. We published the tackling violence against women and girls strategy last year very much in response to the 180,000 accounts that we received from women and girls, and men, who wanted to share their thoughts and experiences of violence against women and girls.
We have already put a range of practical steps in place, including, only last week, the public communications campaign “Enough”, which I encourage all Members across the House to share on their social media channels and networks to get the message out about the unacceptable attitudes that we do not want to see in our country in the 2020s.
We have also funded local projects and initiatives across England and Wales to the tune of more than £27 million to improve the safety of women in public spaces through the safer streets fund. I know this is a matter of interest to various colleagues. We, of course, have the roll-out of statutory relationships, sex and health education in schools, because we understand that we need to ensure that children and young people are taught at the earliest age possible and in an age-appropriate way what healthy and respectful love looks like.
In the last year, we have also published the end-to-end rape review report and action plan and we have looked at every stage of the criminal justice system. The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), understandably, says it took a long time. It did, because this is such a complex area, and everybody in the House will appreciate that we do not want to suffer unintended consequences, no matter how well meaning measures may be in the first place. With that approach, we outlined in the action plan a robust and ambitious programme of work.
In December, precisely because we are determined to have an attitude of non-defensive transparency about what is happening at various stages across the criminal justice system, we published our first six-monthly progress report and quarterly scorecard for adult rape cases. I am never very sure about that precise word, but it is the word we have come up with for the time being. It is about increasing public transparency of performance across the criminal justice system at every stage by grabbing data from the system from the moment a crime is recorded by the police to the completion of a case in court. The metrics have been selected to cover priority areas such as victim engagement, timeliness and the volume of cases reaching court.
The hon. Lady raised the point about equalities. Believe you me, this is something we are very conscious of. She will, I hope, understand—I do not say this by way of complaint; it is just a fact—that, because different parts of the CJS collect their data in different ways and measure different things, we have had to group together. She will have seen from the scorecards how carefully we have had to use the measures in various parts, because there is not a single line of measurement that runs through every stage of the CJS. We will get there, but at the moment it is taking a bit of time to collect that data. On the point about equalities, it is one of those measurements that we do not have yet. That is not for want of attention or effort, but it is taking a bit of time to try to address some of the very real equalities measurements. She will know, I hope, that, as part of the scorecard process, I personally not just chair meetings with leaders across the CJS, but listen to survivors groups, because they are the people who can very much guide us on some of this work.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Could the Minister explain whether there are any plans with any of the scorecards or process of monitoring to look at the data around constant and repeat offenders? One of the main problems in the system is that nobody is monitoring repeat offenders or doing any real offender management. What we see again and again is the same people committing the same crimes. Will anything be found in the data to deal with that particular issue?
Victoria Atkins
May I correct the hon. Lady on that point about repeat offenders? People are managing it and monitoring it, albeit not through the scorecard. She will know of the offender management systems in place and the ViSOR—violent and sex offender register—system. She will also know, because we discussed it at great length during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, of our programme to revolutionise the way the current system, MAPPA—the multi-agency public protection arrangements—works into MAPPS—the multi-agency public protection system—which will be able to track the most dangerous offenders in the ways both she and I want. We are offering these metrics precisely so that there can be scrutiny of the stages at which things are going right, or indeed wrong. Having produced national scorecards, we will soon produce local scorecards so we can look locally to see where good practice is happening and where other areas need to follow suit.
On the criminal justice system, we have recruited, as I hope the House knows, more than 11,000 police officers as part of our commitment to recruit 20,000 officers, and more than 100 prosecutors in the Crown Prosecution Service have already undertaken induction training on rape and serious sexual offences. On the point raised about mobile phones and the data strip search, again, having listened to victims, charities that support survivors and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and the Victims’ Commissioner, we have in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill set out the legal framework for digital data downloads. We understand how that can be so terribly difficult for victims and their willingness, frankly, to go along with a case.
The issue of specialism has been raised. That is why we are supporting Operation Soteria, a joint police and CPS programme of work whereby they turn the investigation on its head, from looking at the victim to looking at the suspect. That is clearly the way forward and we have committed to expanding the initial work from five areas to, in the next tranche, 14. We will be rolling this out nationally, but we have to do it through the staged approach because one can imagine, I hope, the differences between a huge metropolitan force and a much smaller, more rural force in terms of economies of scale and ways of working. We are doing it in an iterative, careful way so that when we make change we make effective change that has meaningful and positive consequences for victims.
We are focusing even more on victim support, too. We are putting victims at the heart of the system so that they get the support they need to continue with such cases. We are providing an unprecedented £150 million to victims support services this year, an increase of over £100 million on the budget in 2010-11, and we have committed to increasing funding for all victims support services to £185 million by 2024-25, including increasing the number of independent sexual and domestic violence advisers, because we know that victims who have access to IDVAs and ISVAs are nearly 50% more likely to stay engaged with the criminal justice process.
We are also commissioning a new national helpline and online services for victims of rape and sexual violence, which will be available 24/7. This is a real step forward. We want victims to be able to get help when they need it. We have seen the huge successes of the national domestic abuse helpline and I want to replicate that for victims of sexual violence.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that many police forces no longer have RASSO—rape and serious sexual offences—units? Does she think they should have them?
Victoria Atkins
We have different agencies involved in the criminal justice system. Sometimes, there is an understandable wish in the Chamber for us to be able to control everything from the Dispatch Box, but we have a strong tradition of chief constables directing their personnel, training and so on. I have to say that the reaction of the police to Operation Soteria has been truly committed. They want to make the sort of changes we are already beginning to see with Op Soteria. I genuinely believe that, through Soteria, we will begin to see real change in policing. With the roll-out of that in the pilot areas, national learning is already being shared and that will roll through forces—even those not in the next tranche of 14.
I am conscious about giving Back Benchers time, so I will pick up just a couple more points. I hope that the House supports our decision to include violence against women and girls in the strategic policing requirement, which means that it must be prioritised as other serious crimes such as homicide, serious and organised crime and terrorism are prioritised. Of course, through the Domestic Abuse Act 2021 and previous measures, this place has strengthened the law on things such as the so-called rough sex defence and the new offence of non-fatal strangulation. Indeed, the police Bill, which is in the other place, will increase the time that sexual offenders serving sentences for offences of particular concern must spend in prison from half their custodial term to two thirds.
We have heard about the roll-out of section 28, which, in fairness, I think the Opposition welcome. That is one of the levers by which we will really make progress on the timing of cases. If we can persuade the CPS and judges to permit victims to give their pre-recorded evidence at a very early stage in a case after investigation, that will help with timeliness. There is hope and expectation that that will increase guilty pleas, but also it will help victims to give their best evidence in a timely fashion, and juries will, in due course, be able to consider it. We will roll that out as soon as is practicable.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) highlighted the issue of cases being knocked off the list, floaters and so on. Again, we expect that section 28 will be able to deal with some of listing issues that she rightly raised..
Laura Farris
I of course endorse and support everything the Minister said on section 28. Everyone who has given evidence to the Home Affairs Committee’s review on rape has spoken about how important that is. There have been one or two dissenting voices, but the power of section 28 procedures has basically been advocated across the board. The one thing that was said to the Justice Committee this afternoon that I must make the Minister aware of is that at the moment it is very patchy whether police forces across the country are even aware of section 28, or whether they are making victims aware of it. With the national roll-out, will she pledge to ensure that the police are applying it?
Victoria Atkins
Of course, that communication programme is part of our work in rolling it out. That is why we are working as fast as we can, but we do need to take the police and others with us.
