House of Commons
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Oral Answers to Questions
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)
Air pollution is at a record low. However, we need to do more to protect the vulnerable, in particular, and drive cleaner air for all. Last year, more than £1 million was awarded to local authorities under the Department’s air quality grant for projects specifically aimed at children. Yesterday, we announced more than £11 million-worth of grants, across 40 local authorities, to improve air quality; several of these projects were focused on schools and their monitoring.
Geraint Davies
Vortex, a company in Swansea bay, manufactures high-quality, low-cost digital monitors—it has 500 across Hammersmith—which help to deliver local air quality schemes, with public support. Given that half a million children in schools are suffering from toxic levels of air pollution, will the Minister undertake to provide monitors across the country, to drive public opinion and better air quality, in accordance with World Health Organisation standards?
Jo Churchill
The hon. Gentleman is a very assiduous campaigner on this topic. Local authorities can choose to monitor outside schools, but it is often better to target resources at improving air quality generally. As I say, we gave £11.6 million yesterday, of which more than £1 million was also for education, following the coroner’s report on Ella Kissi-Debrah. I would, of course, be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the issue further.
Damien Moore (Southport) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
The Government have a world-leading target to halt nature’s decline by 2030, and recovering urban biodiversity is an important part of that work. Through our local nature recovery strategies, we will identify local priorities for nature recovery, including of course in urban areas, such as creating, connecting and restoring habitat to form part of our nature recovery network. We are investing £750 million through the nature for climate fund, and I urge my hon. Friend to look at the range of funding we have available, including the local authority treescapes fund and the urban tree challenge fund.
Damien Moore
Local urban communities such as Southport benefit enormously from trees, shrubbery and other green spaces that promote biodiversity and rewilding, but there are strong concerns among my constituents that Sefton Council is planning to cut back the greenery along Southport’s pavements and replace it with concrete blocks for cycle lanes. So will my hon. Friend support my attempts to fight this nature crime—a potential tree massacre—by Labour-controlled Sefton Council?
Rebecca Pow
My hon. Friend is a great advocate for this, as Members can tell, and he has regularly bent my ear about the green spaces in his constituency. Through our Environment Act 2021, we have a strengthened duty on local authorities to assess what they can do to further conservation and biodiversity, and we have placed a duty on designated authorities to produce these local nature recovery strategies. We also have that world-leading target to halt the decline in nature. So I urge him to work with the council and get it to do more, but it could replace those concrete blocks with hedges. The air pollution Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill), would be grateful for that, as there are some views that that would help to tackle air pollution as well.
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
How bio- diversity and renaturing is undertaken in the UK will be guided by the convention on biological diversity. Biodiversity has experienced a catastrophic collapse globally. The United Nations biodiversity COP15 is shortly to resume. What are the Government’s strategic goals at COP15? What equivalent headline target is there to the net zero target at COP26, which is well understood in local urban communities and across the UK?
Rebecca Pow
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that and for his shared interest in biodiversity. He is right: we must not just do this at home—we have to deal with it abroad as well. Biodiversity loss is a global problem and the forthcoming COP15 on the convention on biological diversity will be really important in furthering our work to bend the curve on the loss of biodiversity. That was agreed at the G7, and the aim of the CBD is to get as many as countries as possible to sign up to that.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)
The Government consulted on the introduction of extended producer responsibility for packaging last year, and the response will be published shortly. We will then consult on reforms to extend schemes to batteries and waste electronic and electrical equipment this year, and to end-of-life vehicles in 2023. I am keen for industries to step up and come forward with schemes themselves, just as the paint-manufacturing industry has done. My door is always open to ways to drive EPR forward.
Richard Fuller
I commend the Minister for moving forward with the extended producer responsibility scheme, which has the potential to significantly increase recycling rates for a number of products, but she will be aware of the potential impact on household budgets. She has opened the door to speak to industry; will she also listen to industry about the pace of change, so that we can get it right at an affordable cost?
Jo Churchill
Many of the companies local to my hon. Friend have articulated their concerns and worries—indeed, during a trip to Viridor last week to look at polymer recycling, I spoke to Unilever, which I believe has a plant local to him. The forthcoming response to the EPR consultation will show businesses that we are listening and working with them. Our initial analysis indicates that EPR will not result in a significant uplift to prices, but we will keep things under review and I am happy to talk to my hon. Friend further.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
Over the past 18 months, I have held regular discussions with both the current Secretary of State for International Trade, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), and her predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), regarding the negotiating mandate for the free trade agreement with New Zealand, which includes protections for British agriculture. Tariff liberalisation for sensitive goods, including beef and lamb, will be staged over time.
Mr Carmichael
The Secretary of State’s decision to seek advice from the Trade and Agriculture Commission is welcome, but the questions on which he seeks advice all seem to revolve around standards. Important though standards are, they are not the full story as far as the crofters and farmers in my constituency are concerned. Will the Secretary of State encourage his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Trade to take a more farmer and crofter-focused approach? This week the Government’s own figures indicated that that trade deal risks taking £150 million out of British agriculture.
George Eustice
It is important to recognise that New Zealand has always had access to the UK market under an existing World Trade Organisation schedule of around 114,000 tonnes, but in recent years New Zealand has used only half its quota, because long before the quota is filled it is unable to compete with the great UK producers, including those in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)
The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)
Livestock production is important for food production, the capture of carbon in pasture and the preservation of some of our most iconic landscapes. Our new policies—including the new animal health and welfare pathway and the newly increased farming investment fund—will support livestock farmers.
Jane Hunt
What progress has my hon. Friend made on examining the Welsh compensation scheme for cattle destroyed because of suspected tuberculosis? I understand that the Welsh model pays the value of the animal that is destroyed. What plans does she have to replace the standardised valuations in England, particularly in respect of prize-winning high-quality breeds?
Victoria Prentis
The Welsh Government intend to move away from their current practice of individual animal valuation. They are considering and have recently consulted on moving to a practice of table valuation, such as we use in England. I understand that my hon. Friend recently met the Secretary of State, with her constituent Andrew Birkle, to discuss this important issue.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Most livestock farmers want to follow the best animal welfare standards, and consumers need to have confidence in that. I do not know whether the Minister saw the recent “Panorama” episode, “A Cow’s Life”, but it shows yet another Red Tractor farm that is not meeting those standards. What is she doing to ensure better consumer confidence and to make sure that livestock farmers live up to the standards that they profess to adopt?
Victoria Prentis
The hon. Lady is a great campaigner for animal welfare and she and I have discussed these issues many times previously. She is right to raise the important issue of animal welfare again and I would be delighted to talk to her about our recently published animal health and welfare pathway. An annual vet visit to every farm and direct discussion between the vet and the farmer will really help at a granular and practical level to bring about the increases in animal welfare that we all want.
Dr Neil Hudson (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
As with the pandemic, the dreadful situation in Ukraine has brought food security into sharp relief. Currently, the pig sector in the UK is still in crisis, with thousands of animals dammed back on farms and more than 40,000, sadly, having been culled on farms and not going into the food supply chain, creating huge health and welfare issues. I know that the Government have put measures in place and that the Minister is chairing summits, but can she update the House on what the Government are doing to avert this human and animal welfare crisis?
Victoria Prentis
It is fair to say that the dreadful situation in Ukraine means that food security in the broader sense is uppermost in all our minds. We must feel very fortunate in this country that we grow almost all our own grain and are able to be so self-sufficient—74% self-sufficient in the food that we grow. That is not to say that we should be complacent. The Government are working very closely with industry at all levels, with processors and retailers, and not just in the pig sector.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
The £150 million impediment to livestock farmers as a consequence of the New Zealand trade deal is a direct consequence of Brexit, as are the lack of Northern Irish animals at Stirling bull sales; the lack of an ability to export seed potatoes to Northern Ireland and the EU; the tariffs on jute sacks for seed potatoes; and the nightmare of exporting shellfish. These are direct consequences of Brexit. Can the Minister give my Angus farmers just one single benefit of Brexit and make sure that it is not some nebulous opportunity that has not been realised?
Victoria Prentis
I wish—and I am sure that some of the hon. Gentlemen’s farmers wish—that the Scottish Government were going with the real benefits that we are able to make as a result of Brexit in the agricultural space. In England, we will be able to move towards a system of paying people for producing public goods. In Scotland, that option is not yet available to farmers. I will be meeting NFU Scotland later today to discuss further issues to do with Scottish farming.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
I note that the Minister did not address the question about the pig crisis. Pig farmers have been in crisis month after month after month, and, frankly, the Government’s response has always been too little and too late. As was said, more than 40,000 pigs already culled on farms have been completely wasted. It is becoming apparent that one problem is the failure of the processors to honour the contracts to farmers. How much more suffering has to be endured before the Minister does as she has hinted that she might do and passes this to the Competition and Markets Authority, so that we can find out what has been going wrong in what increasingly looks like a broken market?
Victoria Prentis
Only time constraints prevented me from setting out in full what we are doing with the pig industry. We have been careful to work with the pig industry in lockstep at all stages and have brought into play actual schemes that are helping them today. I agree that the supply chain in pigs is in trouble. I have said that frequently, and I have started a review of that supply chain—a serious and systematic review—which may well result in regulatory change. In the collection of the evidence, we will certainly refer matters to the Competition and Markets Authority at the appropriate time, when we have the right evidence. In the interim, I would be most grateful if any pig farmer or producer sent me a copy of a contract, which has been very, very hard to find, as I would very much like to see that.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
International commodity prices are heavily influenced by factors such as energy costs and exchange rates. Recent pressures have been sustained and we have seen food price inflation rise to 4.4% in January, up from 4.2% in December. Events in Ukraine and the effect of that on energy prices are likely to have further impacts, which we are monitoring closely. Our UK food security report, published in December, included analysis of food security at household level.
Kate Osborne
The cost of living is rocketing and the price of food has risen by 3.9% year on year. Food banks such as Hebburn Helps and Bede’s Helping Hands in my constituency tell me that they are as busy as ever, as more and more people are being driven into poverty, having to choose between eating and heating. Does the Minister agree that the time has now come for the Chancellor to commit to ending food poverty in the UK by including in his forthcoming spring statement all the measures set out in the “Right to Food” campaign of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) to achieve the permanent eradication of hunger in the UK?
George Eustice
The hon. Lady will be aware that the Government have put in place a number of measures to help households, particularly with the sharp increase in energy costs that they face. The Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have set those out previously. In addition, we have other schemes such as the holiday activity programme to support those suffering from food insecurity and additional food costs, and we have given local authorities additional measures to help them with those struggling to afford food.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
With Putin’s murderous regime wreaking havoc on Ukraine and murdering innocent women and children, there is a direct impact on food and grain prices. Ukraine has stopped exports, as have many other countries. What will the Secretary of State do to protect grain supplies in this country? Secondly, what talks will he have with the retailers to ensure that we can share some of the pain of the costs, which pig and poultry just cannot stand? Thirdly, how are we going to create greater food security and grow more grain in this country, which we are in need of?
George Eustice
On my hon. Friend’s final point, we published a highly comprehensive analysis of our food security, including a focus on the production to supply ratio, which showed that we produce roughly three quarters of the food that we are able to grow and consume here. On his specific point, we were aware of the risk of these events in Ukraine and set up a dedicated group within DEFRA at the beginning of January to do contingency planning for the possible impacts on food. We do not import wheat from Ukraine, or only very small quantities; we are largely self-sufficient in wheat and we import the balance from Canada. However, we are looking at the cost of inputs, particularly for the livestock sector, such as poultry.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
The Secretary of State will be aware of widespread concern that the rising cost of fertiliser will add further inflationary pressures to the price of food. Indeed, I have been told by one farmer of a quote for £930 a tonne plus VAT for a shipment that last year cost about £280. What steps can the Government take to address this crisis and ensure that our food security is not undermined?
George Eustice
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. Fertiliser prices had spiked even before current events in Ukraine, because the cost of ammonium nitrate is heavily dependent on the cost of gas, as he knows. We have been working closely with our own domestic producer in the UK to ensure that it maintains production. Most farms will now have purchased their fertiliser and have it on farm for the current growing season or the beginning of it, but we are setting up a special group with industry to work on this challenge and to identify better long-term solutions that rely less on the price of gas.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Price rises are having an adverse effect on the household budgets of people across my constituency, perhaps none more so than those people who are off the gas grid and must buy heating oil or gas in bulk. They are not protected by the Government’s energy cap. Can my right hon. Friend tell me what he is doing and what work he is doing with BEIS and the Treasury to help to protect my constituents from bills that may have more than doubled?
George Eustice
I have had conversations with the Business Secretary on this matter. The disruptions we are seeing, particularly following events in Ukraine, are having some impact on the supply of household heating oil for those who are not on the grid. I know he is well aware of these issues and his Department is working closely on it.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Russia’s appalling invasion of Ukraine clearly drastically affects Ukraine’s ability to produce grain and many other foodstuffs, threatening not only price increases, but global famine and disease spread. Domestically, our farmers are experiencing increased seed, fertiliser and transport costs, and the UK, lacking the leverage it once had as part of the EU, is now a small player on the global market. The Secretary of State mentioned a food security review and summits. Exactly what actions is his Department taking to ensure food security in the UK and stabilise food prices, and what plans are the Government making to assist developing countries to meet their needs?
George Eustice
Tomorrow, I will attend a special session of the G7 where, with other like-minded countries, we will discuss some of those issues and the impact on international commodity prices. It is inevitable that when a country such as Russia under Putin takes such steps, there will be some turbulence in the market. It is essential that the world community shows solidarity in taking tough action on sanctions, which we will do. It is inevitable that there will be some collateral damage to our own interests and prices, but nevertheless we must see that through and impose those sanctions where they are needed in order to bring the regime to its senses.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
Coastal communities are key to our levelling-up agenda, supported by the UK shared prosperity fund, the coastal communities fund and the £100 million UK seafood fund. Up to 2027 we are investing a record £5.2 billion in coastal erosion risk management. That will be invested in about 2,000 schemes and approximately 17% of it is expected to better protect against coastal and tidal flooding. It includes a £140 million coastal project on defences at the Eastbourne and Pevensey coast. We are putting coastal communities right at the heart of this flood protection landscape.
Anna Firth
I welcome my hon. Friend’s comments. In Southend, we are blessed with a wonderful coastline, and I am sure she agrees that the best support coastal communities can have is a healthy marine environment allowing our fish and marine life to flourish, thus supporting Southend West’s fishing industry. I would therefore be very grateful to know what is being done to monitor and improve the water quality around the English coast, particularly regarding the reduction of heavy metals, sewage and other pollution, especially around the north Thames coast adjacent to Southend West.
Rebecca Pow
I thank my hon. Friend for that question and welcome her to her seat. How wonderful that she has chosen DEFRA orals to ask her first question. That is very fitting, because I think the wonderful Sir David Amess never missed DEFRA questions. She is going to be a great spokesman for her area on this front. She makes a good case for the importance of keeping our waters healthy. In terms of fishing, an inshore survey programme of the outer Thames and the south coast is under way so that we can get data on the fishing stocks to better inform and help our fishermen. A recent survey showed that, remarkably, the Thames estuary, having been declared virtually dead not very long ago, has made a fantastic ecological recovery to the point that we can now see seahorses, eels and seals there.
Caroline Ansell
Who knew we had seahorses off the coast of Eastbourne? This is my perfect moment. I thank my hon. Friend for her answer on the excellent work that is being done on water quality—that is clearly of massive significance to me—and on the coastal defence scheme; Eastbourne is set to potentially receive £100 million to protect the town for 100 years. But my question is about sewage and waste treatment. The sea, and all it affords, is our greatest visitor asset in Eastbourne and highly valued by local people. I recently met my local swimmers—a very hardy crew that includes one cross-channel swimmer. They are concerned about waste treatment because they so enjoy their swimming. What reassurance can my hon. Friend give them about the new powers in the Environment Act 2021 that will address this, but equally about Government-sponsored local action that will improve storm overflows and surface water, and help to take us from “good” to “excellent” status for our bathing water?
Rebecca Pow
I am tempted to ask whether my hon. Friend joined the swimmers with her bathing costume on. I thank her for her work in campaigning on this matter, which she constantly talks about with me. I am delighted that we recently confirmed funding for East Sussex County Council’s Blue Heart project, which she was very proactive about, to help to reach “excellent” bathing water status. That very much focuses on what to do about the surface water and how to separate it from the sewage. That fits fully with all the work we are doing, as a Government, to make a game-changing difference on improving our water quality.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
In the past, central Government have helped the Northern Ireland Assembly to address some of those issues, through finance but also through physical help. Has consideration been given to undertaking a UK-wide survey of coastal erosion with a view to taking a UK-wide approach and reinforcing coastal roads and homes on those roads that are unable to withstand these storms, which appear to happen more regularly than ever?