In terms of minimum and maximum sentences, the average sentence for an offence of rape in 2020 was more than 10 years. We very much respect the right of courts to retain all available sentencing options in these cases, but we understand from the figures that we see that the courts are mindful of the enormous impact that these terrible offences can have on victims and the wider community.
I gently remind the Opposition that they called for a single Minister. Well, we have two for the price of one here on the Government Benches. We all understand that the criminal justice system has many facets. We have two Ministers solely focused on violence against women and girls. Finally, I thank every single woman—and every person—working across the criminal justice system to help support victims of rape and sexual violence. That includes those offering a hand to hold in a sexual assault referral centre, independent sexual violence advisers as well as our team of officers and Crown court and other litigators. Every single one of them is helping us to deliver justice and I thank them sincerely for it.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Order. We will start with a six-minute time limit, although that may well have to go down. I call Jess Phillips.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; I was not expecting to be called so quickly, so this is a delight, and Happy International Women’s Day to you. I want to talk over a few things. Obviously, along with the shadow Justice Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Ellie Reeves), I spend a huge amount of time with victims and setting out what we think the Labour party policy needs to be, and I endorse absolutely everything that she said.
There are a number of things that I feel the Government are not currently addressing and on which there does not seem to be any direction of travel. The first thing—it would be remiss of me not to mention that this has come from almost every victim of sexual violence that I have ever met, and certainly in the past few weeks—is the commissioning strategy around health provision for victims of violence and abuse. In my view, and I tried to get everybody to vote for this during the passage of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, there should be a statutory duty on every public commissioning body that runs people-based services to have to commission specialist support for victims of violence and abuse. It is inexcusable that in the vast majority of mental health services across our country, there is absolutely nothing in the way of specialist support. I have never met somebody, male or female, suffering from substance misuses, who was heroin-dependent or who had their lives blighted by substance misuse, who had not suffered some form of sexual violence as a child or adult. The reality is that we should put in those specialist services and insist that every public health commissioner and every mental health commissioner in the country provides this as part of their sexual health and substance misuse strategies.
The Minister has talked about chief constables and the fact that they get to decide, and that local areas will pick. There is not a local area in the country where people are not being raped. There is not one; it is not one of those crimes. There are crimes that happen in my constituency every single day that likely are not happening so much in the Minister’s constituency. We have very different seats, but this is not a crime that discriminates in any area. All our constituencies are full of people who are being raped and abused.
The situation at the moment is that, unlike what we have done in making refuge a statutory duty, we do not say that local decision makers and local commissioners have to provide specialist EMDR—eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing—trauma-based support. We sit back in this building and delegate responsibility to local decision makers. Personally, I think that if there is a chief constable in the country who thinks that they should not have specialist support and specialist officers for sexual violence, they should not be a chief constable in our country—the end. I am absolutely certain that the Minister agrees with me.
I wish to raise another very important point regarding healthcare. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), answered a parliamentary question this week about ending telemedical abortions. She said that the Government had taken advice with regard to vulnerable women and how they use the service and that has resulted in the decision to end telemedical abortions. I would like Ministers to tell me which experts they spoke to, because there is not a women’s organisation in the land that fights for women who have been victims of sexual violence or domestic abuse that would agree with the Government’s current stance on telemedical abortions.
It does not begin and end with the criminal justice system—thank goodness, because there would be literally no hope for rape victims if that were the case. There is not a rape victim in the country who would say that they have had a good time in the criminal justice system. I have heard rape victims describe themselves as the lucky ones because they were raped by a stranger—and their phone was still taken off them. What on earth for? My phone is not taken off me when my car gets broken into. Why are we taking phones off them?
The Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean), told me last week that there is never a time when she would not want to brief this House on Operation Soteria. I ask Ministers: when the people running Operation Soteria arranged with me to brief Members in this House about the findings of the Metropolitan police that in some cases three quarters of police officers think women routinely lie about their sexual violence experiences, why were we not allowed to hold that briefing? Why were the people who work on Operation Soteria not allowed to come to Parliament to brief Members?
The Government say that Operation Soteria is something that they are doing, but it is not just a check box—“Oh, we’ve done Operation Soteria.” We have to know what people are saying, so we can scrutinise it. What they have said so far is that the system needs an entire overhaul. That is what I will be looking for.
David Johnston (Wantage) (Con)
I wish we did not have to debate a topic like this on International Women’s Day, but given how the system has been failing victims of rape, it is right that we do. I do not think that the country has ever had a good enough approach to the victims of violence and sexual violence towards women and girls—not successive Governments, not the police, not the Crown Prosecution Service and not wider society. I will return to that point.
I looked at the figures yesterday. In the year ending 2003, there were 11,445 rapes against females in this country. In 2020, there were close to 53,000 rapes against females in this country. I accept that, as with all crime, people will say that that is partly a result of better systems for reporting and recording, but that can only be part of it. In only two of the years between 2003 and 2020 was there a downward trend; in every other year the figures were up on the year before. They have gone up further still, and our conviction rate is much lower.
While preparing for this debate, I went back to some of the very powerful cases that I have heard about from constituents. Unfortunately, such is the nature of these crimes that there are too many for me to cite, but I have picked three. For one constituent, it was three years before their case reached court. During that time, they were told not to have therapy; they were then told that they could have therapy, as long as the therapist’s notes were made available for the defence lawyer of the person who had raped them. They were told that they should not apply for compensation; they were told that they should not talk about the trial; they were told that they might not be able to watch the trial.
I just cannot imagine going through that sort of process after having had this done to you—having justice denied for so long and all these obstacles put in your way. I can imagine why it is easier to let it go and think, “I don’t want to carry on with this, because it feels like the system works for the perpetrator rather than for the victim.”
I had another constituent who was raped by someone who had already had six “no further action” notices for six separate assaults against six different women. I had a third constituent who summed up the system pretty well: she said that the police do not feel that they can put forward a case that the CPS will not go for, and the CPS will not put forward a case that it thinks a jury will not go for. She felt strongly that when a case gets to the jury, it is in the hands of people’s prejudices. She quoted statistics from the findings of a 2018 attitudes survey. One in three people had said that they did not think rape as a result of coercion was actually rape, one in four had said that rape in a long-term relationship was not rape, and one in 10 had not been sure whether raping someone who was drunk or asleep constituted rape.
The system is undoubtedly failing victims, and I therefore welcome a number of measures that the Government are taking. I welcome the scorecards, because I think that the data will really help. I welcome the funding for rape support services, and—it is ridiculous even to have to say this—I welcome the increased emphasis that will be placed on the suspect’s behaviour rather than the victim’s credibility. I note what has been said about the proposal for a seven-year minimum sentence, and I note that in 2020 68% of people received sentences longer than seven years and the average was 10 years. I also think it right that the Government are considering the introduction of specialist rape offence courts.
We rightly talk about how to fix the system to ensure that perpetrators are given the punishment that they deserve, that this is a quick process, and that we have a high conviction rate. However, this is another area in which we should spend more time talking about prevention. It seems to me, as I am sure it does to everyone else, that a boy who grows up respecting girls and is taught about healthy relationships is unlikely to become a man who rapes women and keeps them in toxic relationships. When Ofsted conducted a review of sexual abuse in schools, it found that many children and young people did not bother to report such abuse because it was so common that they did not see the point of doing so.
I think that as well as dealing with the people who have committed these crimes, we should focus much more on how we control what children and young people can access on the internet, what they can see in video games, and how they observe men behaving in both private and public spheres. Teaching boys how to behave in the right way will give us the best chance of securing the society with zero tolerance for rape that the Government rightly say they want.
Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)
I am glad to be able to speak about this Labour motion in support of victims of rape and sexual violence on International Women’s Day, although it is ironic that on a day when we celebrate the role and importance of women in society, we also hear that women and girls continue to suffer rape and sexual violence.
This Government are not doing enough to tackle this issue. The response to a freedom of information request submitted by the South Wales Argus, my local newspaper, to Gwent police revealed that in 2021, 587 incidents of rape were reported, only five of which resulted in charges, and 436 are still under investigation. That is completely unacceptable. If the crime were murder, there would be a public outcry at those appalling figures, but crimes of rape and sexual violence can be as devastating as murder for the victims and their families, and can leave mental and physical scars that will take years to heal, if they ever do.
However, those figures represent only a small fraction of the real problem. Rape Crisis, an umbrella charity for rape crisis centres across England and Wales, has stated:
“More than 1 in 5 women and 1 in 20 men have experienced rape or sexual assault as adults.”
This is an epidemic, in which not enough is being done. It needs to be treated seriously, and Labour in power will do that. Meanwhile, the Conservatives’ record speaks, loudly, for itself. Rape prosecutions and convictions have reached historic lows, and the typical delay between an offence of rape and the completion of the resulting criminal case exceeded 1,000 days for the first time in 2021, under this Tory Government. Make no mistake, Madam Deputy Speaker: the Government's actions so far, and their continuing inaction, speak more clearly and loudly than any words spoken from the Conservative Benches today. Labour will guarantee 33,000 extra sitting days to get case loads down, and the creation of a Minister for rape and sexual violence survivors. We will also remove the legal barriers that prevent victims of domestic abuse from receiving the help that they need through legal aid. Labour will fast-track rape cases to ensure that people are not waiting years for their day in court, because justice delayed is justice denied. We cannot allow on any level a culture of obstruction and delay to prevent that justice from being delivered.
At the moment, rapists and perpetrators of sexual violence are walking free as victims are dropping court cases because of delays, a lack of confidence in the system and the threat of being confronted in their local area by their attacker. Victims of rape face having their phones taken from them by the police and not returned for many months. This leads to further anxiety and to another avenue of communication and comfort being closed off to the victim. Again, this is simply unacceptable, as the victim is made to feel vulnerable and alone at a time when they should be supported and reassured to know that their attacker is being brought to justice swiftly and punished accordingly.
My constituents in Newport West want to know that they are safe. They want to know that if something terrible happens to them they will be supported and that they will have justice. Under the current Government, that justice is lacking, and people’s faith in our justice system has been eroded. Max Hill QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, has described how the criminal justice system that deals with rape and sexual assault is creating a “crisis of public trust”. The Conservative Government have hit a historic low and I urge them to raise their game for the sake of all women and girls across the UK. We must protect and support them all.
Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
This is an appropriate day on which to have this important debate because as we celebrate International Women’s Day we also need to recognise the particular challenges and threats that women and girls sadly face in our society. We all want the experience of victims of rape and serious sexual offences in the criminal justice system to improve. We also want to ensure that the guilty are convicted of these offences. That has to be done in a way, which, in our criminal system, safeguards the rights of an accused person, who is of course innocent until the offence is proved against them. That is always a difficult balancing act, and particularly difficult in sensitive cases such as these. I say that as someone who has probably prosecuted and defended more rape and serious sexual offences than most people currently in this House. This requires investment in resource, in training and in sensitivity.
The best way we can increase the level of rape convictions in this country is to improve the quality of the evidence gathering, so that when the files go to the Crown Prosecution Service to take a decision to charge, more cases meet the threshold. We cannot lower the threshold in any criminal case. The threshold for prosecution is the same for any criminal case, and so it must remain. In other words: is there sufficient legally admissible evidence for a reasonable prospect of conviction? The key problem is that not enough cases so far are reaching that threshold.
Interestingly, when cases of rape and serious sexual offences are charged and get to trial, the conviction rate when they go before a jury is broadly similar to that for other serious offences of violence. A positive thing about our jury system is that, whatever polling there is about the misconceptions about rape that allegedly exist in general society, once the jurors have been empanelled, sworn their oath, heard the evidence and listened to the directions of the judge, they take their responsibilities very seriously indeed and generally set those misconceptions aside. We must ensure that we keep the Judicial Studies Board’s model guidance to judges up to date, and that the judiciary take that seriously themselves.
The problem is getting these cases to the Crown court in the first place. It is appropriate that the chief inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service and the senior inspector of Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary gave evidence to the Justice Committee today, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Laura Farris) said earlier. They gave compelling evidence about the challenges that we face. There is much being done. The end-to-end rape review is important, Operation Soteria is important and they said that there was a willingness for there to be greater collaboration across the system, but there are still issues.
I want to highlight one issue in particular, which is the question of delays. We have talked about the significant amount of delay, with an average of 706 days from the reporting of the offence to the start of the trial. It is interesting when we break that figure down, because the evidence we heard from the chief inspectors was that there is an average of 218 days from the start of investigation to sending the file to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision. From receipt of the papers by the Crown Prosecution Service to a decision to charge: 21 days. From the decision to charge to the first appearance in court: 13 days. From the decision to charge to the first pre-trial and preparation hearing: 30 days. A plea is entered and directions are given, but it is another 320-odd days before the final disposal at trial.
That shows us where the problems are. On that evidence, it is not within the CPS. I pay tribute to the priority that the current Director of Public Prosecutions has given to rape and serious sexual offences, but the evidence is very clear that the biggest attrition rate, the biggest drop-out rate, among complainants comes in the period between reporting a case to the police and it going to the CPS for charge.
That means the police need to handle these cases much more sensitively. Good chief constables recognise that, and I also find it inexplicable why on earth any force would not have a RASSO unit. There are proper obligations to disclose unused material as part of the checks and balances in our system, but there is no reason why it should not be done speedily and sensitively. We need to make sure that happens, and we also need better training on proper evidence gathering, asking the right questions, probing intelligently to find supporting evidence and working with specialist Crown prosecutors to build a case.
That will get more cases over the charging line, and then we need to look at the delays in bringing cases to trial, which is where there is merit in exploring specialist courts and making sure we have enough ticketed judges and recorders to do it, as well as enough experienced advocates both prosecuting and defending—that is important to the experience of complainants, to just outcomes in such cases and to confidence in the system.
These are important matters that we need to address, and I hope the chief inspectors will come back to our Committee once the Government have responded to their joint thematic report, which raises important points and is obviously something this House will want to consider again in the future.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I pay tribute to Labour Front Benchers for calling this important debate on International Women’s Day. On a day when women and girls across the world have much to celebrate, it is a tragedy that we are talking about something so horrific, but it is right to do so given that we are where we are.
The awesome, inspiring and very moving address from President Zelensky is a reminder that sexual violence against women and girls is always a huge risk in war. Where a power ignores UN conventions and bombs the routes that refugees are taking out of cities, I am afraid we cannot expect that power to behave any better when it comes to respecting women and girls.
It is reckoned that 5 million people in England and Wales, principally women, have been victims of sexual assault. A third of girls aged 16 to 18 say they have experienced unwanted sexual touching at school. We have heard many Members say how the justice system lets down women and girls, too. There were an estimated 139,000 rapes in 2019-20, with fewer than 59,000 reported and only 2.4% resulting in a conviction. Every one of those statistics is a woman, a girl, an individual, a victim, and almost every one of those statistics is a woman, a girl, an individual, a victim who got no justice, which is an utter outrage.
Men often do not think about the impact of sexual violence on how women and girls think about the mundane things of everyday life. It feels like spring today but, when autumn comes around and the nights draw in, it is a mundane, perfunctory decision for women and girls to change their routes and practices of where they go, when they go and who they go with. That is somehow a normal way of managing their time and their life to cope with such utter wickedness. It fills me with shame, as a man, that we live in that kind of society, where it is not safe for women and girls to go about their normal daily lives. If we are not safe, we are not free.
What makes me, and women and girls, angry is that we see precious little action. I am trying to be sensitive in what I say here. In my time as a Member of Parliament, we have lost two precious colleagues in Jo Cox and David Amess, and we grieve them and miss them. The response of the authorities, the security services and the police to those horrific murders was to strengthen our security; we see police turning up at our surgeries, and I am grateful for that and it is welcome. The response to well-publicised appalling acts against women—rapes and murders—is what? It is the Metropolitan police taking action against the women who protest. It is this Government choosing not to make misogyny a hate crime when they had the option to do so. It is the failure of us all to tackle the attitudes among boys and men towards women—the hon. Member for Wantage (David Johnston) mentioned that—and the objectification of women, through films, TV and the internet. When some outrage happens and a woman is raped or murdered, people on the internet will say, “Oh, it is not all men.” Stuff that, every man has responsibility. Every man has a responsibility to check their own attitudes, reflect upon them and make sure that we seek—for ourselves and the young men we raise in this society—to be respectful towards women and see them as equal in every way.
On International Women’s Day, I want to take a moment to refer to the reality of our need to focus on the plight of girls around the world who are subject to, or at risk of, forced child marriage and the violence associated with that. It was my privilege earlier today to speak to Evi Gosden and Sheiba Aigiomawu from Compassion UK, whose work in educating girls and their families in countries such as Uganda so that girls are kept safe from the cruel practice of forced child marriage is so utterly important. I encourage Members and indeed anyone paying attention to this speech to support Compassion UK’s work, which is done via sponsorship of girls and their communities, and is hugely effective.
I will make a final, related comment. In many developing countries, women die in childbirth in greater numbers and more children do not make it past infancy. The child survival work of Compassion UK, supported by the UK Government through international aid—hooray!—runs the risk of not being renewed after December. Why is that? It is because of the cuts in international aid. It is no good us, on International Women’s Day, speaking up in favour of protecting women and girls here in this country or overseas if we will not match those words with actions that sometimes bear a financial cost.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I rise to speak in favour of this motion, on International Women’s Day. I recently held a summit on this issue, and the public made it clear to me that the Conservative Government are failing women. The consequence of this failure is felt on a personal level by women and girls. It erodes their confidence to be alone in public, in the dark, and it instils a fear that I find it hard to imagine many men would be able to comprehend.
Last autumn, I conducted a survey in my constituency on rape and sexual violence. Several hundred people responded and I was shocked to learn that 69% of respondents carried their keys in their hands on their way home; that 45% sent their current location to a friend or loved one; and that 66% would call someone while walking along. Although small in scale, these acts are, unfortunately, increasingly necessary, due to a rise in violence against women and girls; this is not helped by the flattening of rape prosecution rates, high-profile murders such as that of Sarah Everard and the cuts that have decimated our public services.
On a local level, Warwickshire police abolished their specialist RASSO unit nine years ago, in 2013. On a national level, the number of staff at the Crown Prosecution Service fell by a third between 2010 and 2019. Successive Conservative Governments have presided over a series of cuts at both ends of the national-local spectrum, which has eroded this country’s ability to counter VAWG. With two out of five police forces lacking a RASSO unit—I referred to that in my point to the Minister—these cuts have made securing justice for gender-based violence and sexual assault, in effect, a postcode lottery.
The results of the cuts make for grim reading. As we have heard, a mere 1.3% of rape cases are prosecuted, despite the number of rapes reported to the police being at record highs. I am appalled to confirm that Warwickshire is reported as having the lowest rape conviction rate of any county in England and Wales, with only seven of just 15 cases pursued by Warwickshire police resulting in conviction. It is no surprise that we see a strong correlative link between cuts to local services and stark decreases in prosecution and conviction rates. It has led to what the Victims’ Commissioner, Dame Vera Baird QC, has described as the “effective decriminalisation of rape.” That is a shameful record by any standard.
With a policing culture now accustomed to the effective decriminalisation of rape, it is particularly grotesque to see the ways in which certain elements in police forces perceive themselves to be above the law. A year after the tragic murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of the Met police officer Wayne Couzens, we are reminded of it by the revelations at Charing Cross police station and others. Indeed, a Warwickshire police officer currently faces allegations of inappropriate contact with a domestic abuse victim.
This matter needs to be treated with the urgency it deserves. It is unfathomable that the Government are preparing to close down the Nightingale courts, including the one in my constituency, when the average time taken in the courts to deal with a crime rose by 15% in the three months up to September 2021, to 620 days. This matter needs to be addressed through the education of boys and young men, but I do not have the time to develop that theme now. The Minister may well justify the backlog because of the temporary closure of many courts during the covid-19 pandemic, but the Government’s savage cuts between 2010 and 2019, when half of all courts in England and Wales were closed, allowed for 27,000 fewer sitting days than there were in 2016. The blame lies clearly at the door of successive Conservative Governments.
Labour would extend the use of Nightingale courts beyond April 2022, to begin to reduce the court delays and guarantee 33,000 extra sitting days to get the case loads down. To spur this initiative on, we would appoint a specific Minister for rape and sexual violence survivors. If victims have a specific voice in Government, fighting for their interests and turbocharging the required reforms, they will hopefully begin to feel that the law and the state are on their side.
In a victims-led approach to reform, we would introduce a victims Bill to establish the victims code in law. We would increase sentences for rapists and stalkers and create specific new offences for street sexual harassment and sex for rent. Making legal aid available to victims and fast-tracking rape and serious sexual assault cases through the court system would bring about much-needed justice—and fast. These are the elements for which the public are calling and the points that were fed back to me at my recent summit.
Having promised to introduce a victims Bill in 2016, the Government seem to have lost their grip on law and order, and in particular on violence against women and girls, which is increasingly endemic. The Government have had more than six years to bring a Bill forward, but it seems clear that only Labour has the drive, ambition and impetus to deliver justice for the victims of sexual assault and violence against women.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
I rise to speak in this important debate on behalf of women and girls in Dulwich and West Norwood who have little confidence that the Government, the police and the courts are there to protect them. The shocking failure to prosecute the horrific offence of rape is one of the clearest manifestations of the ways in which this Government are failing women and girls. A woman can be raped, and in less than 2% of cases will the perpetrator face any consequences. It might as well be legal.
Women and girls see a terrible continuum from the casual, everyday street harassment that they experience, to the culture of sexual harassment in schools exposed so clearly by the Everyone’s Invited campaign, to the horrific murders that have reached the headlines in recent months: of Sarah Everard, Bibaa Henry, Nicole Smallman and Sabina Nessa, and of the many more whose names we do not know—women going about their daily lives, walking home, celebrating a birthday or meeting a friend for a drink on a Friday night.
Again and again, the Government have responded with warm words but the action has fallen short. They have said that they will create a new offence of sexual harassment in a public place if there is evidence that it is needed. I am not sure what additional evidence the Government need than the millions of women up and down the country who rose up a year ago to say that street harassment blights their lives and makes them feel unsafe in their own neighbourhoods and town centres. The promised legislation to criminalise curb crawling has failed to materialise. There has been no meaningful follow up response to the Everyone’s Invited revelations.