Rebecca Pow
We take coastal erosion extremely seriously, which is why 17% of our flood protection budget is going to be devoted to coastal areas and coastal erosion. We work very closely in advising and liaising with the devolveds, which we are always happy to do. We are updating our shoreline management plans, which will help inform us, and we are happy to share information with our colleagues in the devolveds.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Rebecca Pow)
We are the first Government to set out our expectation that water companies must reduce storm sewage overflows, and our Environment Act includes a raft of powers to support that expectation. We have almost doubled the funding available for our catchment farming advisers and have taken action to ban microbeads and microplastics in personal care products. We are currently seeking views on further actions we could take in relation to wet wipes, and will shortly be setting targets under the Environment Act to further improve water quality and drive action in the coming years.
Mr Sheerman
The Secretary of State and his team are a very nice bunch of people, and we have heard a lot of warm words this morning, but what my constituents want is action on clean water. My constituents want clean air and clean water. I spoke to Thames Water yesterday. Leading academics from the University of Reading tell us that the cuts to the Environment Agency mean that the agency is no longer measuring how much pollution is in our rivers. That is a shameful fact. Not one river in our country is safe to swim in—that is the truth. What is the Minister going to do about it?
Rebecca Pow
Action is happening on this side of the House, and if the hon. Gentleman followed it, he would know exactly how much we are doing. Through our Environment Act, we have taken a game-changing move to cut down on the harm caused by storm sewage overflows. Your party, in fairness, never did any of these things. I have inherited—.
Mr Speaker
Order. We have had enough now. I think 12 years is too long ago in history.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (Ind)
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)
The harrowing events following the invasion of Ukraine have touched us all. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has received inquiries from many farmers, food producers and water companies that want to offer help to the people of Ukraine. We are co-ordinating with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and aid agencies to ensure we target those offers through the right channels.
There has also been some turbulence in international commodity markets, with agricultural commodity prices strongly correlated to the price of energy. My Department established a dedicated team to plan contingencies for this eventuality early in January. While the UK is largely self-sufficient in wheat and imports some, predominantly from Canada, we do import certain vegetable oils from Ukraine. Tomorrow, I will attend a special meeting of the G7 to discuss these issues further.
Jonathan Edwards
The amount of meat imported to the UK as a result of the trade deals with New Zealand and Australia will vary considerably, depending on whether it is in carcass form or deboned. Are there any nuances in those trade deals stipulating that the meat coming in should be in carcass form, which will not only limit the amount of meat imported but ensure that the added value of the produce is obtained here?
George Eustice
There is a convention in the sheep meat sector that these international agreements are based on something called the carcass-weight equivalent. That does not always apply to beef. However, the special agricultural safeguard that operates from years 10 to 15 will be based on a carcass-weight equivalent mechanism.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
The Minister for Farming, Fisheries and Food (Victoria Prentis)
The Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill was introduced in June and completed Committee stage in November. We continue to work on the Bill, and have added a new pet abduction offence and extended the primates measures to Wales. We have also consulted on puppy smuggling. Work continues and I will keep my hon. Friend posted.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
It has been two weeks since I submitted this parliamentary question. Russia and Ukraine account for 29% of global wheat exports and are significant in fertiliser supply. Cereal, bread and pasta are household staples for millions of homes across this country. Even before the war in Ukraine began, we were in the midst of a supply chain and cost of living crisis, with gaps on the shelves and food left rotting in the fields. Labour has a plan to buy, make and sell more of our great British produce, but what is the Secretary of State’s plan to address our weakening food security?
George Eustice
As the hon. Gentleman will know, we are working on a food strategy that will address all these issues across the food supply chain and some of the other challenges around the food industry, too. On his specific question, as I have said, we are largely self-sufficient in wheat production. We import some wheat from Canada. Most of our bread manufacturers therefore have British or Canadian wheat in their bread. We have modelled the impact of the increase in commodity prices on the price of a loaf of bread, and because wheat only represents about 10% of the cost of a loaf of bread, the impact is actually quite modest. A much bigger impact is likely to be the increase in fuel costs, since the cost of delivering bread is the biggest cost they face.
Jim McMahon
Many food banks have raised concerns that they may face having to turn away hard-working families struggling to get by. Some have reported that donations are down as families feel the cost of living squeeze, but demand for services is rocketing. It cannot be left to charities and retailers such as the Co-operative and others to fight this alone. What will the Government do to step up and deliver food justice, especially given that this cost of living crisis originated in Downing Street?
George Eustice
The big drivers of household financial insecurity are energy costs, housing costs and so on, and that is why the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have already announced schemes to try to help households with the cost of energy. When it comes specifically to food, we have a household support fund worth around £500 million, and at a DEFRA level we support projects such as FareShare.
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jo Churchill)
I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. It is a basic right to have clean air. That is why yesterday we announced more than £11 million in grants across local authority projects to improve air quality. We have made £880 million in funding available to support local authorities to tackle their nitrogen oxide exceedances and to get compliance. That is on top of the £2 billion investment in cycling and walking and a further £4 billion for making the switch to cleaner vehicles, showing a cross-Government approach. The Environment Act 2021 ensured that local authorities have the powers necessary to tackle this issue.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Jo Churchill
We are considering the evidence to inform potential action as far as fur goes and we are being guided by the evidence. We will come forward with further information in due course.
Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
According to Southern Water’s own figures, between 27 December 2021 and 6 January 2022, for 236 hours untreated wastewater was discharged from the Lidsey sewage treatment plant into the Lidsey Rife en route to the sea. That is 24 hours a day for 10 consecutive days. The final draft of “The government’s strategic priorities for Ofwat” states that the Government expect water companies to
“significantly reduce the frequency and volume of sewage discharges from storm overflows.”
Can the Minister confirm—
Mr Speaker
Order. The right hon. Gentleman has been here a very long time. In topicals, you cannot just ask the question that was missed out previously. You have to shorten the question so it is short and punchy. Otherwise, nobody is going to get in.
Rebecca Pow
Ofwat is legally required to act in accordance with the policy statement that my right hon. Friend referred to, and the Government expect Ofwat to take serious action against water companies. He might be aware that Ofwat called in five water companies just yesterday to look at what they are doing and their data, and our new system will tackle the issue.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Jo Churchill
We will be hearing the response to the extended producer responsibility consultation very shortly. I also highlight that, within a week, we have the Keep Britain Tidy and Clean for the Queen campaigns. That is about everyone taking on part of the responsibility and the extended producer responsibility scheme will help everyone to do that.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
I know that the Minister gets regular updates on the situation at Walleys Quarry in Newcastle-under-Lyme. She knows that the problem is not yet solved and people are still having to live with it. What update can she give me? What hope can she give to my constituents? Can she update me on the work of the chief scientific adviser’s team?
Jo Churchill
DEFRA’s chief scientific adviser has been talking to independent external scientific experts about Walleys Quarry and site capping, gas management, air dispersal and leachate. My officials keep me regularly updated and my hon. Friend knows that I take it very seriously. I get weekly updates and I will keep on applying the pressure to ensure that we get the result.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
George Eustice
Yes, we are doing that in fertiliser. We are also exploring options to identify alternative sources of animal protein.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Christian Matheson (City of Chester)
Voters deserve to know that elections in the UK are free and fair and that laws are in place to safeguard them from unlawful influence. The law sets out what constitutes a permissible donor, including qualifying foreign donors from whom parties and hon. Members can accept donations. It requires the recipient to take reasonable steps to confirm the identity of the donor and check permissibility, and charges the commission with publishing the larger donations to parties so that voters can see them. The commission has recommended introducing new duties on parties to enhance due diligence and risk assessment of donations based on existing money laundering regulations, which would protect parties and build confidence among voters that sources of party funding are thoroughly scrutinised.
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman will have seen reports at the weekend surrounding concerns with regard to the awarding of a particular peerage, something on which there has been, as yet, no credible denial. Does he agree that, when we see such stories, we realise that we need a stronger not a weaker Electoral Commission? For that reason, the Government should not be proceeding with the measures in the Elections Bill.
Christian Matheson
If the right hon. Gentleman will permit me, I will not be drawn on specific cases from the commission. The commission has said, however, that it would like to see enhanced due diligence to require political parties to assess and manage the risk of unlawful foreign funding and would support the adoption of a “know your donor” culture when making decisions on donations. It will also check and audit some of the donations that are made known to it to make sure that they comply. I am sure that, if he has concerns about individual donations, he will let the commission know of them.
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)
The Church is making every effort to support that important summit to promote freedom of religion or belief. A debate was held on the lack of global religious freedom at last month’s General Synod and I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), in her capacity as the Prime Minister’s special envoy for freedom of religion or belief, was able to brief Synod members on the huge cost of following Jesus in many parts of the world.
Caroline Ansell
Has my hon. Friend seen the 2021 research report, “Defeating Minority Exclusion and Unlocking Potential: Christianity in the Holy Land”, which reflects the significance of that community’s contribution to public value and welfare but also the vulnerability of its position? Does he agree that the forthcoming ministerial summit presents an excellent opportunity to discuss and debate its findings and recommendations?
Andrew Selous
I have seen the report and I share my hon. Friend’s concerns about its findings, which show the political and economic instability and the social intimidation that people are facing. The international ministerial meeting in July will provide an opportunity for that research to be widely shared and for the report’s concerns to be addressed.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
At the summit coming up this year, it will be really important to have individual stories from the countries where persecution is rife, whether that is China, India, Pakistan, Iran or other parts of the world. Will that be part of the conference?
Andrew Selous
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who takes a very serious interest in these matters. He is absolutely right. The Archbishop of Canterbury has just been in Pakistan, including Peshawar, where Pastor William Siraj was horrendously murdered on 30 January this year. Those stories must be heard, and he is absolutely right.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)
The Church is responding through prayer, giving and action. Parishes across the country prayed for peace on 27 February and are supporting humanitarian appeals. Chaplaincies across Europe are providing support to refugees now. The Church has sold its investments in Russian firms and there were no investments, I am pleased to say, in Russian sovereign debt.
Felicity Buchan
Churches throughout my constituency, including St James’s in Norlands, and indeed other faith institutions have been at the forefront of the humanitarian appeal for Ukraine. Can I ask my hon. Friend specifically if the Church Commissioners have plans to sponsor refugees as part of the upcoming humanitarian sponsorship scheme?
Andrew Selous
Again, I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. I can tell her that the Church of England has been one of the major partners in the community sponsorship of refugees in the past and stands ready to do so again. We are urgently awaiting further details from the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities on how the sponsorship route will work, and we certainly intend to be fully involved.
Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)
The Bishop of Durham chairs the multi-denominational Church works commission, which is engaging with the Government on how churches can best participate in family hubs, as we believe that churches, other faiths and the voluntary sector all have a very important role to play in the successful delivery of family hubs.
Dr Cameron
Church groups have been supporting excellent 12-step programmes, including Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, for many years. The all-party parliamentary group on the twelve steps recovery programme from addiction, which I chair, is very keen to hear how the Church Commissioners are supporting mental health and addiction issues, including linking with 12-step programmes in family hubs.
Andrew Selous
Well, I would be delighted to arrange a meeting with the hon. Lady’s all-party group on this important subject. I can tell her that the Church works commission is already working with Government Departments and leading Christian charities on proposals to tackle mental wellbeing and loneliness. The diocese of Manchester, for example, runs a large-scale project to support young people’s mental health and has a mental health wellbeing youth worker. The Bishop of St Albans leads on our addictions work and has done particular work on gambling.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)
The Warroch Hill tree planting scheme will sequester carbon, protect water courses and reduce incidents of flash flooding. Local jobs have been created, and the biodiversity of the site is being significantly increased in comparison with its former use as an upland hill farm.
John Lamont
I very much welcome that response, and I also welcome the investment that the Church of England is making in Scotland, but what progress is the Church making to ensure that all of its investments—not only in Scotland, but across the UK—are contributing positively to the environment?
Andrew Selous
That is a very good and welcome challenge from my hon. Friend, and I can reassure him that the Church Commissioners are committed to the long-term stewardship of our land and seek to adopt best practice in meeting the global challenges of combating climate change and reducing biodiversity loss. Our forests are managed in accordance with the UK forestry standard and the UK woodland assurance standard, which also protect water resources and enhance soils. The Church, along with other major landowners, has also signed the National Trust’s nature-based solutions compact.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)
We are currently delivering 29,000 new homes, of which around 9,000 will be affordable. These can be small, edge- of-village developments, or major master-planned new communities with, for example, country parks, sporting and community facilities, allotments, schools, shops, healthcare facilities, libraries and cafés.
Bob Blackman
I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. Clearly, there is a desperate need for social rented housing in this country, and the belief is that we need between 90,000 and 100,000 homes a year. The Church has enormous amounts of land. Will he encourage the Church to give up more of its land for social rented accommodation?
Andrew Selous
I thank my hon. Friend for that important question, and his passion for this issue is shared by the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less. The Church Commissioners’ land portfolio has the potential to deliver around 30,000 new homes across England, and the Church is determined to play its part in tackling the housing crisis. Developments will have a mixture of market rate and affordable homes, and we are committed to building vibrant communities, learning from best practice in the Duchy of Cornwall and elsewhere. In the village of Shepherdswell in Kent, for example, 10 of the 13 new village homes will be affordable.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Christian Matheson (City of Chester) (Lab)
The Commission is statutorily accountable to the Speaker’s Committee for the economical, efficient and effective discharge of its functions. The Committee scrutinises the Commission’s financial, operational and strategic planning on an ongoing basis. Yesterday, it took evidence from the Commission in public on its annual estimate and five-year corporate plan. As of yesterday, the Committee has no plans to make an assessment, and the Commission has impartiality.
Mr Bone
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s response. This week the former Speaker of the House of Commons got his comeuppance for being mean and unfair to a number of people, by bullying them and by using his power. The Electoral Commission was also mean and unfair to a number of people, by using its power to bully them. Mr Speaker, you have changed the position of the Speaker, and it is widely regarded across the House that you are fair and impartial. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the new chair of the Electoral Commission can get the same widespread support for the impartiality and fairness of that Commission?
Christian Matheson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. He is a regular attender and participant in these question times. I was part of the panel that appointed the current chair, and his appointment was endorsed unanimously by the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission. There is confidence that he understands the challenges that the hon. Gentleman, and others, have laid down for the Commission to meet. The Commission will also soon have a new chief executive, and I am little concerned that the hon. Gentleman should not look at the Speaker’s Commission a bit like Trigger looked at his broom in “Only Fools and Horses”. It has a new chair, a new chief executive, and it largely has completely new commissioners. They all understand the challenges that are laid down, and I hope that they will rise to them.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)
The Columba Declaration has led to regular contact between the Churches, and the strengthening of both in serving their nations by co-operating on issues of public policy and promoting Christian life. One example of that is the Thy Kingdom Come partnership for nationwide prayer, adopted in November 2018. In Cumbria the Churches work together to form mission communities made up of all the churches in a locality.
Andrew Bowie
The Columba Declaration set out where the Churches of England and Scotland could allow close and growing co-operation in a multitude of areas, including where mutually supported work between the Church of England’s Mission and Public Affairs, and the Church of Scotland’s Church and Society Council, could work to support refugees. In light of what is happening in Ukraine, has there been any discussion or co-operation about that, under the terms of the Columba Declaration, meaning that the two Churches might pool resources and effort to support refugees who are fleeing that terrible situation in Ukraine?
Andrew Selous
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question, and I reassure him that the two Churches have already been in touch with each other about supporting Ukrainian refugees. They will continue to share experience, and consider carefully whether joint action may be more effective as the situation develops.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Andrew Selous)
Her Majesty the Queen is the supreme governor of the Church of England and a supreme example of a life of public service, inspired by her hope in the Christian gospel. There will be a national service of celebration at St Paul’s cathedral and special services and prayers across the country. The Church of England is an enthusiastic participant in the Queen’s green canopy initiative across all of its 42 dioceses.
Greg Smith
In celebration of Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee, St Mary’s church in Princes Risborough wishes to do something practical and expand its community initiatives such as community outreach, mother and toddler groups and over-70s’ lunch clubs. What can the Church of England do practically to support that great ambition?