Women look at the reality of the framework of protection on which they should be able to rely, and they see story after story of police officers behaving in ways that are as bad as the offenders whom they are supposed to apprehend—sharing pictures of murdered women on a WhatsApp group, making advances as they report sexual harassment, being charged with and convicted of rape, and, most shockingly of all, using a warrant card to facilitate rape and murder. Yet there is still no statutory inquiry into the culture of misogyny in the police, and no commitment to culture change.
The courts are no better. I spoke recently with a constituent who is the victim of horrific domestic abuse. She told me that the central London family court is so clogged up that no one ever answers the phone. The Government must urgently act to give women and girls confidence that they are safe at home, on our streets and in public spaces; that if they are the victim of any type of misogyny, from curb crawling to street harassment to rape, they will be listened to and believed; and that the offence will be investigated, evidence gathered and everything possible done to bring a successful prosecution so that perpetrators are always held to account.
Delivering this change requires much more than simply a change of management approach at the Crown Prosecution Service. It requires a wholesale change in the culture of policing and the practices of the criminal justice system. It also requires a much greater commitment to prevention, particularly in educating boys and young men on respect and consent.
Finally, today is International Women’s Day, and as we debate the shamefully poor rape prosecution rate in this country, we must also stand in solidarity with women and girls in other parts of the world. I want to mention in particular women in Ethiopia, who over the past 18 months have been subjected to an horrific conflict, which has seen the routine and systematic use of rape as a weapon of war. The British Government must do everything possible to end the use of sexual violence in conflict, working through the UN and providing humanitarian and trauma support to victims. They can do that most effectively from a position of strength at home. The Government must show that rape is a heinous offence and that perpetrators must always be held to account by getting their own house in order and leading by example.
As a mother of two teenage girls, I reflect on how I always tell them as they leave home in the morning to “stay safe” as if that is somehow solely their responsibility. It is not. We cannot tolerate any longer a society in which women and girls are subjected to harassment on a daily basis, far too often escalating into abuse and rape, and in which the institutions and systems that should be there to protect them fail so dismally to do so.
Anna McMorrin (Cardiff North) (Lab)
I thank all those who have spoken today, exposing the real challenges that women face in the justice system and the challenges that women face everywhere. Today, on International Women’s Day, I want to pay particular tribute to the women and girls of Ukraine, particularly after that heartfelt and emotional address from President Zelensky—the women staying behind to take up arms and the women fleeing for their lives, often with young children or elderly parents. Our hearts and support go out to them at this difficult time.
We have heard some powerful speeches in this debate. We have heard how the justice system lets women and girls down. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) pointed out the complete lack of specialist health services for victims of serious sexual assault. It was a passionate speech emphasising, as ever, her wealth of knowledge, but also the need for a complete overhaul of the justice system. My hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) drew a comparison with the victims of murder; the victims of serious sexual assault and rape can be left with long-held scars of a different kind, yet it is viewed so differently and not taken as seriously.
I welcome the comments of the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), the Chair of the Justice Committee, who spoke strongly about the impact of delays on victims and the need for specialist courts, something that Labour is firmly behind and pushing the Government on. The hon. Members for Wantage (David Johnston) and for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) raised the critical issue of men’s responsibility to change behaviours and of shifting our culture and society. My hon. Friends the Members for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) and for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) both spoke powerfully about startling statistics and how action from Government falls woefully short.
“You’re safer staying in that abusive relationship than you are trying to get out. The aftermath is 100 per cent worse.”
Those are the words of a survivor of attempted murder, rape and domestic abuse. Rachel shared her 16-year living nightmare with me, the flashbacks and nightmares of which are so traumatic that she has tried to take her own life several times. A survivor of the most abhorrent crimes anyone could face believes that staying in her abusive relationship was better than facing our criminal justice system. I ask hon. Members to think about that for a few minutes.
Today, on this International Women’s Day, we are breaking the bias of inequality that overwhelmingly costs women their lives, their hopes and their futures. That must begin with our justice system—a system that discredits and destroys, treating victims like criminals despite having had their own bodies used against them, a system that is now punishing victims and excusing criminals. We see victims cross-examined and left feeling ashamed as they report the atrocities that have happened to them.
That happened to a woman I met earlier this year, who was raped at just 19 years old. Eight years after the incident, Sophie bravely reported it to the police. It took the CPS 11 months to decide to charge and another two and half years to get to court. Then, following the poor advice of a court attendant, Sophie was told she should attend court and take the stand. She was there for two hours, sitting behind a screen to protect herself from seeing the perpetrator, whom she had not seen for nearly ten years.
The first thing Sophie was asked to do by the defence was to open an evidence booklet placed in front of her to a particular page. There in front of her was the picture of the man who had violently abused her. It was a barbaric scare tactic used to throw her off. The re-traumatisation meant she was unable to recall important details of the incident. He was found not guilty. Sophie’s case very disturbingly demonstrates the systemic failures at every level of our criminal justice system, from the police to the CPS to the court witness assistant.
Just over a week ago, the criminal justice joint inspection report on rape was released. It identified that most victims feel as if they are the ones being investigated or standing trial, rather than the focus being on the behaviour of the accused. The courts are complicit in the abuse that women face. That needs to change, and it needs to change now.
Today we are breaking the bias that sees victims subject to vengeful stereotypes. My own constituent was portrayed as a scornful, resentful wife in court when her husband committed fraud, forging her signature countless times. Helen lost everything: her home, her friends, her career. Her father died and her mother was sectioned, both broken by watching their daughter go through such an ordeal. Her husband was found not guilty. She tells me she is still living with the shame she was made to feel—the humiliation, being called a liar, and tainted by someone else’s dirt. Helen is just one of the survivors I speak to every day as shadow victims Minister: women faced with unimaginable circumstances. I am always in awe of their bravery in speaking out about their experiences.
It is these women who gave me the courage to speak out about what I went through. So today I want to break not only the bias but the stigma. This abuse really can happen to anyone. I recently gave a very personal interview about my own experience in a controlling, emotionally abusive and coercive relationship. I consider myself a strong, independent women with a thick skin, having to navigate the brutal reality of being a woman in politics, yet it still happened to me. I still felt trapped, trying also to navigate the lying, the cheating, the gaslighting and the controlling behaviour—living in a permanent state of anxiety, unable to function at times, and not knowing what was real or what was not. It took all my strength to leave the relationship I was in. I left one evening last year with just a single bag under my arm.
Many will not understand what it takes to leave that kind of relationship or why you stay so long. Being able to talk about it now without fear and without shame is as important as it is liberating. But that is not to understate the constant trauma both during and after, and its impact on the people around you. I want to thank my friends, my family and my brilliant team for being there.
All the women I have spoken to have one thing in common: they are determined to speak out about the injustice that they face to drive positive change. Deep-rooted inequality that makes society unsafe for women and girls is not just a problem for women and girls to resolve. We must remember that; it is everyone’s problem. Our culture must change so that we are able to talk about these relationships and the many women still feeling trapped, abused and controlled can see that there is hope, however small, that there is strength in exposing their vulnerability and pain, and that they will get to the other side. That is what breaks down stigmas.