Andrew Selous
I am delighted to learn about the excellent work that St Mary’s in Princes Risborough is already doing in the parish, and it would be a fitting tribute to Her Majesty to build on that good work. I suggest that, in the first instance, St Mary’s should get in touch with the director of mission and ministry in the Oxford diocese, who I am sure will have a number of practical suggestions of interest.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
May I say in passing how wonderful it is when we have a question session in which the people who reply are succinct and to the point. Perhaps we should get Ministers here for a lesson in how it is done. Will the Second Church Estates Commissioner tell us more about the plans to let this House know what the Church of England is doing in regard to the celebrations?
Andrew Selous
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that compliment. I repeat that there will be a national service of celebration at St Paul’s cathedral organised by the Church of England. That will probably be the focal point, but I know that there will be enormous celebrations in his constituency, in mine and, indeed, in every constituency across these islands, and I hope that the Church of England, churches and all faith groups will be at the heart of them.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside)
The restoration and renewal programme is committed to sustainability and meeting its environmental obligations. It had been working on developing a detailed and costed plan for restoration and renewal of the Palace, which would have included an environmental assessment on both the construction phase and the operations of the restored building. That work is currently paused following the decisions of both House Commissions in February.
Mr Sheerman
Following what the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said, I thought that John Bercow as Speaker made some really good, radical reforms in this place.
The project of construction works that we will carry out in renewing this estate will be the biggest since its reconstruction after the second world war. Is my right hon. Friend aware that we could put much of the work on the river rather than on the roads, which will pollute the atmosphere, destroy lives and ruin London’s transport system? Unfortunately, for the first scheme—the new museum and learning centre—a contract has been given to put all its materials on the road rather than on water. Will he look again at contracts that include transport on the river?
Mark Tami
The sponsor body had been looking at using the Thames, and I agree that anything we can take off the roads is a positive thing. As I said, the work is currently paused. My hon. Friend may want to take the issue up with the Leader of the House in business questions to get some clarity.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman rightly told us in detail about what has been done, and the environment and roads point is really important. Could the work that has been done be published as soon as possible?
Mark Tami
I agree that a lot of work has gone into the project and, whatever the direction of travel is, it is important that we do not lose the valuable work already done. I have been involved in the project for many years and can certainly say that the people involved have worked incredibly hard on it and done incredible work. Whatever direction is taken, it is important that we value their work and use it to ensure that the scheme is improved as well as to protect this place. At the end of the day, whatever individuals’ views are on the project, it is about saving this Palace.
Refugees from Ukraine
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement about refugees from Ukraine.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
I am grateful for this opportunity to update the House on the Government’s humanitarian response to Putin’s depraved war on Ukraine. As the House knows, the UK’s humanitarian support for Ukraine has been developed following close consultation with its Government and Governments in the region. On 4 March, I launched the Ukraine family scheme, which applies to immediate and extended Ukrainian family members, and everyone eligible is granted three years’ leave to enter or remain. Today, I want to set out further changes that I am making to the process to make it quicker and simpler.
I have two overarching obligations: first, to keep the British people safe; secondly, to do all we can to help Ukrainians. No Home Secretary can take these decisions lightly, and I am in daily contact with the intelligence and security agencies, which are providing me with regular threat assessments. What happened in Salisbury showed what Putin is willing to do on our soil. It also demonstrated that a small number of people with evil intentions can wreak havoc on our streets.
This morning, I received assurances that enable me to announce changes to the Ukraine family scheme. Based on the new advice that I have received, I am now in the position to announce that vital security checks will continue on all cases. From Tuesday, Ukrainians with passports will no longer need to go to a visa application centre to give their biometrics before they come to the UK. Instead, once their application has been considered and the appropriate checks completed, they will receive direct notification that they are eligible for the scheme and can come to the UK.
In short, Ukrainians with passports will be able to get permission to come here fully online from wherever they are and will be able to give their biometrics once they are in Britain. That will mean that visa application centres across Europe can focus their efforts on helping Ukrainians without passports. We have increased the capacity at those centres to over 13,000 appointments a week. That streamlined approach will be operational as of Tuesday 15 March in order to make the relevant technology and IT changes.
I will of course update the House if the security picture changes and if it becomes necessary to make further changes to protect our domestic homeland security. Threat assessments are always changing and we will always keep our approach under review. In the meantime, I once again salute the heroism of the Ukrainian people.
Yvette Cooper
I have to ask the Home Secretary, why does it always take being hauled into the House of Commons to make basic changes to help vulnerable people who are fleeing from Ukraine?
A maternity hospital was bombed yesterday in an attack on newborn babies and women giving birth. People are fleeing for their lives and, up to now, the response from the Home Office has been a total disgrace, bringing shame upon our country. A 90-year-old holocaust survivor was left in makeshift accommodation in Poland even though her granddaughter was struggling to get here. Mums with small kids have been told that they cannot get an appointment for weeks and have had to queue for days to get biometrics in freezing weather in Rzeszów, only to be told that they then have to travel 200 miles to Warsaw to pick up their visas.
It is welcome that the Home Secretary is now introducing the online approach. We know that different ways of doing this were tried for Hong Kong visas, but why has it taken so long when she has had intelligence for weeks, if not months, that she needed to prepare for a Russian invasion of Ukraine? If we still have to wait until Tuesday for this new system to come in, what is to happen for everybody else in the meantime? Why is she not bringing in the armed forces? They have offered to help. We have had 1,000 troops on stand-by to provide humanitarian help for two weeks, so why not use them now to set up the emergency centres and to get people passported through as rapidly as possible and get them into the country?
What about the Ukrainian nurse here on a healthcare visa? Is she finally to be allowed to bring her elderly parents to the country, which we have asked for for so long? Is this still just being restricted to those with family? Are they still going to have to fill in multiple online forms, or will the Home Secretary say that all those who want to come to the UK having fled the fighting in Ukraine can now come here without having to fill in loads of online forms or jump through a whole load of hoops?
This has just been shameful. We are pushing vulnerable people from pillar to post in their hour of need. Week after week we have seen this happen. It is deeply wrong to leave people in this terrible state. Our country is better than this. If she cannot get this sorted out, frankly she should hand the job over to somebody else who can.
Priti Patel
As ever, I am delighted to be in the Chamber. In fact, Mr Speaker, as you know, we were intending to give a statement this morning, so far from the comments from the Opposition Members, the right hon. Lady should have some perspective on all this.
If I may, I will just respond to some of the points that the Opposition party has made—of course, it is the job of the Opposition to attack the Government rather than find collective solutions and support the approach that the Government are taking. First and foremost, I have always maintained that we will take a pragmatic and agile approach to our response. We are making important changes. The right hon. Lady has asked why we are not making these changes immediately. They are subject to digital verification. There is no comparison to British national overseas schemes because 90% of Ukrainians do not have chip passports, so they would be excluded from any such scheme and approach.
Visa applications are important in this process. It is important that we are flexible in our response, and we have been. We are seeing that many Ukrainians do not have documentation. This country and all Governments, including probably a Government that the right hon. Lady once served in, will recognise that there was something known as the Windrush scandal and it is important that everyone who arrives in the UK has physical and digital records of their status here in the UK to ensure that they can access schemes—[Interruption.] Opposition Members may holler, but the process is vital in terms of verification, notification and permission to travel. It is important to give people status when they come to the United Kingdom, so that they have the right to work, the right to access benefits and digital verification of their status. That is absolutely right.
It is really important to remember again that although we have known that this attack has been coming, we have to work with the intelligence and security agencies. No disrespect to the right hon. Lady, but these checks and data—biographical and the warnings index—are important security checks that can be done through the digital process. They have been verified by the intelligence and security services, and we have to work with them in particular.
At a time of war and conflict, it is really important that we work together. I reflect on many of the comments and observations that I have heard directly from members of the Ukrainian community in this country, who I have spent time a great deal of time with this week, not just on their applications and how applications are processed but on how applications can be made both in the UK and outside the United Kingdom. There are not swathes and swathes of forms; there is a clear application process for families who undertake it.
We have been working within the Government, I emphasise to those in the House who want to listen to me rather than talk over me, and it is through that engagement, importantly, that many families have said that they want to see the country come together in the support. Rather than have misinformation about VAC appointments, which originated from the Opposition party, we should stick with the factual information about the scheme. Everybody should work together not just in promoting the scheme but in making sure that those who need our help are united in our collective approach to not only how we serve them but how we support them in getting their family members over to the United Kingdom.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Of course my right hon. Friend is absolutely right that many of the people who are fleeing from this appalling murder and mayhem, from war crimes and from breaches of the international rules of war want to remain as close as possible to the areas from which they have been driven, so that when this appalling catastrophe is over, they can return. Will she keep in touch with our European partners on both their practices and procedures so that we help these desperate people whom our constituents are rightly intent on us assisting, and so we are part of a co-ordinated and effective European response to this horrendous humanitarian crisis?
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend is right to refer to the need for a co-ordinated approach, and also to the response within the region. It is very clear that families want to stay there. I receive calls every day from my counterparts in the region—Ministers of the Interior—who are asking for aid to support those families who want to stay in the region because they want to go back home; and the ambassadors in the region are saying the same.
My right hon. Friend asked about the EU in particular. I am in constant contact with Commissioner Johansson to discuss how we can support the region and, specifically, countries and Ukrainian nationals in the region. The need for that co-ordinated response is so important, and the British Government, through a whole-Government effort, are supplying not only financial aid and support but practical aid and equipment to many countries in the region on the Ukrainian border that are asking us for direct help and support.
Mr Speaker
I call the Scottish National party spokes- person, Brendan O’Hara.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
We broadly welcome the Government’s U-turn—it is a big step forward—but, as we have heard, it did not have to be this way. This war was foreseen, and the humanitarian crisis that has resulted from it was widely predicted. As I said yesterday, the Government have lagged behind the public, and I suspect that public pressure in many Conservative MPs’ inboxes has brought about this change, welcome as it is.
Yesterday, at the Home Affairs Committee, the Ukrainian ambassador was shocked to learn from my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) that the Ukrainians who are currently here without permanent residency, namely students and workers, had absolutely no rights that would allow them to bring relatives to the UK under the bespoke system. The ambassador said that he would raise the issue with the Home Secretary. Did he do so, and is that loophole covered by the measures that she has announced? May I also ask what discussions she has had, and will have, with the devolved Administrations about how to ensure that these measures are successful?
Priti Patel
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the approach and the tone that he has taken. It is important for us to work together, and the Immigration Minister is in touch with the devolved Administrations. As we have made clear from day one, these are important discussions about the need to work collegiately and collectively on our response. This cannot be done purely through central Government; we have to work across the country to provide the support that is needed. Yesterday I was in Manchester and Derby, meeting members of the Ukrainian diaspora community to hear about their needs and to discuss how we can work not only centrally but with local authorities to give wider support.
The hon. Gentleman asked some important questions about, for example, students. There are many others who have leave to stay in this country and can have their leave extended to 36 months, and we are making that clear across the board. I have also been clear about the agility of our response, and about our approach to enabling family members to come here as well. That work is under way in the Department, and is taking place right now. As I have said, I will come back to update the House. I am also in touch with the Ukrainian ambassador nearly every day, primarily because a range of cases inevitably arise and casework is complicated. Many Members of Parliament have been using caseworking facilities that have been provided for them in Portcullis House. As we identify challenges—not everyone has documentation, not everyone has a passport—we need to find ways in which we can work together to bring people here, which is why everything is under review and why we have that agile response.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement. May I make a further suggestion—a practical one, I hope—that could alleviate the situation? According to the House of Commons Library, there are 35,000 Ukrainian citizens in the UK, and I know that they are sick with worry—worried to death—about their elderly mothers, their babies, their grandchildren and so on. Would it not be possible for us to have a hub for them here in the UK, so that everything could be done from here and they could be given provisional visas to come into the country, and we could then check the biometrics here?
Priti Patel
I thank my hon. Friend for her suggestion and comments. We are actually doing this across the country now. Yesterday I was in Manchester, where we are working with the Ukrainian community group, and also in Derby. There is a whole network in the Ukrainian diaspora, and they have asked us not for a hub in London—we have one in the Ukrainian social club in London, and we stepped that up at the beginning of the week—but for hubs within community centres. We are establishing that and working with the community to do that.
Mr Speaker
I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, Dame Diana Johnson.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. While I welcome the changes for Ukrainian passport holders, many Ukrainians do not have passports, as the Home Secretary has just said. I want to ask her about TLScontact, which has been subcontracted by the Home Office to carry out biometric checks. The chief inspector of borders and immigration told the Home Secretary that TLScontact was so hellbent on making profit that its use posed a risk of “reputational damage” to the UK. With Ukrainians fleeing for their lives and the chaos at the visa application centres with long waits and few appointments, can the Secretary of State tell me why that company is allowed to profit from the suffering and misery of Ukrainians by telling them that if they make additional payments, their cases will be expedited and they will get appointments more quickly? Is that right?
Priti Patel
Let me just share the information I know about the contracted service with TLScontact. First and foremost, we have surged capacity at visa application centres, as I have said several times in the House. That is a contractual process that we have, alongside working with Home Office staff in country, and further staff have been sent out. The right hon. Lady asked specifically about the contractual arrangements with TLScontact. Our priority has been to surge its staff in country to create more appointments, and we have surged appointments. There have been 6,000 appointments available this week, and as of Tuesday 15 March, there will be 13,000 appointments for people who do not have documentation and passports. We can prioritise those without documentation and passports. Those with passports can use the digital service that will be set up and go live from Tuesday. I will come back to the Chair of the Select Committee on the contractual details, primarily because these details are organised through the Departments and there is a procurement process that goes on. I will write to her on the specifics. With regard to Ukrainian nationals coming to the United Kingdom to be reunited with their families, this is a free service. There are no charges in place whatsoever.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I welcome the measures announced today. They will be coming in next Tuesday, but could not the Home Secretary today suspend the carrier liability duty for Ukrainian passport holders presenting at Krakow or Warsaw airports to come to the UK so that they can have the checks done in a secure setting here and be granted at least a visitor’s visa? Or could she not remove Ukraine from the list of excluded countries so that they could come here in the same way as an American tourist and be granted a visitor’s visa, subject to checks being carried out in a secure setting? Am I wrong?
Priti Patel
As ever, my hon. Friend is making practical suggestions, but I am afraid that those checks cannot be suspended. There has already been work across Government to look at the carrier liability aspect. It is the electronic authorisation to travel that we are speeding up through this digital system, so that once the individual receives the authorisation, they can go straight to a port, show they have authorisation to travel and then board a train or plane to get the United Kingdom. We cannot make any other travel changes on that basis because of the wider implications that that has for other carriers.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I think the whole House just wants the Government and the UK to be as generous and unbureaucratic as possible, and if that is where we are getting to, we are pleased, but there is something that still nags away at me. As I understand it, from what we were told in the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Government have known since October or November last year that Putin either wanted or intended to do this. So, on so many levels we have been really running to catch up, and a lot of us are asking why we did not know that we needed to put all this in place two months ago. Also, I want Putin to be in a court of law, but the International Criminal Court cannot judge a leader just on the basis of initiating a war of aggression, so will the Home Secretary work to change that law?
Priti Patel
The hon. Gentleman is right that we knew this attack was planned. Our schemes have obviously been developed with the Governments in the region, which I must emphasise. Right now, the countries in the region have different requirements of the Home Office in how we undertake our checks and process individuals. We are trying to simplify this to make it easier across the board.
Last week, the Polish Government asked us not to process people in close proximity to the border but to use our visa application centres. The Hungarian Government have asked us for a totally different approach, and they have asked for liaison officers on the ground. The Romanian Government are asking us to come to the border. We have deliberately chosen to use the facilities of the visa application centres to give certainty and consistency of approach. Clearly, our objective throughout has been to try to streamline the process.
The digital piece is challenging; it is not straightforward. We have to change our codes, our systems and our structures, while recognising that many Ukrainians do not have electronic passports. Passports and travel documentation are not consistent around the world, hence my comment about the chip checker on the BNO scheme, under which 97,000 visas have been granted.
The hon. Gentleman asked about President Putin and war crimes, and I assure the House that significant work is taking place in this area across Government and with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Priti Patel
Exactly, the laws do need to change. We will look at every single aspect of prosecutions and how we can ensure that we all achieve the right outcome.
Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
I am grateful for what my right hon. Friend said about the number of appointments there will be, and I am grateful to the visa application centre staff for working so hard, but I understand that the Warsaw centre closes at 5 pm and at weekends. Could she do something to extend the opening hours?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend makes an important point. The opening hours are because of labour laws in Poland. There have been extensive discussions with the Government, the Foreign Office and the Home Office on extensions. We would love the centres to work much longer hours, including at weekends. Believe me, we have been pursuing this. As I said, every country in the region has a different response and different laws that we have to respect and work with. We are doing everything we possibly can to get those extensions.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I do not think I have ever seen my Edinburgh South West constituents more angry than they are this week about what the Government have done, or not done, so far.
The fictional Prime Minister Jim Hacker once said:
“It doesn’t do the Government any good to look heartless and feeble simultaneously”.
Well, I am afraid this Government have for the past week. I welcome this U-turn, but will the Home Secretary take the opportunity to apologise to the Ukrainian refugees whose suffering has been needlessly exacerbated by the Home Office’s ineptitude? And will she apologise to my many constituents who have Ukrainian relatives whose suffering has been exacerbated by her Department’s ineptitude?
Priti Patel
To correct the hon. and learned Lady, since I became Home Secretary we have welcomed 20,000 Afghan refugees and 97,000 Hong Kongers to the United Kingdom over the last two years. These numbers are unprecedented, and I will take no lectures from her about heartlessness, particularly in light of the lack of take-up of the dispersal scheme for people coming to the United Kingdom who need housing. On those fleeing persecution, she and her Government need to look at themselves.
The hon. and learned Lady has heard me tell the House a few times about the work we are doing directly with the Ukrainian community and diaspora to help their family members come over. It would be good to recognise that we achieve the right outcomes not just by working together but by supporting them through the application process.
Priti Patel
Actually, we have. I am sorry if the hon. and learned Lady has not been able to use the many facilities we have made available to her constituents and her to make these cases come through.
Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement today, and she knows that I and others have been pushing for tech and biometrics to be used more constructively. On the repurposing of officials and their movement to the front- line, not just from within the Home Office, but from across Government, will she work with the excellent new refugees Minister to ensure that we can get that sense of co-ordination and urgency here? As Russia leaves the Council of Europe and denounces the European convention on human rights, the slide into tyranny continues. This is a crisis that will not wait.
Priti Patel
My right hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right; we are blessed with the appointment of our noble Friend in the other place as refugees Minister, because this is about co-ordination. This is about national co-ordination, not about one Department or another Department; this is “whole of Government effort”, a phrase I have used several times in this House. The refugees Minister will be overseeing much of the community sponsorship scheme, which will come in due course, and there will be further announcements about that scheme, too.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
Will the Home Secretary confirm that Ukrainians with dual nationality, for example, Ukrainian and Romanian nationality, will none the less be able to come to the UK under the family scheme?
Priti Patel
Yes, the hon. Lady is absolutely right on that. We are seeing many dual nationals come forward, which is why we are absolutely trying to streamline the system to make it easier for them to apply. The other point to make about applications is that these applications can be made in-country— in Ukraine. Again, that will speed up the ability of these people to come to the UK.
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I am grateful for the announcement today, which will directly benefit the families of my constituents. May I ask for a point of clarification? Can a Ukrainian who has a Ukrainian ID card rather than a passport apply entirely online?
Priti Patel
No. This will be passports only, because of all the security checks that can be made through passport data. This shows part of the problem of the wider challenge we have had on documentation. These types of cases will need to go to the visa application centres, but, as I have said, we have just increased the capacity to more than 13,000 appointments. Of course, if any other issues arise, we can also pick up casework directly.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
It is disappointing that the right hon. Lady needs to be dragged here to make the process simpler and quicker. A lot of the people in this country will not understand why it is so complicated. She has already responded to the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on why we cannot just let people come here and have the checks done here, as we do for millions of visitors from non-visa countries. So will she at least commit to looking into whether that is possible, because Ukrainians who flee war have gone through days and weeks of trauma and exhaustion, and they deserve to be treated better?
Priti Patel
I have always made it abundantly clear in the House that our approach is always under review —it is under review for a range of issues, for example, as the situation changes or the security threat level changes. The hon. Lady has just asked why we cannot just let people through. There is a range of advice that I have to consider. Having considered all the advice and looked at the approach we can take, my priority has been to streamline the approach. Clearly, it is not appropriate to keep sending people who do not necessarily need to go to visa application centres to those centres. We can now prioritise those who are more vulnerable and do not have documentation, and we want to focus on those individuals. The final point to make is that not only are we as a country generous in our approach to people fleeing persecution, but this is how the Government’s approach has always been, in terms of safe routes, legal routes, Afghan refugees and British nationals overseas who have come to the UK. That has been at the heart of the Government’s work. For every crisis that takes place in the world there is no single solution. We have to develop bespoke solutions, which is what we have done.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
As one of the top six customers of the Home Office on immigration issues, I have seen how this situation underlines the chaos in the Home Office’s immigration system. It is really struggling to keep up with the basics and when dealing with this surge it has understandably crumbled under the pressure. I am concerned that we have been waiting for all these days. We know that security checks need to take place, but what security risk is there from 90-year-old women, from people in their 60s, from mothers and small children? Has the right hon. Lady not given some thought to progressing them through faster and doing more checks on them here in the UK?
Priti Patel
Yes, and that is exactly what we have been doing.
Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)
I welcome what the Home Secretary said about combining security with a generous approach, both of which are essential and must be delivered. In my experience of the Home Office, officials there who are focused on the protection of our country respond well to clear and decisive leadership, so may I check something so that it is clear? Does the Home Secretary retain overall responsibility for the whole of our refugee policy, including the humanitarian sponsorship scheme? People should know where the buck stops. When does she expect to come to the House to set out further details on that scheme?
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is fair to say that he will be too familiar with the various processes around immigration checks, digitalisation and security, and the wider considerations that constantly have to be made. In terms of wider refugee policy, this is a whole-of-Government effort, so parts of it, particularly the community sponsorship route that I announced to the House last week, will be led by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, which will lead on that primarily because of the local authority engagement and safeguarding that is required. There will be further announcements on that. The work of the Minister for Refugees will be split between both Departments to assist with the co-ordination effort that is required. I know my right hon. Friend will be familiar with how the Syrian vulnerable refugee scheme was created. In effect, we are trying to build on some of the previous models that have worked successfully in government.
Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for the calm and collected manner in which she presented the statement and for the manner in which she has dealt with the really serious and complicated problems that this situation represents. Furthermore, I commend Members from both sides of the House who have shown conspicuous interest in trying to get together on this subject rather than just producing carping criticisms.
Priti Patel
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments and his acknowledgement of the difficult work. As a country, our priority is of course absolutely to bring people over from Ukraine at their time of desperate need and give them the protection that they need. As I said, every crisis requires a bespoke response and that is what this Government have been working on.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The Home Secretary is doing a difficult job at this stressful time because of the horrible war that Putin has unleashed against these innocent people, but may I give her one tiny bit of advice? We really want to keep this cross-party support for the people in Ukraine, but will she remember that sometimes her tone is a bit aggressive? She did lose some of us on the Opposition Benches when she seemed to suggest that we could not be trusted with security information. We were also a bit disappointed when she got her facts wrong about what was happening in Calais.
Priti Patel
I acknowledge the hon. Gentlemen’s comments. It is important that, as a country and in this House in particular, we unite against Putin and what he is doing. We must never lose sight of what President Putin is doing to Ukraine and the people of Ukraine. That is something that this entire House, particularly this week, should absolutely get behind.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I am grateful to the Home Secretary for her approach. Please forgive me, but I did not hear correctly whether it was 13,000 appointments per day or per week. She mentioned many of the countries where we have visa application centres, but a disproportionate number of people have gone to the small country of Moldova, which is not in the EU. Have we beefed up the visa application centre there?
Priti Patel
Yes. First, on the visa applications at VACs in the region, once we launch the digital approach, those 13,000 appointments next week will primarily be for those individuals who are vulnerable, without documentation, who will need our help to get their status, and we will need to do much more work with them.
Secondly, on Moldova, I spoke to EU Commissioner Johansson on Monday. She called me specifically about assistance for Moldova, which is having a very challenging time not just in respect of the number of refugees but at its borders. Moldova is finding that a number of third-country nationals are now presenting, trying to present themselves as Ukrainians when in fact they are not, and they have border-security problems as well. We have been specifically asked to provide assistance with security equipment and help to prevent weapons from coming into the country. I have also spoken to the Minister for Internal Affairs there this week. A lot of work is taking place directly to support the Government there as they support people fleeing Ukraine.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
My constituent, Gareth Roberts of Trawsfynydd, is presently travelling to the Slovakia border with his wife, Natasha, to meet her daughter and granddaughter. Gareth is a fluent Russian and Ukrainian speaker and is well able to help the family make the digital applications, but he tells me that the applications can be made only in English and that this will directly affect many vulnerable Ukrainian applicants. Will the Secretary of State confirm that it will be possible, in future, to make these applications in Ukrainian? Better still, will she waive all these restrictive visa requirements?
Priti Patel
The applications are in English, because the checks have to be done in the UK by British people. Work is taking place to see what else we can do. In particular, we are bringing in Ukrainian and Russian speakers to help us not just with translations, but to see what more we can do to deal with getting forms in the right language and to have more staff in our centres, working directly with the Ukrainian community. That also applies in the UK in the hubs that we are creating.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
I warmly welcome today’s announcement, which I and other colleagues have been calling for. As my right hon. Friend knows after her visit at the weekend, which I thank her for, the Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain is headquartered in my constituency. Given the amount of correspondence and issues that it receives, I wonder whether she would consider a direct link for it into the Home Office?
Priti Patel
I give my thanks to the centre for everything that it has been doing. It was very humbling to spend so much time with the people there on Sunday. I was able to understand from them the issues, barriers and challenges that they face. I have said from day 1 that we should work with the community. We have to ensure that everything that we do works for the people there. We are providing direct help. We are setting up a hub specifically in the centre for the community. I have been quite struck by some of the complexities that we have seen, particularly with elderly family members and how they can come to the United Kingdom. The hub in my hon. Friend’s constituency will be replicated in some of the other locations that I referred to earlier on.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
My constituent’s Ukrainian wife, Liudmula Florence, was turned away from the UK visa office in Warsaw and told that she had to book an appointment and make an application online. The UK immigration website repeatedly stated, “Sorry, there is currently a problem with the service. Please try again later.” She eventually was given an appointment, but not until 17 March. What is Liudmula supposed to do while the Home Secretary is getting her act together?
Priti Patel
If the hon. Lady had listened to my statement earlier on, she would have heard what the process is. In fact, the application can be done digitally from Tuesday. If she would like to present me with the case, I would be very happy to look at it straight after —[Interruption.] Well, we do have the hub in Portcullis House, which has been working through cases. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has been using that service. If she has difficulty with that, she is very welcome to give me the case straight after the urgent question and I will make the calls myself directly.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
I was shocked to hear the shadow Home Secretary imply that Labour would throw away or downplay essential security checks in its mad dash to be seen to be doing something. I know that our Home Secretary will stand firm on our borders. Will she also use this opportunity to thank the many thousands of families around this country who have stepped forward to say that they wish to give support to Ukrainian families and will she tell them—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. To be honest, I do not remember it quite how the hon. Gentleman does. I do not want a slanging match, and we need to be correct on the information that we challenge, so, please, let us check Hansard.
Richard Fuller
I am grateful, Mr Speaker, and if I got that wrong, I apologise to the shadow Home Secretary. My point was about the balance that the Home Secretary has to take. Will she use this opportunity to thank the many thousands of British families who have stepped forward to say that they wish to help Ukrainian families, and tell them that she will work night and day to enable them to fulfil their generosity?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right in everything he has said—there is no question whatsoever about that. The Ukrainian community across the United Kingdom has been extraordinary in its resolve and fortitude at a very difficult time to provide much-needed support and resource and, importantly, to support people coming over to the United Kingdom. I do not want to pre-empt any further statements on community support, primarily because there is a scheme under development in Government, but many members of the community have been shaping that scheme and how that help can be given.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
I spoke this week in this place about a constituent of mine. Yesterday he made it to Warsaw with his Ukrainian wife and their daughters, to be told that he might get an appointment on 18 March but that they were not sure because the systems were down and they would have to wait until they came back up to check that that was possible. I do not think anything the Home Secretary has said today will help my constituent forward, because he has been told to apply yet again. The systems are not working. The only things working are the women—they are mainly women—that I have seen down in Portcullis House. They are working their butts off to try to help, but the systems do not work and online applications will make things even worse.
Priti Patel
Sorry, but our systems have been working and they are working. I cannot comment on the hon. Lady’s particular case or the generalities she has spoken about, but, as I have said, I will happily take the matter away and look at it directly. I cannot respond to general statements about systems not working when there are thousands of applications being made on a daily basis.
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
I welcome the extra flexibility that my right hon. Friend has introduced into the system, particularly the capacity to take biometrics in this country, which she will know many of us have called for. Are these new arrangements simply for those coming on the family route or do they apply more generally? If the former, can she give some indication of when we will hear more about the humanitarian sponsorship route?
Priti Patel
The simplifications are to the family scheme. It is the same scheme, but we are simplifying and digitalising the process. I cannot pre-empt the humanitarian scheme, which is being led by DLUHC, but there will be statements. I cannot say when, because the Department is working on the details of the scheme.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
May I raise the case of Artur Nadiiev, a Ukrainian PhD student at the University of Nottingham? Artur has encountered confusion and difficulties in applying for a UK student visa. He is currently in Munich. On 5 March, UKVI advised that he needs to take a tuberculosis test to obtain a visa, even though Home Office updated rules for Ukrainian citizens travelling to the UK state that TB tests have been waived. Can the Home Secretary clarify whether Artur can now obtain his visa and come to the UK without needing to travel to a third country in order to obtain a TB test?
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
This country has a proud history of providing sanctuary to those fleeing for their lives, and I welcome the various routes we have made available to those displaced from Ukraine. There will always be those who seek to exploit this country’s generosity for more malicious aims, so will my right hon. Friend confirm that the integrity of the appropriate security checks will not be compromised in speeding up the visa process?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that has been verified through the agencies and Departments we work with.
Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
With one of the largest Ukrainian populations in the country in Westminster, I welcome this late change of heart by the Government. I hope it will work, and work considerably more effectively than the Afghan scheme did. May I seek clarification on the issue of work visas? Does this scheme mean that those here on work visas will be able to bring, for example, dependent relatives?
Priti Patel
As I said earlier, we are looking at all categories, including Ukrainians on work visas and even student visas, and how we can make that happen.
Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con)
I welcome today’s announcement and thank the Home Secretary for listening to the House. My constituent Larry Sullivan owns a technology business in Russia and has some very able young software engineers desperate to get here. They would make a big contribution to the UK economy. They are fanatically against Putin’s war of aggression. Is there a route for them to come here before Putin slams the door shut?
Priti Patel
If I may, I will come back to my right hon. Friend and discuss that with him, because there will be ways.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
Last week, I asked the Home Secretary about the arrangements for refugees when they come here. Many of them will need places for their children in schools and mental health support, and, under both schemes, many will want accommodation. She said that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is responsible for these arrangements through the community sponsorship scheme, but is the Home Office then responsible for people under the family scheme? In the Select Committee on Monday, we asked the DLUHC permanent secretary, who confirmed that currently there are no arrangements in place, none have been agreed, and he could not give a timetable for when they would be agreed. Will the Home Secretary update the House on what the arrangements are under both schemes, or will the DLUHC Secretary come to this House in the near future to update us?
Priti Patel
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the sponsorship route is led by DLUHC. As we discussed in the House last week, accommodation will be a vital part of sponsorship, as will the engagement with local authorities. I cannot pre-empt the work of DLUHC. Further statements will be made on this. He also spoke about the family scheme. The community and family members are absolutely working together on that. There is no doubt—we should be very clear about this—that access to public funds and public services is absolutely guaranteed within the family route. That is why we are working on this collectively across Government. It is a Government effort; it is not about one Department versus another, although some will lead on various details. We are working with DLUHC but also with the devolved Administrations, in particular, to give them the support they need when more members of the Ukrainian community come over to be reunited with their families.
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
I welcome today’s announcement, which I am sure will also be welcomed by the many Gedling residents who also want a generous approach. My right hon. Friend has spoken about the processing centres in Poland, but will she update us on the processing of visas for those Ukrainian refugees currently in northern France?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have surged our visa application centre capacity across the region. There are sites in France, with work in Calais and in Lille, and we are looking to expand our capacity in France based on working with the French Government, who are effectively identifying, right now, the various routes that people are using to travel through France to the United Kingdom.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
My constituents have been in touch with me about this issue on many occasions, and I think that they will think it perverse that those who are considered vulnerable will still have to make these journeys to the centres. Has the Secretary of State done an assessment of how many of the people they are seeing fit into the vulnerable category, how many people this change will actually help, and what more can be done to help the vulnerable?
Priti Patel
The hon. Lady makes an important point. It is important to restate that about 90% of Ukrainian nationals do not have chip passports, for example, whereby the digital scheme would automatically apply to them to make it easier. The reason we are clearing the VAC system now is to help those in the vulnerable people abroad category, including the elderly and those who have not travelled previously. A frequent theme that comes back from members of the diaspora community here is that many are still reluctant to leave Ukraine—they are still in Lviv and thinking about coming. We are encouraging them to engage with their family members here so that we can give them support. We do not yet have a full assessment. That is why we are working with the Ukrainian community in this country for them to share as much information with us as they possibly can.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
President Putin has not only unleashed death and destruction on the people of Ukraine but is also involved in ethnic cleansing, and we should face up to that. Many of those fleeing in fear of their lives will want to go back after Putin’s forces have gone from the country. Others will want to resettle. Will my right hon. Friend make the system as flexible as possible so that those who want to resettle in the UK can do so, but those who want to come on a temporary basis will be able to return to their native country?
Priti Patel
This is the theme that we hear constantly throughout the community—a recognition that, of course, people will want to go home. It is their country; it is the place of their birth; it is where they have lived their lives. There is no question about that. That is why we are taking a consistent approach across all schemes to the leave period that people can come here for, even those on temporary leave.
The point about ethnic cleansing is so valid. There are still people of Ukrainian origin in Russia who are subject to appalling persecution. Those people are also in our thoughts, and we want to consider how we can help them, too.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
Yesterday, I spoke to a senior member of the Ukrainian community in my constituency. He wanted to know what sorts of resettlement schemes are being looked at to support orphans and unaccompanied children arriving here, and whether the Home Secretary would consider waiving all visa requirements for them.
Priti Patel
This is a very important point. I have had similar discussions with the Ukrainian community across the country. As I may have mentioned previously in the House, there are a number of issues around safeguarding children, particularly those travelling through Europe, and even at the border, a number of safeguarding and trafficking cases are now materialising. In terms of unaccompanied children and orphans coming to the United Kingdom, we have to work across Government with the relevant Departments. Local authority work is being stood up to look at safeguarding and protection and how children can be brought over to the UK in a safe way, to ensure they come to our country and are given all the help and support they need.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. She will know that Simon Tagg, the leader of Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, together with all the other local authority leaders across Staffordshire, wrote yesterday to the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary saying that the people of Staffordshire and the authorities in Staffordshire stand ready and able to welcome Ukrainian refugees. Will the Home Secretary work with the Communities Secretary to make sure we in Staffordshire can play our part?
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
My constituents, who I am not naming publicly at their request, found out in December that they were expecting a baby through surrogacy in Ukraine. I visited the hub yesterday, and they have been told that the surrogate mother does not qualify under the family visa scheme. I have been told by the Home Secretary’s officials that nothing can be done about it. After yesterday’s scenes of the bombing of the maternity hospital in Ukraine, the Home Secretary can only imagine how my constituents are feeling about their baby, who is expected in a few months’ time and who is a British citizen upon birth. Will she look again at this policy personally, with a view to making a small tweak to it for the small number of families who fall into this category?
Priti Patel
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise the issue of surrogacy cases—a number of those cases have been raised with me. We are absolutely looking to make changes to this: there are various requirements we need to make in the UK with those particular families who will be expecting a child through a surrogate, and we are looking at how that can all be brought together and families united. I am aware of these cases.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s announcement this morning, and thank her for the number of times she has made herself available to engage with all Members on these important issues, in the face of rapidly changing circumstances. Given the changes she has announced this morning, can she give me an assurance that we have now reached the optimum point in the balance between her first duty, which is to protect the national security of our country, and stripping away every unnecessary piece of bureaucracy that prevents or delays us from helping, supporting and welcoming people fleeing the war at Putin’s hand?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I said in my statement, our No. 1 priority is to keep our country safe, while streamlining processes where we can. We will continue to do so; we will not stop here. My final point is that situations can change, and with that, threat assessments can change as well. Obviously, I will keep colleagues updated on that.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Home Secretary has been on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of humanity. We are talking about women, children and older people. My constituent’s friend has just crossed the border into Poland, and when she went to get her visa she was told to go back to a city called Kyiv, in the middle of a war zone. There is still chaos at the borders—the Home Secretary shakes her head, but she was told that. There is chaos at the borders, so why can people not come visa free to the UK border to collect their documentation and then get the warm welcome that the Home Secretary talks about?
Priti Patel
I refer the hon. Lady to the statement I made earlier. I cannot comment on the anecdotal evidence that she has given, but bearing in mind that Kyiv is obviously under siege, it is thoroughly inappropriate if anybody made that comment.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement, which will be richly welcomed by the Ukrainian families in Southend West I have been meeting. In particular, I welcome the digitalisation of the family scheme. My question is around that. The devil is not in the detail with digitalisation, but the scale. We currently have tens of thousands of applications being made. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that the scheme will cope with the scale we may have on it?
Priti Patel
These are big digital challenges that we all face, there is no question about that, but we are working through assurance to ensure that systems can cope and withstand some of the wider technological and digital challenges that come from a hostile country that we are effectively trying to operate against.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
I and my constituents in North Ayrshire and Arran welcome any improvements that can be made to the current scheme for those Ukrainians who are fleeing violence, but there still seems to be a lack of urgency and flexibility from the UK, so what more will the Home Secretary do as the humanitarian situation deteriorates, as we all sadly fear it will? Does she have any concerns about how history will judge the UK’s response relative to the EU’s response on this matter?
Priti Patel
I refer to my comments earlier, but let me make it abundantly clear for the hon. Lady that in terms of the EU response, we are working in co-operation and collaboration with the EU. There is no doubt about that whatever. The EU has a different approach, but even at this stage it has not agreed the number of people who will go country by country. We are working with them at a very difficult time not only on the humanitarian approach, but on ensuring that we support each country that has been heavily affected not just in terms of border issues, but in receiving Ukrainian refugees. That is a collective response not just from the British Government, but in conjunction with the EU.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I welcome the simplification of the scheme that my right hon. Friend has announced today, and I recognise how hard the job for the Home Office team is. As we make every effort to help those fleeing this crisis, can she provide a bit more information to the House about the surge capacity that she has put in for Home Office staff to process visa applications in countries where the majority of the Ukrainian refugees are fleeing?
Priti Patel
Yes, I can. I have already spoken about the increased capacity at visa application centres. I can also tell the House that work is taking place with the MOD in country and in region. For example, we know that one of the main surges is taking place in Poland. That is because Poland is on the frontline and bringing in people from Ukraine in huge numbers. We are supporting the Polish Government in many ways. With that, we will be working with the MOD teams already in Poland not only to surge staffing, but to look at what more we can do to provide wider humanitarian support for Ukrainian refugees in country.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Can the Home Secretary provide an update on the discussions with the Scottish Government on the intake of refugees from Ukraine and how many Scotland can home?
Priti Patel
Yes, I can. Discussions are ongoing, and there is a call taking place later today with the Scottish Government.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I was first on Tuesday and last on Thursday—it seems perfectly fair. I welcome what my right hon. Friend has done today with the new flexibilities, listening to what people have said up and down the country. Will she look at every practicality to speed up this system? Ukraine was a reliable country in producing its documentation, so can we have maximum flexibility in the documentation that people are able to provide? If they provide biometric and electronic data in another form—an identity card or something like that—we should accept that. A lot of elderly people will have never needed to renew their passports, and we should accept Ukrainian passports whether electronic or not. A simple thing: can we have enough translators if the forms have to be in English and enough people in post to answer queries, rather than asking people to go to the back of the queue when they get it wrong?
Priti Patel
My hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. The documentation matter is constantly under review. Within the security context that I have spoken about, there are certain checks that can be done out of country and there are certain checks that will be done in the United Kingdom, as I outlined in my statement.
The point about translators is absolutely valid. Across the whole civil service across the United Kingdom, there has been a call for Ukrainian and Russian speakers to come forward for that very purpose—that took place some time ago. With that, of course, it is all about the simplification of process. We are non-stop in finding ways, many of them through digital and technology processes, so that people do not have to go to VACs. We are constantly looking at how else we can streamline the system. It is almost a blockchain approach here. We are going through that day in, day out, so I can give my hon. Friend that assurance.
Yvette Cooper
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) suggested that the Opposition Front Bench had said that we should throw away security checks, which has never been the case. On that basis, I will accept the apology that he put forward, if he confirms that apology.
Mr Speaker
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Act:
Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022.
Business of the House
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mark Spencer)
With pleasure. The business for the week commencing 14 March will include:
Monday 14 March—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, followed by remaining stages of the Professional Qualifications Bill [Lords], followed by remaining stages of the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill.
Tuesday 15 March—If necessary, consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a general debate on Ukraine.
Wednesday 16 March—Opposition day (16th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the Scottish National party.
Thursday 17 March—General debate on the Irish in Britain, followed by a general debate on protecting and restoring nature at COP15 and beyond. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 18 March—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 21 March will include:
Monday 21 March—Opposition day (17th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition. Subject to be announced.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business.
On Tuesday, history was made in this House when Ukraine’s President Zelensky addressed us. It was moving and inspirational. Yesterday, however, we saw new depths of Putin’s depravity with the bombing of innocent women and children in a maternity hospital and the confirmed use of thermobaric bombs—war crimes. We must continue to reinforce our NATO allyship and urgently provide Ukraine with the assistance that it needs. The Government must also take the hardest possible sanctions approach against all those linked to Putin and all the dirty Russian money that has infiltrated our country.
We have worked with the Government to get the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill through this House as quickly as possible, but there are still some significant loopholes to close. Can the Leader of the House confirm that the Government will accept our amendment to reduce the transitional period from six months to 28 days? The Opposition have also tabled an amendment to close the loophole whereby a foreign entity can register a property with an uncontroversial beneficial owner, such as a spouse, change it to a more suspicious individual the following day but does not have to inform the register for 12 months. Can he confirm whether the Government will accept that amendment so that we can clean up that corruption together once and for all?
On this subject, I would also be grateful if the Leader of the House could confirm when part 2 of the economic crime legislation will come before us, including the measures on reforming Companies House that have been referred to. It cannot wait until the next Session. The Opposition will work with him and his colleagues to make sure that any such Bill progresses speedily, as we have done this week, so could he give us more information on that?
Tuesday was International Women’s Day, and the Government’s own survey showed that just 16% of small business employers and only one in three entrepreneurs are women. Women clearly hold the key to our economic recovery. The data on the companies that do have good gender diversity bears that out. As we come out of the pandemic, it is so important, so could the Leader of the House ask the Business Secretary to set out what steps he is taking to increase the number of women in business at all levels?
During the pandemic, social care staff were one of the groups on the frontline of our fight against covid, but vacancies currently being at an all-time high is leading to immense pressures for those already working in the sector. It has been brought to my attention that, this weekend, organisations in Derby—for instance, Disability Direct—are showing appreciation for their hard work and commemorating those who, sadly, lost their lives. Could the Leader of the House join me in praising social care staff in Derby and, of course, social care staff across the country?
As much as this Government try, we cannot ignore the worsening cost of living crisis. At a time of rocketing bills and stagnating wages that predate the Ukraine crisis, the Conservatives are choosing to increase national insurance—not back down—on working people and businesses at the worst possible time, which will hit 27 million workers. It leaves other forms of income, such as the buying and selling of property, and dealing in stocks and shares, untouched. Our Opposition day motion this week scrapping the planned rise was agreed by the House, so could the Leader of the House confirm that the Chancellor will not be pushing ahead with this disastrous Tory tax rise?
It is also time for the Government to look again at Labour’s proposal for a one-off windfall tax on oil and gas. This would cut household energy bills by up to £600, enable the warm home discount scheme to be expanded and help those who need it most, including the nearly 13,000 households in the right hon. Gentleman’s own constituency who would save up to £600 on their bills. Could the Leader of the House explain why his Government are forcing working people, including his own constituents, to pay the price for over a decade of Government dither, delay and incompetence?
Mark Spencer
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for a number of questions. Let us start with Ukraine and sanctions. I think she is right to draw attention not only to the President of Ukraine appearing on Tuesday, which was a momentous occasion, but the barbaric actions of the Putin regime yesterday, which I think struck new depths of barbarity. Attacking a maternity hospital cannot even be comprehended in a civil society. We should be under no illusion: this House is united in opposing Putin and his regime. We will not forget what they are doing and they will be held to account in a war crimes court at some point in the future. All those people acting on behalf of President Putin in conducting these actions should be under no illusion: they will not escape justice either and we are united as a House of Commons in delivering that.
The hon. Lady asked about part 2 of the economic crime legislation. That is of course coming very soon. It will be in the next Session, which is not very far away. Certainly, the next Session will be upon us very soon, and it will be announced in the usual way from this Dispatch Box.
Mark Spencer
The hon. Gentleman, from a sedentary position, tempts me to speculate, but the new Session will be announced in the usual way. The next economic crime Bill will be a key part of that, and it will be brought forward as rapidly as possible.
It was International Women’s Day on Tuesday, and there will be an opportunity this afternoon to debate that matter. I agree with the hon. Lady that businesses that do not embrace half of the population in their economic output are missing out. Women in the United Kingdom make a huge economic contribution to the United Kingdom, and those businesses that are lacking in promoting that talent are missing out on half the talent available to them. They should reassess what they are doing.
I am delighted to join the hon. Lady in celebrating the work of social care staff not only in Derby, but across the country. I think people working in that industry contribute a great deal to society and they should be praised for the efforts that they are making.
The hon. Lady finished with the cost of living. We recognise that the effect of the Putin invasion of Ukraine is making huge ripples across energy markets and the whole world. That is clearly going to affect the United Kingdom. Luckily we are currently dependent on Russia for only 3% of our gas, but we can isolate ourselves from that moving forward. We need a balanced energy mix in the UK. We need to invest in our future and ensure that we have nuclear on tap as well as renewables. We need to move at a speed that our constituents and taxpayers can afford. The UK Government are committed to doing that.
Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)
Crops destroyed, livestock killed, farm equipment stolen: that is the reality of hare coursing for farmers in west Berkshire. One of them recently described it to me as a form of “rural terrorism.” My right hon. Friend knows about this issue probably better than anyone in the House, so will he commit to a debate in Government time to discuss the true misery that those crimes inflict and better ways of tackling them?
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend is right to draw the House’s attention to this matter. It is an issue that is worthy of debate. My only disappointment is that I would not be able to participate in that debate myself. Hare coursing has been illegal since the passage of the Hunting Act 2004 and it remains a cause of concern in rural areas. During consideration of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill last week, we strengthened the measures on hare coursing, but it is damaging to rural communities where it takes place. I encourage her to seek a Westminster Hall debate on that important issue and I wish her well.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
As the darkening situation in Ukraine continues into a third week, it is right that statements, legislation and debates to help with the response continue to take priority in the business of the House. I hope the Leader of the House will assure me that that will continue to be the case. Although there is a general, if rather unusual, consensus across the House, that of course breaks down, as we have just heard, when it comes to the situation of and the support required for refugees. We welcome the belated U-turns, but this is still a Government with an ingrained ideological, if not obsessive determination to keep people out. We will see how it all works out in the days ahead.
Can we have a statement on how this will affect children leaving Ukraine—children who have no documentation and cannot wait a week to get out? Usually, I raise a constituency case at business questions. My constituent, Steve Carr, is the chair of Dnipro Kids Appeal, which supports orphans in that central Ukrainian city—a city in the crosshairs of all the approaches from the Russian advance. Right now, he is crossing the Ukrainian-Polish border with 34 Ukrainian orphans, hoping to get to Scotland. Indeed, he has just sent me a photo of the coach with the 34 Ukrainian orphans in it. Those children are traumatised and exhausted after weeks of seeing their country invaded and bombed. Steve does not anticipate any difficulty in getting across that border, but even after the Home Secretary’s statement, he does not know what happens next and how we get those children to Scotland. There are places for them in Perthshire and they will be supported by the local community there. I have written to the Home Secretary. I have not yet received a response—I know she is busy—but can the Leader of the House assure me that all remaining bureaucracy will now be set aside in the name of doing the right thing for those children to get here?