I stand here on International Women’s Day proud of what I have achieved—that I can stand here as a shadow Minister and advocate on behalf of Rachel, Sophie and Helen. They are just a few of so many thousands of women who need this Government to step up to address the fundamental and institutionalised flaws in the justice system, to toughen sentences for spiking and introduce minimum sentences for rape and stalking, to implement Labour’s survivors’ package for victims of rape and serious sexual violence, and to begin an immediate review into setting up specialist rape offence courts to help to clear the significant Crown Court backlog of rape cases. There is no breaking the bias without first breaking the stigmas. Only then can we even begin to restore trust in the justice system.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Rachel Maclean)
It is real privilege to be able to close this debate and, in particular, to follow the speech by the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin). It is the first time that I have heard her story, but I am sure that she will have made an enormous difference by speaking out today in the way she has, and I commend her courage. She is absolutely right to say that she will be changing attitudes by addressing the stigma and breaking the bias, so I want to thank her, as will, I am sure, every Member of the House.
It is a real privilege to close the debate on International Women’s Day, and I associate myself with all the remarks that have been made paying tribute to President Zelensky and the incredible women and girls of that amazing country, Ukraine. We stand with them. I never thought when I entered Parliament that I would be addressing the House after a speech such as the one I heard today. None of us has been left unmoved by it.
It is right that we focus on how we support victims and bring perpetrators to justice. I thank everybody who has brought before us the experiences of their constituents and told their stories. Listening to those victims and their experiences is how we drive the change across the justice system that all of us in this House are passionate to achieve, in order to build a fairer society for women and make our streets safer.
Yesterday, many of us attended an event run by Women’s Aid—it was a pleasure to see so many Members there. The comments made at that event chimed with me and many others. One of the Spice Girls, Mel B, stood up and said that she had no problem at all standing on a stage at Wembley stadium, singing and performing in front of hundreds of thousands of people, but that was nothing compared with the trauma of having to tell her story about her abusive marriage and everything she has gone through. Continuing to allow these victims and these incredible survivors to come forward, supporting them, and working to achieve the change we all want is how we will change the system.
I thank all Members who have spoken in this debate. They have raised a number of points. Time does not allow me to address all of them in detail, but I will start with the issue of stalking, which has been mentioned by many Members. Stalking is a very serious matter that has a broad spectrum of manifestations. We are, of course, looking at this issue in the context of domestic abuse, and also of harassment. That is why we awarded £11.3 million to police and crime commissioners to fund programmes for domestic abuse perpetrators and perpetrators of stalking, whether or not it takes place in a domestic abuse context. A wide range of sentences are currently imposed for stalking offences, reflecting the broad spectrum of manifestations of this behaviour. The most serious offences could result in a maximum of 14 years’ imprisonment.
We have discussed extensively in this Chamber the issue of stalking protection orders. As hon. Members know, I recently wrote to all police forces making clear where they are not using those tools appropriately, and that they need to use the levers at their disposal in order to properly keep women and girls safe. The grant rate for those orders is very high, and where they are being granted, the police feel they are a very useful measure, but there is more we can do.
We have also discussed the issue of spiking. We have all become familiar with these new and concerning reports of needle spiking, which is a terrifying experience—something that I think we all find appalling, frightening and disgusting. It is a reasonably new phenomenon, which is why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is working with the police to better understand the exact nature of spiking; what is actually happening with that crime? We are working to make sure we record these incidents through the crime recording framework, and are also urgently considering the case for a criminal offence targeting spiking directly. There are already a range of offences on the statute book that the police can use to prosecute this behaviour, but we are all concerned with making sure that those offences are used and we will not hesitate to legislate if necessary.
David Johnston
My constituent Sharon Gaffka is involved in a campaign on spiking, having been spiked twice herself. She now has more than 1,000 testimonies from people ranging from the age of 14 to 65. It is not always a sexual offence—sometimes friends do it to each other because they think it is a bit of a laugh to get a reaction—but I wonder whether I can get my constituent to share those testimonies with my hon. Friend to help inform the Government’s understanding of what is going on here.
Rachel Maclean
Of course. I thank my hon. Friend very much and I would be delighted to do that. I am working across Government with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Education and so on to have a cross-Government response to this matter.
Members have raised the issue of sentencing in a range of contexts. It is important to note that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is passing through the House, will ensure that serious sexual and violent offenders serve two thirds of their sentence in prison, instead of half. Indeed, a number of other measures in that Bill strengthen the management of sex offenders, including by enabling electronic monitoring requirements to be imposed on those who pose a risk through sexual harm prevention orders and sexual risk orders, if necessary.
It is important that our criminal justice system catches up from the impacts of the pandemic. Our decisive action in the courts has kept justice moving. That is why we invested a quarter of a billion pounds to support recovery in the last financial year, and 30 Nightingale courtrooms are to be extended until March next year as we work across Government to continue our efforts to tackle the impact of covid-19 on the justice system. The new victims Bill, which we are introducing as quickly as possible, will bring about a cultural shift so that victims’ experiences are central to how our society thinks about and responds to crime. We want to ensure that the Bill tackles the things that victims most care about.
Members have referenced health, which is a vital component of our strategy to provide the tailored support that victims of rape and other serious sexual offences need. Through the work being carried out by my colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, the victims Bill consultation is looking closely at the commissioning of community-based services, including the role of health bodies. That consultation is now being analysed and we will bring forward a draft Bill as soon as possible.
I will reference an important piece of work from my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care through the women’s health strategy. The Department will appoint our first ever women’s health ambassador for England, whose role will be to focus on raising the profile of women’s health, increasing awareness and bringing in a range of collaborative voices. Members will know that I work closely with Women’s Aid, which is campaigning on better mental health support for victims of trauma and sexual offences. That forms another important component of the domestic abuse plan that we are bringing forward.
It is important to reference that we on the Government Benches fully accept that the current data shows that the system is not working as well as it could be. We have consistently been honest and transparent about that. It is only by doing that that we will be able to bring about the change that is desperately needed.
Sir Robert Neill
I am glad that my hon. Friend references data. Will she take on board the fact that the joint thematic report from the two inspectorates specifically references the need to do more on data in this field and ensure that that is in the Government’s response?
Rachel Maclean
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. We are reviewing those reports and others to ensure we have that data at our fingertips and bring forward the response that is required for victims. We are not complacent. We know there is more to do. This is the third time in the space of a week that I have personally stood in this Chamber discussing these very important issues. I am happy to continue to do so, because the work we are doing through Operation Soteria and some of the other workstreams is groundbreaking. I am proud to be associated with it, but we will not rest until we get the result that we need.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House commemorates International Women’s Day; regrets that under this Government conviction rates for rape have reached a historic low and that the typical delay between reporting an offence of rape and the completion of the resulting criminal case is over 1,000 days; calls on the Government to introduce minimum sentences for stalking and rape, to raise minimum sentencing for spiking and to implement Labour’s survivors’ package for victims of rape and serious sexual violence to restore trust in the criminal justice system; and further calls on the Government to begin an immediate assessment of the impact of setting up specialist rape offence courts on the significant Crown Court backlog of rape cases, as recommended by HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate.
Business without Debate
Consett Energy from Waste Plant
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Richard Holden (North West Durham) (Con)
I reflect the comments of other hon. Members who have spoken in saying that it puts everything into perspective at every level to speak in the same Chamber to which President Zelensky has just spoken.
After many attempts in the Adjournment debate ballot, I am glad to have secured this important debate, which concerns a local waste to energy facility—a topic that is close to my constituents’ hearts. The planning permission for it to be built in Consett in my constituency was soundly rejected by Durham county councillors last year after thousands of local residents objected to the proposed plant on the Hownsgill industrial estate in the Delves Lane area. That movement was spearheaded by the unwavering hard work of a huge number of local people. I particularly thank my local Delves Lane councillors, Michelle Watson and Angela Sterling, whose campaign I backed from the start. It was a real community effort, however, and thousands of people were involved in pushing objections and leading lots of local groups.