As you will know, Mr Speaker, the number of covid cases is up again in this House. Given the abandonment of nearly all arrangements in here, that was as inevitable as it was certain to happen. So what is the Leader of the House going to do about it? I suppose he will do what this Government and this House do best when confronted by a rise of cases in this pandemic—next to absolutely nothing.
Mark Spencer
First, I recognise the support of the SNP in dealing with Putin and his regime, and standing together. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the fact that he slightly disagrees with the Government’s approach to refugees. We have just had an hour questioning the Home Secretary, who responded at the Dispatch Box, setting out how the Government are to open humanitarian routes for people coming from Ukraine, to settle not only in Scotland but across the UK. The UK should be enormously proud that we are open-armed to welcome people from that desperate situation. I wish the hon. Gentleman’s constituent, Steve Carr, all the best. He is clearly doing great work and he is an example of volunteers who are putting themselves in harm’s way to support people in that desperate situation in Ukraine. I applaud him for his efforts. I will follow up the hon. Gentleman’s letter with the Home Secretary and ensure that he gets a speedy response.
On covid, I think we should recognise that the Government have played the pandemic better than most western countries. We were the first to issue the vaccine and the first to start rolling out the booster programme. We now have the fastest growing economy in the G7. It is time to recognise that, fortunately, omicron is not as dangerous as other strains of covid, and it is time to move on, try to get back to a bit of normality and get the economy going again.
Finally, before I sit down, I recognise that yesterday was a significant day for the hon. Gentleman—he had a large-numbered birthday. I know that the SNP has been debating how pensions will be paid in future, and the best way for him to ensure his pension is to remain a member of the United Kingdom. I trust that he will campaign to do that.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The Leader of the House knows my woke credentials, so will he make a statement next week on the need for certain contextual information to be provided under portraits in Speaker’s House?
Mark Spencer
I recognise my right hon. Friend’s woke credentials. My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who I cannot see in his place, is Chairman of the Speaker’s Advisory Committee on Works of Art, and he has commented that the Committee will reflect on portraits in the House. However, as Leader of the House, I am committed to ensuring that there is no place for bullying or harassment in Parliament and that people can have confidence in the systems and processes that we have put in place. My predecessors, including my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom), worked hard to ensure that everyone working in Parliament is treated with dignity and respect.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement on the growing humanitarian crisis on the Ukrainian border and, in particular, reports that black and Asian people, including students from India and African countries, have been stopped from leaving Ukraine at the border? It would be helpful to hear from a Foreign Office Minister about what engagement the UK is having with our allies in the region to ensure that all refugees who need to leave Ukraine can do so regardless of the colour of their skin.
Mark Spencer
The hon. Lady raises a very important issue. If that is true, it is shocking, and I will ensure that the Foreign Secretary hears of her comments and investigates the matter. Any form of racism should be called out, and as the United Kingdom we must make every effort to ensure that. I will take the matter up on her behalf with the Foreign Secretary.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Can I have a debate on Soot Hill road in my constituency? It links the villages of Barnton, Comberbach and Anderton to Northwich, and adjacent to it is a busy industrial park. Back in January 2021, during Storm Christoph, there was a landslip and the edge of the road gave way. However, for 13 months, the road has been closed, causing huge upset to local residents, business and visitors, and now rumour has it that Cheshire West and Chester Council is kicking the repairs down the road for another 18 months, which would be absolutely unacceptable.
Mark Spencer
Local highways authorities have a duty to maintain the highway network in their areas, and Cheshire West and Chester Council has a responsibility for the maintenance of Soot Hill road. As announced at the spending review, we are investing more than £5 billion over the Parliament in local highways maintenance. However, it seems to me that my right hon. Friend has been let down by Labour, and I hope that her council heard her message. It needs to get on with those repairs as rapidly as possible.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
Agriculture is extraordinarily important in my constituency. Let me give two examples of the problems that my farmers and crofters face: one is the forthcoming price hike in red diesel; another is that the seed potato growers in my constituency, who are some of the best in the UK, are having extraordinary trouble accessing overseas markets. I know that it is difficult for the Leader of the House to comment on this because of his background, but does he agree that a debate on UK agriculture would be timely and extremely helpful to farmers?
Mark Spencer
I draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. This Government take food security very seriously. The good news is that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is across the threat that we face, and there is no prospect of food shortages at any point in the future. DEFRA is working with the Treasury to try to make sure that that continues to be the case, but I fully understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. It is worthy of further debate, and he may want to apply for an Adjournment debate or even a debate in Westminster Hall.
Matt Vickers (Stockton South) (Con)
For too many in Stockton South, the dream of moving into their new home has become a nightmare because they bought a new-build house from Avant Homes. Time and again, Avant over-promises and under-delivers, operating a grab-and-run approach. It is happy to take people’s life savings but unwilling to engage with me or my residents on its half-built, half-baked housing developments. Will my right hon. Friend grant a debate on irresponsible housing developers? And may I join the call for a statement on the behaviour of the former Speaker?
Mark Spencer
I do not know whether hon. Members are allowed two business questions, but my hon. Friend managed to sneak two in there. He is clearly a huge champion for his constituents. Those who are fortunate to be housing developers have a responsibility to their customers to make sure that the properties they build reach the required specifications and are fit for housing. There are authorities out there that hold to account rogue landlords or those who are making products that are not fit for purpose, and I encourage him to engage with them.
Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency still has significant backlogs. A number of constituents have applications stuck in the system and they are spending hours on the phone. This is not just inconvenient but is impacting on people’s livelihoods. A man who needs to send off medical records yearly has sent in his evidence—he works as a minibus driver—but he is still waiting, and it is often not clear whether people can still drive while they are waiting. Can we have a statement in Government time on the action that they will take on the DVLA backlog?
Mark Spencer
I, too, have constituents who have suffered from slow responses from the DVLA. The hon. Lady will recognise that, during the pandemic, there was an outbreak of covid in the DVLA at Swansea, which caused a number of problems. However, there was also substantial industrial action from the unions, which caused huge backlogs, and the Secretary of State for Transport has been working hard to resolve them. I encourage her, through her connections, to talk to the unions to make sure that no further industrial action takes place.
Siobhan Baillie (Stroud) (Con)
Stroud is going through a local plan process now so, sadly, we will not benefit from the Government’s forthcoming transformational planning reforms, yet constituents in Cam, Sharpness, Berkeley, Wisloe and other areas are coming to my surgeries in droves because they are really concerned about the plan consultation, and they are worried that councils are trying to build even more homes than required and about many other issues. Will my right hon. Friend consider asking for a statement from the new Minister for Housing on what can be done to help areas such as mine that are going through the local plan process now, and what other considerations we can act on to help our particularly rural areas?
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend is a huge champion for her constituents. Although the planning system is a key enabler of the Government’s wider mission to level up across the country and regenerate left-behind places, I will pass her comments on to the new Housing Minister. The previous Housing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), who is in his place, made huge strides in the right direction to make sure that we get the right homes built in the right places and that we protect our green and open spaces.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
The cost of living crisis is affecting everyone in the United Kingdom. In Northern Ireland, it is accentuated by our having fuel costs that are 27% higher, and higher transport and haulage costs, which impact on every household. Will the Government address that issue by urgently introducing legislation or taking action to cut fuel costs across the whole United Kingdom immediately? Will they also address the obvious problems that are coming down the tracks fast, which could include food security issues as a result of grain shortages? Will they set aside land across the UK now for next year’s harvest?
Mark Spencer
Matters of taxation and fuel duty would be addressed at a Budget, and at some point my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will make his Spring statement, but the Government recognise the challenge in global oil and gas prices. We are seeking to mitigate it, and I know that the hon. Gentleman will be in his place to question Treasury Ministers when they next appear at the Dispatch Box.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware of the Standards Committee report on the conduct of the former Speaker John Bercow. The scale of the bullying behaviour that it describes is horrific and it must not happen again. Will my right hon. Friend commit to making a statement in the House on the report and the Government’s response to it? Furthermore, my right hon. Friend will be mindful of records of Mr Bercow’s tenure such as the large portrait that hangs in this building. Further to my point of order on Tuesday, I ask my right hon. Friend to do all he can to ensure that they are set in context, with an explanatory pack alongside such paintings, because the victims of his bullying may see them as they walk around the place.
Mark Spencer
First and foremost, the safety of those who work on the estate is paramount. There is no place for bullying or harassment in Parliament, and by working across parties, we will ensure that everyone working in Parliament is treated with dignity and respect. The Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme aims to improve the working culture within Parliament, and I hope that the report shows that people can have confidence to proceed with any complaint that they have, and that anyone guilty of such crimes will be held to account.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
While, understandably, the focus is on Ukraine, it is important that we do not forget other parts of the world, especially where our citizens are being unjustly detained. My constituent Luke Symons has been detained by the Houthis in Sana’a in Yemen since 4 April 2017 simply for possessing a British passport. The Foreign Secretary has still not agreed to meet Luke’s grandfather Bob Cummings, who has been campaigning; and Amnesty International has joined the campaign. May we have a debate about British citizens who are held unjustly overseas? I have applied for one in Westminster Hall; I do not know if I will be lucky. Can we have one in Government time?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Gentleman is right to draw the attention of the House to this matter. He is a courageous campaigner on behalf of his constituent. We are working closely with our partners in the region to make sure that Mr Symons is released and reunited with his family as soon as possible, but I will make sure that the Foreign Office is aware of the hon. Gentleman’s concerns and comments.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
I wonder if the Leader of the House might sponsor a review of the timetabling of oral parliamentary questions. A number of Departments such as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which I am proud to serve, only ever feature on a Thursday, but 40 minutes is not really long enough, and this morning a number of Members were disappointed that they were not called. They had lots to discuss. Will my right hon. Friend please agree to address the imbalance?
Mark Spencer
That is something that the Procedure Committee may well want to consider at some point in the future. My hon. Friend will understand that extending any question session has a knock-on effect on business later that day or on the rota of which Departments appear at the Dispatch Box. It is worthy of review and perhaps the Procedure Committee would like to look at it at some point in the future.
Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)
West Midlands Ambulance Service staff experienced 1,671 incidents of physical and verbal abuse in 2021 compared with 887 in 2016. That is a shocking 88% increase in just five years. Across England, 11,749 ambulance staff were abused last year. Staff have been stabbed, punched, kicked, head-butted, spat at and verbally abused. In response to these abhorrent attacks, the national work without fear campaign has launched to highlight the profound impact of this abuse and encourage respect for our brave and dedicated ambulance staff. Will the Leader of the House join me in condemning this heinous abuse and look for a time for a debate so that we can reinforce the message that abusive behaviour of any form is totally unacceptable and must stop?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Lady is right: it beggars belief that anyone would attack a person who is working in the ambulance service to save a life or make someone better, or would attack members of the fire brigade, who I know are sometimes attacked while they are fighting fires and trying to save property and people’s lives. This is an abhorrent crime, and the House will have noted the hon. Lady’s concern. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will strengthen some of the measures taken against people who commit such crimes, and I hope she will be in the Lobby to support that Bill as it makes its way through Parliament.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Each year we have an emotional debate on Holocaust Memorial Day, and we are indebted to the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for all the work that they do, but that debate commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Today is the anniversary of the creation of the first concentration camp in Germany by the Nazis in 1933. May we have a debate in Government time on the history of the holocaust? Only by learning the lessons of what happened will we prevent it from happening again.
Mark Spencer
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important matter. The holocaust is something that we must never forget, and an awareness of its history is vital to ensuring that such horrors never happen again. My hon. Friend may know that the National Holocaust Centre is in the constituency of my right hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). It is certainly worth a visit, and many schoolchildren are invited and go there.
I know that my hon. Friend is a member of the Backbench Business Committee. As he says, we hold regular debates in the Chamber to mark Holocaust Memorial Day in January, which are always well subscribed. I would encourage him to apply for a Westminster Hall or Adjournment debate to raise the matter to which he has referred today.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I do not know whether the Leader of the House has seen my early-day motion 31.
[That this House notes the work of WAVE Trust and its 70/30 campaign to reduce levels of child abuse, neglect and domestic abuse by 70 per cent by 2030; further notes that over two-thirds of this House have endorsed that campaign, including a majority from all parties; recognises the role that Adverse Childhood Experiences play in the entrenchment of intergenerational health and income inequalities and the loss of over £20 billion per year to the UK economy; welcomes the publication of the Early Years Review; and calls on the Government to adopt a comprehensive early years’ strategy to prevent harm to children before it happens, ensuring that all parents are supported to give children the best possible start in life.]
The early-day motion, entitled “Giving every child the best start in life”, has just become the most signed EDM in this Parliament. I commend the work of the WAVE Trust and its 70/30 campaign to reduce childhood trauma by at least 70% by the year 2030. Given that more than 500 Members on both sides of the House are supporting that campaign, is it not time we had a debate on this vital issue, and gave reducing childhood trauma the attention that it deserves?
Mark Spencer
I congratulate the hon. Lady on her success with the early-day motion. I agree that this is an important issue, and that it is worthy of debate. If 500 of the hon. Lady’s colleagues are supporting her EDM, she should have no problem in securing a Backbench Business debate on the matter, or a Westminster Hall debate if she needs longer.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
The long-awaited report on maternity deaths and injuries at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust was due to be published on 22 March, but families in Telford have now been informed that its publication has been delayed. I understand that the delay will be short, but the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), had been due to give a statement to the House following the report’s publication, and I fear that the publication may now be pushed into the Easter recess and Members will not have an opportunity to put questions to the Minister. Please will the Leader of the House urge the Minister to ensure that the publication of this important report takes place before the recess?
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend is a tenacious campaigner on this issue. The Department of Health and Social Care is working apace to secure a new date for the report’s publication. It has informed me that it expects that to be days rather than weeks later than the original date, and I understand that the Minister has written to all local MPs to update them on the position. She is also happy to meet local MPs to discuss it with them personally. I will ensure that she hears my hon. Friend’s question today.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I presume that the Lords amendments referred to for Tuesday will be amendments to the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Bill. The Leader of the House is not nodding yet, but I am sure that that is the case, because it is the only legislation that is waiting. If it is the case, can the Leader of the House explain something to me?
The Foreign Affairs Committee was told earlier this week, both by the Foreign Secretary and by other people, that Foreign Office officials knew as early as 2019 that the sanctions regime we had introduced in 2018 would simply not to be fast enough or easy enough to use in the event of a situation such as the one we have today. Why on earth did the Government not do something about it much earlier? I am delighted that Roman Abramovich and Deripaska have been sanctioned today, but, to be honest, I think that they should have been sanctioned several years ago. Are we going to tackle those who have acted as proxies for these people, such as Greg Barker, Arron Banks and Ben Elliot? Are we going to sanction all those who have acted as proxies? Are we going to sanction Belarusians such as Dmitry Mazepin who have been actively supporting the invasion in Ukraine? I think the whole House wants to take a full and united approach to this, but it worries us that the UK sanctioned seven people today whereas all 27 countries of the European Union sanctioned 160 yesterday.
Mark Spencer
The hon. Gentleman will note that in the business statement I said that on 15 March, if necessary, there would be consideration of Lords amendments, after which we would move on to a general debate. Returning to sanctions, we are now in a place where we have the most robust sanctions regime in place and where we can take action against some of the individuals that he named. He acknowledges that we are taking action. Today, we have announced sanctions against two individuals—
Mark Spencer
Two that he named and five others. I do not think it is helpful to have a running commentary on individual names in this Chamber, but he can rest assured that the United Kingdom is taking action and will continue to take action, and that we will be robust in those sanctions.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I hate to think what is happening in Ukraine today. It is almost unbelievable, but it has achieved one thing: in all my time here, I have never seen the House more united or better informed. That is partly due to Mr Speaker granting urgent questions and the address by the President of Ukraine, but it is also due the way in which those on the Opposition Benches have performed, and of course the leadership from the Prime Minister on this has been superb. May I also thank the Leader of the House? I cannot remember a time when Ministers have come to this House so regularly to update it and to answer the questions that they have been asked—
Mr Bone
They have answered the questions they have been asked. I just want to ask one other thing. If something dreadful happens in the next few days before Parliament comes back on Monday, would the Leader of the House be willing to recommend recalling Parliament?
Mark Spencer
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments about the importance of a united House of Commons in sending the strongest possible message to the Putin regime that we will not tolerate his war crimes and his invasion of Ukraine. My hon. Friend also recognised that a series of Ministers from different Departments have been at this Dispatch Box to ensure that the House is informed and that Members have the opportunity to engage with them to ask their direct questions. I see no reason why that will not continue. We will continue to keep the House updated on a regular basis from this Dispatch Box.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
The Leader of the House spoke of the impact of Russia’s dreadful invasion of Ukraine on oil and gas prices, but we are also seeing global food markets being dramatically affected as Ukraine’s agricultural production levels are heavily disrupted. Farmers in Scotland and the UK are seeing seed, feed, fertiliser and transport costs rocketing, and the seasonal window for any ramping up of domestic food production is tightening. Food prices are rising for our constituents and people across the world. Can we have a debate in Government time on the subject of food security at UK level but also, crucially, at global level?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Lady is right to draw the House’s attention to this matter. I think she will join me in recognising that in the United Kingdom—in Scotland and across the UK—we have some of the greatest farmers in the world. Their efficiency and—[Interruption.] You never know how far away you are from an efficient farmer—they are everywhere! UK farmers have kept this nation fed very well since the second world war. We have had food security in this country for a very long time and I see no reason why that will not continue, but this is a matter of importance and worthy of further debate.
Sara Britcliffe (Hyndburn) (Con)
My amazing constituent Sy Hughes, who runs the Fitness Bank in Oswaldtwistle, has taken on the unimaginable by walking from Manchester to the Eiffel Tower in Paris to raise money for the Bleakholt animal sanctuary. He is currently on his last day and is due to arrive tonight. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking and congratulating Sy Hughes, and will he allow a debate in Government time on how the Government support charities such as the one Sy is raising money for?
Mark Spencer
I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in congratulating her constituent. She did not make it clear whether the finish line is at the top or the bottom of the Eiffel tower, but I hope her constituent makes it to the very top. Bleakholt animal sanctuary has saved thousands of animals’ lives since Maudie the donkey was saved by its founder, Olive Lomas, back in the 1950s. It is right that people like Mr Hughes help to support the sanctuary’s continuing work, and I wish him all the best in finishing at the top of the Eiffel tower later today.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
A large, privately owned building with dodgy scaffolding has stood derelict at the bottom of Lawe Road in South Shields for years. It is an eyesore and it is dangerous. Brian Walker, who lives nearby, asked the Health and Safety Executive to come and assess the building, but the HSE advised that, because people are not working on the building, there is nothing it can do. The council is also completely powerless to act. Can the Leader of the House explain why, under this Government, private developers are allowed to treat local communities in this way?
Mark Spencer
Clearly there are planning regulations in place, and I do not know whether they apply to long-term scaffolding. Her constituent, Mr Walker, clearly has concerns about the building, and I will pass on the hon. Lady’s comments to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to make sure he is aware of her concerns. She is right to highlight the building today.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The Independent Expert Panel report published on Tuesday shames all of us who were prepared to put up with the behaviour contained in its pages for so long. Does the Leader of the House agree that serial bullying and serial lying have no place in this mother of Parliaments, and that we must have a parliamentary outing at the soonest opportunity so that those who were prepared to eulogise the former Speaker so royally upon his departure have an opportunity to refresh the House on their position?
Mark Spencer
Of course I agree that bullying and harassment have no place in this House or on the parliamentary estate. The Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme report to which he refers makes it clear that, no matter a person’s position—however high their status—they will be held to account by the system we have in place if they are guilty of harassment and bullying. That should give victims huge confidence to come forward and make a complaint.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
Fuel duty has remained at around 58p a litre for the last 12 years, but consumers also pay 20% VAT, which is just under 12p a litre. Consumers pay tax on the tax, which means they actually pay almost 70p tax on every litre. That is before the costs of extraction, purchase, shipment and forecourt sales are added. The Treasury is raking in 20% VAT on the total cost at forecourts, with fuel price increases bringing in additional VAT amounting to billions of pounds, which is helping to accelerate inflation.
As the price of a litre of fuel is now reaching £1.80 and is set to rise further, will the Leader of the House make a statement on his support for an immediate reduction in the VAT charged on fuel to help motorists and businesses, and to try to keep inflation in single figures?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Lady will be aware that she has an opportunity next week to question the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he is at the Dispatch Box for Treasury questions. There has been no increase in fuel duty for 12 years, which is a huge commitment by this Government to support hard-working families who have to fill up their car. It was the right thing to do, but it is worthy of further debate.
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
May I apologise to Mr Speaker and the Leader of the House for my inability to attend the Chamber in a timely manner for business questions? I am speaking not about today, of course, but about last Thursday when, like millions of other Londoners, I was inconvenienced by a very small number of people from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Transport in Cabinet to designate the London underground as an essential service so that, in future years, we cannot be subjected to these strikes by a very small number of people for no real reason?
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the misery caused by that strike action. I recall that the present Mayor of London made a promise when first seeking election to have zero days of strikes—another promise he has failed to deliver, in stark contrast to his predecessor as Mayor. For many people, the tube network is an essential service. By not standing up to union barons, the Mayor of London has shown whose side he is on. The Secretary of State for Transport tweeted:
“Having funded TfL to the tune of £5bn to protect jobs & London’s transport system throughout Covid, it’s a kick in the teeth for Londoners to suffer from @RMTunion strikes.”
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
As we see the horrors unfolding in Ukraine, people across the United Kingdom have opened their hearts. In my constituency, people have offered their homes, food parcels and clothes parcels, and they have offered to use their light goods vehicles to carry goods across to Poland, but it is not clear what is happening with the humanitarian support scheme. The Home Secretary confirmed earlier that the scheme will be led by Lord Harrington and will be split between the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
Can we have clarity as soon as possible from the Leader of the House, or from a Minister in the Commons, on what is happening with the scheme so that my constituents, and constituents right across the UK, can understand how to access the scheme to provide support to desperate Ukrainians?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the huge compassion and hard work of constituents across the country. As he identifies, Lord Harrington has just taken up his role and is getting to grips with the situation, and he will come forward with his proposals in due course. I will make sure that both the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary are aware of the hon. Gentleman’s comments and respond to him in due course.
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)
Following this week’s damning report on the bullying of hard-working members of House staff, will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on this important topic?
Mark Spencer
A number of similar questions have been asked this morning. This is clearly a topic that the House may want to debate, and I encourage my hon. Friend to apply for an Adjournment debate or even a Westminster Hall debate, given the enthusiasm we have seen this morning.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). We do not often agree, but I agree with his comments.
Universities are important to our economy, particularly in empowering regional economies. The Higher Education Commission is today launching, “Empowering Innovation: The role of universities in boosting regional economies.” If the Leader of the House joins us in the Attlee Suite at half-past 1, I will be very happy to buy him a glass of orange juice.
Mark Spencer
If I am honest, I am slightly disappointed with the hon. Gentleman’s question. I thought he would congratulate Nottingham Forest on defeating Huddersfield Town in the FA cup earlier in the week.
The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the great work of our education facilities across the UK in helping young people to move from education into careers. University is one option available to the next generation in their pursuit of a great career, and we should be enormously proud of the great education establishments we have in the United Kingdom.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
It was positive to learn this morning of a reduction in bureaucracy for Ukrainian refugees. Can we have a debate on how local communities can best welcome and support refugees when they arrive? What resources will the Government provide to help them do that? The spontaneous and significant outpouring of support shows the generosity of the British people.
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to this, and I am sure the people of Harrogate will be as warm and welcoming as people in other parts of the country. The House will continue to be updated by Ministers on progress as we encourage and embrace people coming to the UK from a very desperate situation. I know the British people will continue with their compassion and support.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Carol and William Dowson emailed me this morning about their problems in accessing GP appointments and the fact that people ended up in hospital because they could not get to see a GP early enough. In my recent survey of constituents, 58% of respondents found it difficult to book an appointment with a GP and a majority waited for more than a week. Hull has the highest number of patients per GP in England. The national average is 2,000 whereas in Hull the average is 2,600. May we have a debate on what the Government are going to do about the “under-doctoring” of Hull and how my constituents can access GPs more easily?
Mark Spencer
Unfortunately, the right hon. Lady will not have the opportunity to question the Health Secretary until after the Easter recess, but I know that access to GP surgeries is an issue of concern across the House. There is definitely a challenge in a post-covid world in enabling our constituents to access GP surgeries. I know that the Health Secretary takes that very seriously, but I will make sure that he is aware of her comments and responds to her in due course.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
The Phillips 66 refinery in my constituency is Europe’s largest producer of high-grade petroleum coke, which is an essential component of batteries. At the moment, that coke is exported to the far east and then re-imported into the UK as the finished article. May we have a statement from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy to clarify our policy and explain how we are going to onshore that production?
Mark Spencer
The Government have a long-standing and comprehensive programme of support for the UK automotive sector. I understand that the Business Secretary spoke to people from the Phillips 66 refinery this week. As part of our net zero strategy, the Government announced a further £350 million to the automotive transformation fund over the next three years to support the development of an international and comprehensive electric vehicle supply chain here in the UK. That is additional to the £500 million announced as part of the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan in November 2020.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)
May we please have an urgent statement on rising fuel and energy costs, and their impact on rural areas? Prices have increased substantially in recent weeks. Some constituents have seen their heating oil bills more than treble this year, and others have simply been told that no deliveries are available to them. We have all now grown accustomed to seeing pump prices increase by some 10p or 20p a litre in a matter of days. Ceredigion is especially vulnerable to such price hikes, as it has areas where more than 80% of homes are off the mains gas grid and, sadly, a lack of public transport infrastructure means that we have a greater dependence on car use for essential journeys. So may we have an urgent statement on the possibility of introducing temporary rebate schemes to help alleviate some of this cost?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the global energy price hikes, which will have an impact here in the UK. I know that the UK taxpayer has benefited and will continue to benefit from the freezing of fuel duty, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been able to keep in place for the whole of this Government’s time in office, but I recognise the challenge that rural areas face. The hon. Gentleman will have the opportunity to ask the Chancellor about this next week at Treasury questions, should he be in his place.
Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)
The independent expert panel findings on Tuesday should be a source of shame, most obviously to Mr John Bercow himself, but also to this House; to its policies and procedures, which we have reformed; and to a number of Members, former and current, who turned a blind eye because it suited them politically to do so. May we please have a statement in which we can raise all of these issues and, furthermore, a general debate on bullying in the workplace?
Mark Spencer
I know that my hon. Friend will be disappointed with some of that report’s findings, but we should also be enormously proud that the system we have in place holds people to account, and gives confidence to victims to come forward and confidence that their allegations or concerns will be addressed. Clearly, this is a topic that people want to talk about, and I encourage him to apply for an Adjournment debate or a Westminster Hall debate.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The growing realities of the cost of living crisis are being felt across the UK. I have received lots of communication from constituents who are particularly concerned about the benefit cap, which is making the squeeze even tougher. The cap particularly discriminates against women in single parent families and families from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Will the Leader of the House schedule a debate in Government time on the need to remove the benefit cap?
Mark Spencer
I say to the hon. Lady that the best way out of poverty is through work, and what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been able to do is adjust the taper effect on those who are receiving universal credit so that the harder they work and the more they work, the more of the cash they are able to keep. That is the right approach, so that work pays and people are able to aspire to better careers and more cash in their pocket, which they are able to keep through less taxation.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the serious deficiencies in the postal service? In the past two weeks alone, 64 Chalkwell residents have expressed concerns about Royal Mail, including the late delivery of hospital letters, and businesses finding letters and items going missing. Residents and businesses in my constituency rely on Royal Mail to recover from the pandemic, and its poor service is having an impact on lives and livelihoods.
Mark Spencer
The Government recognise the importance of a reliable post service to local communities across the UK. Ofcom, as the independent regulator responsible for the delivery of the universal postal service, monitors Royal Mail’s performance and has powers to investigate and take enforcement action if Royal Mail fails to achieve its service delivery targets. I know that Royal Mail pays close attention to Members’ questions in this Chamber, and I encourage it to take inspiration from my hon. Friend’s short time in this House and keep delivering for the people of Southend.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
As everyone knows, this week we had International Women’s Day. In my work as chair of the all-party group for international freedom of religion or belief, I repeatedly hear of the double trauma that women and girls face if their religious or belief group suffers persecution—it is rampant across the world. In response to a recent article by Open Doors printed in Christian Today, I wonder whether the Leader of the House will provide time for a statement on what more could be done to better address the needs of vulnerable Christian women left behind in Syria, who could not flee the war and continue to live without full realisation of their human dignity.
Mark Spencer
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight this issue, and I pay tribute to his work; he is a long-standing campaigner on these issues of religious freedom and those who are persecuted around the world. I would give him advice on how to be heard in this Chamber, but he is the master of getting across his message in this Chamber, and I wish him well in continuing to deliver.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
As chair of the all-party kidney group, I would also like to wish all the best to people celebrating World Kidney Day and raising awareness. I wish to add my voice to the calls for a discussion on bullying in the workplace, which is an incredibly serious issue regarding the former Speaker of this House. I would like to go away from that uncontrollable explosion of negative energy and move to something a little more positive: clean, cheap, renewable, positive energy. Of course, I refer to the STEP— Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production—fusion project, which we want to bring to Bassetlaw and West Burton A. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the STEP project and, ideally, bringing it to north Nottinghamshire?
Mark Spencer
Asking three questions is probably testing the patience of the Deputy Speaker. Fusion is potentially a world-changing energy source, which could help to sustain a low-carbon economy of the future. More widely, we are increasing research and development, spending £22 billion by 2026—this is the fastest ever uplift. At the spending review, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced £120 million for advanced nuclear technologies, through the future nuclear enabling fund. I encourage my hon. Friend to continue championing West Burton at every opportunity so that it can benefit from this investment.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
The Amazing Graze charity in Blackpool is leading the way in tackling homelessness with an innovative project of converting a double-decker bus into a mobile shelter for those sleeping rough. This Government have a brilliant record of reducing homelessness, but clearly there is more we can do. May we have a debate in Government time on how we can work with charities such as Amazing Graze to tackle homelessness and meet our ambitious target to eradicate it for good?
Mark Spencer
I congratulate my hon. Friend, his constituents and all those involved in the Amazing Grace project. The Government have a good record in reducing homelessness and the number of those who find themselves sleeping rough. I encourage my hon. Friend to apply for an Adjournment debate so that he can draw the House’s attention to his constituents’ excellent work.
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Mr Yoon Suk-yeol on his victory overnight in the presidential elections in the Republic of Korea? Does he agree that from South Korea to Taiwan, India, Ghana, Canada and Japan, free people around the world choose democracy? Will he find time for a debate in the House on the importance of defending democracy around the world?
Mark Spencer
I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in congratulating President Yoon. We have great friends in South Korea. The importance of a democratic society has never been more apparent to the House than at this current moment in history. Our friends in South Korea are an important part of democratic society and I congratulate President Yoon on his success.
Mark Jenkinson (Workington) (Con)
The issues raised in the independent report on the behaviour of the former Speaker that was published earlier this week risk dragging the reputation of this House into the mud. The continued support of some Members on the Opposition Benches is a source of shame—
Mark Jenkinson
It is important that the House sends a message to my constituents in Workington and to everyone throughout the country that it will not tolerate bullying and misogyny like that again. I echo the calls for a debate in Government time or, indeed, a statement from the Leader of the House on those matters.
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend is one of several colleagues who have called for such a debate; I encourage him to link up with the others to secure such a debate. We should have pride and confidence in the system we have in place. Those who commit harassment or bullying will be held to account and those who have been victims should have the confidence that the system is in place to hold people to account.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
Last week, London was plunged into chaos, with two days of tubes strikes and four days of transport affected, even though the Mayor of London had promised zero days of strikes. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the current Mayor of London is failing Londoners, whether it be on transport, policing or building affordable housing, and that my constituents deserve better?
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Dr Offord), she is right to draw the House’s attention to the current London Mayor. Tube strikes bring misery to commuters and people trying to work in London. As my hon. Friend highlights, those strikes came on the back of a promise to have zero days of strike. London is being let down by its current Mayor.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the Leader of the House for his business statement.
National Shipbuilding Strategy
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Defence Procurement (Jeremy Quin)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to make a statement on behalf of my colleague the Secretary of State for Defence and shipbuilding tsar, concerning the Government’s refresh of the national shipbuilding strategy.
The United Kingdom is a great maritime nation and shipbuilding runs in our blood. At the turn of the previous century, Britain built 60% of the world’s ships and, although we are no longer the world’s workshop, our shipbuilding industry remains a global leader in design and technology. It brings in billions to our economy and spreads wealth right across our country. Today, our maritime manufacturers are responsible for the state-of-the-art research vessel the RSS Sir David Attenborough, and for constructing the most powerful surface ships ever built in Britain: the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers.