Although I acknowledge that Members of Parliament have no specific powers with regard to local planning permissions and council decisions, I have none the less been blown away by the huge outpouring from local people—mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, grandparents, residents—who have coalesced around an issue that they see as important for our local community. That has been incredible to see, and it has marked another occasion where hundreds of local people have come together and made me incredibly proud to be the Member of Parliament for North West Durham.
Sadly, this debate is not about celebrating a hard-fought win, but occurs in the shadow of a potential appeal that is being prepared against Durham County Council’s decision to reject the building of the plant. As a result of the reignition of the local debate against the backdrop of the potential appeal, I decided to conduct a survey of my constituents’ views last week. In just a couple of days, I received hundreds and hundreds of responses. A pattern has emerged, which I can summarise: they say that no means no when it comes to the proposed Consett incinerator, they want their views to be listened to, and they do not want the result of local democratic action by the council to be overturned by those who seek to ignore them.
I will read a couple of comments that constituents posted in response to my survey. One constituent explained that
“the planning committee made their views clear, as did the people of Consett and this decision needs to be respected.”
Another constituent explained that the plant will cause
“noise…next to houses, schools, health facilities, clean air”
and is right between major residential areas of the town. Another constituent put it even more concisely and confirmed that the Consett incinerator
“has no place in our town and we do not want it here. ”
Well over 95% of people who responded to the surveys and work that I have conducted are implacably opposed to the plant.
After synthesising all those views and asking people what we should do instead, it is clear that my constituents are behind the general drift of Government policy. The Government believe in reduce, reuse, recycle—that is the priority that we are driving—not blight and burn, which is clearly what is being proposed.
The Government have also done a great job in recent years in highlighting the environmental agenda. We led COP26 in Glasgow by really driving through—not just for Britain but internationally—a desire to see emissions reduced and to help protect the environment. Over 100 countries have now committed to ending deforestation. We have seen a big shift from carbon-intensive power generation and an end to new coal financing. Two hundred countries agreed to the pact to keep 1.5° alive, along with cutting methane emissions by 30%.
It is particularly interesting to look at how far we have come. Britain has led the world in trying to reduce our carbon emissions, and recently that shift has been even more stark. When the UK took over the leadership of COP a couple of years ago, only about 30% of the world was covered by the new targets, but that figure is now about 90%. This Government have also been keen to really push forward sensible environmental changes, with things such as animal welfare legislation—for example, the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill, which I have supported in this House.
That does not mean that we should jump to a position of wanting immediately to ban all incineration. There is a case for it in a limited number of circumstances, particularly given the need for certain medical waste and things like that to be incinerated. However, the Government are driving for a two-thirds reduction in the amount of waste sent to incineration and to landfill by 2030, so why start to create new facilities? It does not even look as though this will be a long-term solution for the communities I represent, or perhaps even for the developers. Instead, we need to be concentrating on using less and less each year.
As you can see, Mr Deputy Speaker, the Government have demonstrated their commitment to the environment and so have my constituents. Everybody is in agreement —my constituents and the Government—about the unattractiveness of incinerators and, actually, the increasing lack of need for them as we push forward with our agenda.
How did we end up where we are today? I looked through the County Durham plan from 2019, and there was an indication that this land was going to be designated for industrial use. However, the only stipulation imposed on its potential use as an incinerator was that there should be a “degree of restraint” against incineration. That is the only wording about it in that document, on page 256. So we have been left high and dry by a plan, while the rest of the country has moved on environmentally and local people have become implacably opposed. During that time, large numbers of new housing developments—with hundreds of new houses going up—have been proposed within half a mile of the site.
Today, I am calling on the developer to withdraw its appeal, and instead respect the decisions of the democratically elected councillors and of my constituents. There is almost total unanimity among my constituents about backing the Government’s plan to reuse, reduce and recycle, and we want to see as little as possible sent to our landfill or for incineration. Of course, there will always be a small need for incineration of things such as medical waste as part of a diverse package, but that should be in very limited circumstances.
The general direction the Government are taking is one of reducing waste year on year, and that is what my constituents want. Building more incineration facilities is antithetical to the Government’s broader narrative and their environmental aims. Those aims are strongly supported not only by my constituents but by people across the country, and I believe by those on all sides of the House. Although I understand that the Minister, like me, has no specific role in individual planning cases, and this is obviously a matter for continued debate between the council and the private firms, I do want to ask him to take a broader look at incineration and the Government’s approach to it. Will he also reflect on the views of my local councillors, supported by me, and of my constituents in his response to my debate tonight?
The Minister for Housing (Stuart Andrew)
May I begin by echoing the opening comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) about the extraordinary address we received from President Zelensky earlier? That is one of the extraordinary moments I will take away from my time in this House, and we wish him and all the people of Ukraine the very best in their battle for freedom.
May I also congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and thank him for his contribution? My hon. Friend is a tireless campaigner for his constituents on this issue and so many others, from upgrading the A66 to Durham’s county of culture bid. I know he has been trying valiantly for a number of months to secure a debate on this issue, and I believe this could be 10th time lucky. That speaks to the importance of the matter to my hon. Friend and the local councillors he is championing, Michelle Watson and Angela Sterling for Delves Lane ward. It is abundantly clear that that there are strong views among some of his constituents about the merits of this proposed energy plant.
I should also say that Adjournment debates on such matters reflect how important it is that Members continue to hold the Government’s feet to the fire. Pressure from parliamentarians may not always be glamorous, but it is the cogs that make the wheels of Government and local government turn.
Without wishing to pour cold water over the entire debate, I must say from the outset that for propriety reasons I am unable to comment on the specifics of the proposal that is the subject of this debate. I know that an appeal against Durham County Council’s refusal of planning permission for the scheme has been lodged with the Planning Inspectorate, and there will now be a public inquiry into the proposal overseen by an independent planning inspector. It is also possible that if the appeal were recovered it would fall to myself or one of my ministerial colleagues in the Department to decide on the case. So for all those reasons I am afraid I must say that it is not appropriate for me to express any view as to the merits or otherwise of the specific scheme in my hon. Friend’s constituency.
However, given the subject matter of this debate it is worth my saying a bit about the principles that underpin and drive waste planning. The Government are clear that wherever possible waste should be reduced, if not fully prevented; but where prevention is not possible we must prioritise reuse and recycling over energy recovery or disposal to landfill. This sequential approach is at the heart of the Government waste policy, and that is reflected in planning policy requirements for plan making and decision making. In short, every paper bag, every glass bottle and every piece of scrap metal that is recycled is a small victory in our war against waste. That is one reason why the Government are committed to preserving material resources, promoting efficiency, and moving towards a greener, more circular economy.
Our resources and waste strategy sets out the Government’s bold ambition to properly manage residual waste in a way that maximises its value. It sets a clear target for 75% of packaging to be recycled by 2030, plus a 65% recycling rate for municipal solid waste. Crucially, this strategy also commits us to minimising any harm done to the environment as a result of managing waste.
This strategy is by no means the total sum of our actions. We are continuing to innovate and find new solutions to old problems in waste management, moving us towards a circular economy. They include a deposit return scheme for drinks containers, extended producer responsibility for packaging, and consistent recycling collections for all homes and businesses, as well as the plastic packaging tax.
On the specifics of planning decisions, councils are guided by the national planning policy for waste, which tasks them with meeting the needs of their areas in managing waste. This includes the need to undertake early and meaningful engagement with residents so that plans reflect as far as possible a collective vision and a set of agreed priorities when planning for sustainable waste management.
The ultimate responsibility for waste planning does sit with councils, and while decisions that they take must be informed by consultation, those are nevertheless their decisions to make. That underscores the importance of community campaigning and the vital role that local MPs such as my hon. Friend and the councillors whom I mentioned have in mobilising constituents for or against all forms of new development, including incinerators and waste plants. It would be nothing short of political suicide for any council to run roughshod over a community that is overwhelmingly against a new facility. Equally, if a council is deliberately hampering a development, the construction of new homes or vital infrastructure, the electorate can communicate its displeasure about that at the next set of local elections.
As my hon. Friend will know, my Department is committed to increasing community engagement with planning applications, digitising much of the old analogue systems and allowing people to see what development is proposed in their area at the touch of a smartphone. That will not just drive up resident engagement but make it easier for communities to voice their opposition or approval for something being built on or near the place that they call home.
Without making any prejudicial comments on the specifics of this live application, I can say that energy from waste is a proven technology and is established as the most common thermal treatment for residual waste—the kind that cannot otherwise be prevented, reused or recycled. While energy from waste plays a vital role in stopping unnecessary waste from reaching landfill, the Government’s view is that it should not be competing with greater efforts by the public to prevent waste, to reuse or to recycle.
In 2019, the incineration of municipal solid waste in energy from waste facilities accounted for more than 6 megatonnes of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions, but, according to our best estimates, energy from waste—even in electricity-only mode—is still a better option for processing municipal waste than landfill in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. The Government also want to drive greater efficiency of energy from waste plants by encouraging better use of the heat that they produce in local developments. That brings the additional benefit of helping to reduce the carbon emissions that arise from heating our homes. As hon. Members will know, heat networks form a strategically important part of the Government’s plans to reduce carbon and cut heating bills for customers, both domestic and commercial.
When we discuss energy in waste, it is imperative to factor in the regulatory landscape. In October 2020, as part of the circular economy package, the Government legislated to include a permit condition for landfill and incineration operators. The permit meant that those operators cannot accept separately collected paper, metal, glass or plastic for landfill or incineration unless such items have gone through some form of treatment process first and unless there is no better environmental outcome. The condition came on top of existing permit measures that already prevent acceptance of material that is, to all intents and purposes, recyclable.
All energy from waste plants in England are regulated by the Environment Agency and must comply with robust emissions limits set in environmental legislation. As hon. Members might expect, the Environment Agency assesses the emissions from new energy generated by waste plants as part of its permitting process and consults the UK Health Security Agency on every application that it receives. Needless to say, the Environment Agency will never issue an environment permit if a proposed plant has a significant impact on the environment or if it may cause harm to human health.
I hope that, at this stage, my hon. Friend will understand why I need to refrain from touching on the specific circumstances of the matter that he raised, but I hope that my statement has given useful context and background to this important wider debate. I conclude by thanking him again for his thoughtful contribution, which has enriched this debate and provided plenty of food for thought for us in Government. It helps us to understand people’s strength of feeling on these individual applications. We are completely committed to reducing waste and supporting the development of the kind of circular economy that regenerates, recycles and reuses whenever possible. I thank him for bringing this issue to the attention of the House.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We come to the end of a truly historic and emotional day here at Westminster, with President Zelensky’s words still ringing in our ears and firmly in our hearts. We were privileged to hear President Zelensky’s address today and we stand with him and the very brave people of Ukraine.
Question put and agreed to.
Addendum
Mr Speaker
Order. We are now meeting informally. As I informed the House earlier, given the exceptional and grave situation I have agreed to a request from President Zelensky of Ukraine to address Members of this House about the situation in his country. That is why I have suspended the formal business of the House in order to hear the President’s address. We have also been joined by the Ukrainian ambassador. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]
President Zelensky, we have watched the situation unfolding in your country with increasing concern, but also with increasing admiration for the courage and fortitude displayed by you and your fellow Ukrainians. Mr President, you are welcome to address Members of the House of Commons and the Lords. You now have the floor. [Applause.]
Volodymyr Zelensky (President of Ukraine) [Translation]: Mr Speaker, Prime Minister, Members of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, I am addressing all the people of the United Kingdom, a country with a big history. I am addressing you as a citizen and the President of another big country with a dream. I want to tell you about the 13 days of war—a war that we did not start and did not want. However, we have to conduct this war. We do not want to lose what is ours—our country—just as you once did not want to lose yours to the Nazis and you had to fight for Britain.
On day one, at four o’clock in the morning, we were attacked by cruise missiles. Everybody woke up—people, children, the whole of Ukraine—and we have not slept since. We have all been fighting for our country alongside our army.
On day two, we suffered airstrikes, and our heroic military servicemen on the island of Zmiinyi fought when Russian forces demanded that they lay down arms. However, we continued fighting, and they felt the force of our people, who will oppose the occupiers until the end.
The next day, artillery started firing at us. Our army showed us who we are, and we saw who are people and who are beasts.
On day four, we started taking people captive. We did not torture them, remaining humane even on day four of this terrible war.
On day five, the terror against us affected our children and cities, and constant shelling happened around the country, including on hospitals. That did not break us, but gave us a feeling of great certainty.
On day six, Russian rockets fell on Babyn Yar, where the Nazis killed thousands of people during the second world war. Eighty years later, the Russians hit them for the second time. Even churches are getting destroyed by shelling.
On day eight, we saw Russian tanks hitting the nuclear power station, and everybody got to understand that this is a terror against everyone.
On day nine, a meeting of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly ended without the result we were looking for. We learned that, unfortunately, alliances do not always work properly, and the no-fly zone was not enforced.
On day 10, Ukrainians started protesting en masse, stopping armoured vehicles with their own hands.
On day 11, children, cities and hospitals were hit with rockets and constant shelling. On that day, we realised that Ukrainians have become heroes—entire cities, children and adults.
On day 12, the losses of the Russian army exceeded 10,000 people killed, including a general. We were given hope that there will be some kind of responsibility for these people in court.
On day 13, the city of Mariupol was attacked by the Russian forces, and a child was killed. The Russians did not allow any food or water, and people started panicking—they do not have water.
Over those 13 days, over 50 children have been killed. Those children could have lived, but these people have taken them away from us.
Ukraine was not looking for this war. Ukrainians have not been looking to become big, but they have become big over the 13 days of this war. We are saving people despite having to fight one of the biggest armies in the world, with its helicopters and rockets. The question for us now is, “To be, or not to be”. This Shakespearean question could have been asked over the past 13 days, but I can now give you a definitive answer: it is definitely, “To be”.
I remind you of the words that the United Kingdom has already heard because they are important again. We will not give up, and we will not lose. We will fight until the end at sea and in the air. We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost. We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores and in the streets. We will fight on the banks of our rivers, like the Dnieper.
We are looking for help from civilised countries, and we are thankful for this help. I am very grateful to you, Boris. Please increase the pressure of sanctions against Russia and please recognise that country as a terrorist state. Please ensure that our Ukrainian skies are safe. Please make sure that you do what needs to be done and what is required by the greatness of your country. I wish my best to Ukraine and to the United Kingdom. [Applause.]
Mr Speaker
Thank you, Mr President. On behalf of the House of Commons, I want to thank you for speaking to us and for giving us your clear and powerful perspective on the tragic situation facing you and your fellow Ukrainians. We have debated the situation in Ukraine numerous times in recent weeks, and I know we will continue to do so, and that when we do so next your words will be resonating with us. I want to express the solidarity of the House of Commons with you and your compatriots—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]—and we salute the courage of the people of Ukraine. Our prayers are with you.