More than 42,600 people from Appledore to Rosyth owe their livelihoods to our shipbuilding industry, but we still need to strengthen its resilience. It is worth reminding ourselves that even in the digital age, some 95% of UK trade by volume, and 90% by value, is carried by sea. Given this dependence, it is vital that we continue to safeguard our access to global maritime trade, even as we open up our sails and seek out new markets and new sustainable technologies. That is why, in 2019, the Prime Minister appointed the Defence Secretary as the shipbuilding tsar. Since then, he has been working tirelessly across Government to make our shipbuilding sector more productive, competitive, innovative and ambitious.
There has been real progress. Not only do we have much greater cross-Whitehall and industry co-operation, but we are doubling Ministry of Defence shipbuilding investment over the life of this Parliament to more than £1.7 billion a year. We have committed to procuring a formidable future fleet, including up to five Type 32 frigates, alongside the Type 31 and Type 26 programmes. We will grow our fleet of frigates and destroyers over the current number of 19 by the end of the decade. We have launched a competition to build a national flagship—the first ship of its kind to be built and commissioned in Britain—and last September we opened up the National Shipbuilding Office, a pan-governmental organisation that reports directly to the shipbuilding inter-ministerial group, is chaired by the shipbuilding tsar and is driving transformative change across our organisation.
Today, I am delighted to announce that we are going one step further by publishing our refreshed national shipbuilding strategy. Drawing on the multi-talented skills of the Government, industry and academia, and backed up by more than £5 billion of Government investment over the next three years, the plan creates the framework for our future UK maritime success. It contains five essential elements. First, it radically extends the scope of our existing shipbuilding strategy. I may be standing here as a Defence Minister, but rest assured that the plan is as much about commercial shipbuilding as it is about the Royal Navy. We are focused not simply on hulls alone but on internal systems and sub-systems.
Secondly, we are establishing a 30-year shipbuilding pipeline of more than 150 vessels, thereby offering a clear demand signal in respect of our future requirements. We know that a regular drumbeat of design and manufacturing work is vital not just to maintain our critical national security capabilities but to drive the efficiencies that reduce longer-term cost. We are not just giving suppliers confidence in industry order books; we are going to give them greater clarity about our requirements, too. Today, we set out our policy and technology priorities, from net zero commitments to social-value requirements.
We are determined to ensure that our vast shipbuilding programmes leave a lasting legacy that goes beyond the procurement of a new vessel for the Border Force or the latest battle-winning warships, so we have made it a key requirement for shipbuilders to take account of social value, thereby ensuring not only that we deliver the capabilities that each Department needs but that taxpayers’ money is used to maximum effect. We support jobs, skills and investment and will establish a new social value minimum of 20% for competitions for Royal Navy vessels.
Thirdly, our strategy will accelerate innovation, enabling shipwrights and supply chains to unlock new manufacturing, production and clean maritime technologies. In recent times, the automotive industry has blazed a trail in the field of sustainability, investing in everything from electric to hydrogen and ammonia fuel technologies. But domestic shipping accounts for more emissions than the bus and rail sector combined, so when it comes to decarbonisation, it is high time that we made sure shipping does not end up in the slow lane.
In 2019, the Department for Transport published its “Maritime 2050” strategy, amplifying the power of UK maritime business clusters to foster a climate of innovation.
Last year’s clean maritime demonstration competition underlined the sheer depth of the sector’s potential, with 55 projects winning a share of £23 million to develop carbon-free solutions such as hydrogen-fuelled vessels and shipping charge points powered by offshore wind turbines. Building on that success, we will now make the competition a regular event, creating more opportunities for industry to bring cutting-edge technologies to market.
Alongside that news, I can announce today that the Department for Transport—I am delighted to be joined by the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) —has committed £206 million to develop a UK shipping office for reducing emissions, or SHORE, which will fund research into and development of zero-emission vessels and help to roll out the infrastructure that enables the UK to achieve its goal of becoming a world leader in sustainable maritime technologies.
Fourthly, shipbuilding is a long-term investment, and the more we can do to shelter it from market storms the better, so the fourth aspect of our plan is about providing greater financial support for shipbuilders to win orders. Access to finance for underwriting contracts is an essential element of any shipbuilding enterprise. Alongside banks and working capital loans, the Government also have a role to play in helping to finance vessel contracts.
UK export finance already offers credit facilities to support British companies winning work overseas. To make UK shipbuilders more competitive, we are bidding for orders for new ships from domestic customers. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is now working up plans to underwrite contracts for UK shipbuilders building ships for UK operation. BEIS aims to launch this new home shipbuilding credit guarantee scheme in May.
Switching to exports, opportunity is opening up for suppliers to increase their market share. In 2020, we exported £2.2 billion-worth of ships, boats and floating structures. We believe that we should be able to grow our exports by 45% by 2030. To make that happen, we are opening a new Maritime Capability Campaign Office. Covering all aspects of the shipbuilding enterprise, from platforms to sub-systems, to the supply chain, it will use robust industry analysis of global markets to help suppliers reach untapped markets. Our success in the long term will hinge on the strength of our skills base.
This brings me to the final aspect of our plan. We are determined to develop the next generation of shipbuilding talent, so today we are establishing a UK shipbuilding skills taskforce. Led by the Department for Education and working in tandem with the National Shipbuilding Office and devolved Administrations, it will bridge skills gaps and learn from best practice, particularly in relation to new and emerging technologies. Above all, it will act as a megaphone for the varied and exciting careers that shipbuilding can offer up and down the country, from designing cutting-edge environmentally friendly ferries to developing propulsion systems for complex warships.
The building blocks of our refreshed strategy are settling into place. Our NSO and Maritime Capability Campaign Office are up and running. Our UK shipbuilding skills taskforce is accepting applications from today, and, in the coming months, we will be establishing a new shipbuilding enterprise for growth. Co-chaired by the chief executive officer of the National Shipbuilding Office and a senior industry executive, it will unite the finest minds in shipping to overcome some of the sector’s toughest challenges.
In other words, today, we offer a powerful vision of what shipbuilding will look like in 2030. It is a vision of a supercharged sector with thousands of highly skilled workers; a vision to make this the country of choice for specialist commercial and naval vessels and systems, components and technologies; a vision that generates the increased investment to level up our nation; and a vision that will spark a British shipbuilding renaissance and inspire even more countries to seek out that “made-in-Britain” stamp.
The framework is ready. Now we will be working with our superb shipbuilders, our supply chains and across Government to help transform this great ambition into a prosperous reality. I commend this refreshed strategy and this statement to the House.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
After months of delay, I am pleased that the Minister has come before the House with a shipbuilding strategy.
Now, we all know that the Prime Minister loves a photo opportunity or two, so I am sure that he will enjoy his trip to Merseyside today when he can dress up in his favourite fluorescent jacket and his little hard hat and make his historical analogies to Britain’s proud shipbuilding past. Perhaps while he is there, he would like to explain why the Ministry of Defence has given a £10 million contract this week to a Dutch yard for a vessel that could have been built right here in Britain.
Despite the Prime Minister’s jingoism and nostalgia, the reality is this: the Royal Navy has only 13 frigates and six destroyers. Our Royal Navy is being asked to take on increasing responsibilities, but one in five ships has disappeared from our surface fleet since 2010. It is no surprise, therefore, that the Defence Committee has concluded that the Navy cannot fulfil the full ambition of the integrated review with its current fleet. Our Navy needs more ships, but it is also vital that we ensure that they are built right here in Britain. Our shipyards are crying out for an end to the feast-and-famine cycle of procurement, yet, despite the 30-year pipeline, there is no commitment to ensure that ships are built in UK yards.
Our steel industry and shipyards are national assets, which is why Labour has called for a “British built by default” approach to defence procurement. The GMB has said that Ministers are
“again sowing uncertainty with their disastrous policy refusing to guarantee work for UK yards…No other shipbuilding nation would dream of procuring its own vessels in this way.”
I must ask the Minister this: why does the strategy not promise a “British built by default” approach to defence procurement? Why does the strategy not include targets for UK steel in UK ships? Without either, how can the Minister ensure investment in his stated ambition of local jobs invested in our communities?
The strategy also fails to tackle the deep-seated problems of MOD mismanagement and delivery. The National Audit Office currently rates no major shipbuilding programmes as being on time or on budget, and it is only getting worse. The number of MOD projects rated “amber/red” has doubled and fleet solid support ships have moved from amber to “amber/red” in the past year. Why has the strategy been published without a clear timeline for delivery? How will the £5 billion cover the cost of 150 ships, and is this even new money?
At a time of increasing threats, it is not the time for vanity projects, but the Government, and the Prime Minister in particular, continue to push ahead with a new royal yacht. The Defence Committee had stated that it has
“received no evidence of the advantage to the Royal Navy”
in acquiring it. Does the Minister still think that this is the best way to spend MOD money?
Chasing headlines and photo opportunities on shipbuilding is one thing, delivery, value for money and investment in Britain are quite another. Unfortunately, this strategy fails on all those counts.
Jeremy Quin
I make no apologies for taking time to come to the House with this strategy, because we want to make certain that it is a strategy that works, and that is exactly what we are delivering. There is no jingoism or nostalgia about this strategy; it is hard facts that will deliver for our shipbuilding industry. It is a shipbuilding industry that needs to embrace the modern technology of artificial intelligence and environmental sustainability. That is why we are establishing the UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions, with £206 million behind it. It is a strategy that will support our ship buyers with a home shipping guarantee system, in the same way that we support our exports with export guarantees. We have a National Shipbuilding Office that is doing great work and is cohering across Government and delivering for the entire industry.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of warships. We can be very proud that we are putting more money into warships —£1.7 billion will be the spend by the end of this Parliament, doubling our current commitment. The Type 31 frigate HMS Venturer had her steel cut in Rosyth, with HMS Glasgow now well under way on the Clyde. Opportunity exists for Type 32, with up to five entering service with the Royal Navy, and a certainty that we will be going beyond our current level of 19 frigates and destroyers by the end of this decade.
The hon. Gentleman referred to FSS ships, which he knows will have a very substantial element of UK build. They are on time to be delivered within a couple of years of the procurement. We are doing our utmost to ensure that we derive value from this strategy and that it will deliver for Britain.
The hon. Gentleman asks why we cannot have a “build in Britain” strategy. As he knows, that is exactly what we do for warships, and it is this Government who have extended that to say that, for every ship being acquired by the MOD, we will make a case-by-case examination to see whether that needs to be a build in Britain. We have broadened that scope.
When we go beyond defence and warships, we cannot, on the one hand, say that we will support the international rules-based order, yet, on the other, ignore rules organisations such as the World Trade Organisation. We need to work within those rules to get the maximum value for our country, which is exactly what the NSO will do. We have a programme of 150 vessels, £4 billion of support going into British shipbuilding over the next three years, and exciting opportunities that our industry can follow.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
The British-built Type 45 destroyer is arguably the best of its class in the world, but it has been plagued by persistent problems with its propulsion system. The Ministry has a “put right” programme, but it will not be completed until 2028. Given that we now have to deter a Russia that is prepared to bomb maternity hospitals, we need those ships fully capable and fit to fight now, not in six years’ time. Will the Minister go from this place back to his Department, review the entire programme and issue an urgent operational requirement, so that if they were required, those wonderfully capable ships can fight to keep our country and NATO free?
Jeremy Quin
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that the Type 45s are excellent bits of kit. They are one of our bits of equipment that I know our adversaries fear, and rightly so. The concern we always have is balancing operational requirements; as he knows, we have two Type 45s out on station at the moment, so we must make certain that we can bring those ships back in for their power improvement project upgrades. I can confirm that we are looking at ways to accelerate the PIP programme, and I recognise that it is important that we do so.
I also apologise to my right hon. Friend, and I dropped him a note this morning. In response to an intervention yesterday, I said that Dauntless was undergoing sea trials, but I had conflated sea trials with the test and commissioning phase. That is where she is now, but the three new diesel engines are working successfully and she will be embarking on sea trials in a few weeks’ time.
Dave Doogan (Angus) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement and commend his fleet-of-foot actions in changing the range from Appledore to Glasgow to Appledore to Rosyth. That is an important correction to make.
The fourth from final paragraph in the Minister’s statement cuts to the chase on this issue in the way that the strategy does not when he states that it is a vision to make the UK,
“the country of choice for specialist commercial and naval vessels and systems, components and technologies”.
Among the 80 pages of waffle and padding, the strategy alights briefly on that point, but not in the way it really should. The strategy also highlights the word “international” 31 times. I welcome the realisation that in a global economy with global supply chains the notion that we can procure every single element in the United Kingdom, while a noble ambition that we should sweat as much as we can, is naive.
I welcome the fact that the national strategy sets out a range of opportunities, which excellent yards all around Scotland are ready to lean into and capitalise on. I am a little sceptical about whether the funding announced in the strategy will have a massive impact across all the yards in the United Kingdom, but I hope it will.
Scotland’s skills, as I am sure the Minister will agree, have been highlighted many times in the past decade, not least on the QE2-class ships, which are outstanding in their quality and performance, the Type 26 under construction in Glasgow and the Type 31 under build in Rosyth. He will welcome, as I do, the export success that has been achieved, with 26 going to Canada and Australia, but he will know that those are in-country builds. That is not to downplay the opportunities of intellectual property and engineering that Glasgow will enjoy from them, but does he agree that really what we need is Type 31s sold to countries that will require them to be built in Rosyth?
Jeremy Quin
First, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge, this is a UK-wide endeavour. There are great assets and skills in Scotland, and I am delighted that this week, I think, we have signed a lease to ensure that there is space in Edinburgh for part of the National Shipbuilding Office to be based there. This is a national endeavour, delivering for the whole of the UK. He is right that £4 billion is a lot of money and we want it to go further by winning export orders.
The hon. Gentleman is right that the Type 26 exports to Canada and Australia are a solid bit of progress. It is right to say that they will support thousands of jobs and design is incredibly important, as are many of the subsystems often used by overseas purchasers, even as they do a lot of work on the frigates themselves. We will learn from them as well as their learning from us.
On Type 31 and export, there has been great news: first the work with Indonesia and secondly the down selection last Friday by the Polish navy of Type 31 or Arrowhead. That is an extremely important step forward and I am very proud to have been part of it. I spoke to my Polish opposite number on that and other topics this morning. It would be great if we could also sell Type 31 to countries that do not have the capacity to build themselves, and do that work in Rosyth or elsewhere. That is a grand ambition. However, I am delighted that our design, our subsystems and our skills are being recognised in the export orders we are already winning.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
I warmly welcome my hon. Friend’s statement. I am sure he has been glued to the Transport Committee’s current inquiry into fuelling the future, where we have heard evidence about a plethora of new, cleaner fuels being developed for use across the transport sector. With the £206 million he has announced for the UK Shipping Office for Reducing Emissions, may I urge him to give as much regard to the cleaner fuels of the future as to the tech being developed on vessel?
Jeremy Quin
Absolutely; I thank my hon. Friend and look forward to the conclusion of the Select Committee’s work. He is right about fuelling for the future, and I have no doubt that my colleagues in the Department for Transport will place a significant emphasis on exactly those issues. They certainly did in the first round, with the £23 million of the clean maritime demonstration competition, which had 55 awards and was oversubscribed. I know many of the R&D suggestions coming forward were in exactly that space, which offers a great opportunity for the future.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
I draw the House’s attention to my non-pecuniary interests entry in the Register. I welcome the Minister’s statement. In his original report, Sir John Parker emphasised the drumbeat of work and regular orders that is important for yards—but that means orders. The Minister’s own Department, in the past few weeks, has awarded a £10 million contract to a Dutch yard, even though I warned him about that several months ago. He has given no commitments on the FSS, and the Border Force and the Home Office are looking at procuring boats from the Dutch, too. No other country does that. We need a full commitment from Government to ensuring that when those orders are procured, they are procured in UK yards. They used to hide behind the European Union, but they can no longer do that. I understand that Ministers are now hiding behind some international trade issues, but no other country has this problem.
Jeremy Quin
The right hon. Gentleman and I did have a discussion across this Dispatch Box regarding the order, and his intuition proved correct. There was a competition process, and he proved to be correct in his assumption, although I emphasise that that was not a new build of a new vessel, but a requirement for the Royal Navy to have an existing vessel that it could practise some new developments on. It went into the market as a competition and that is how it ended. They fine-tuned the competition to ensure that it was fully fair, and we got that result.
I know the right hon. Gentleman has been a regular advocate of an FSS build in this country. FSS is proceeding and it will be substantially built. I am trying to remember exactly when the two years starts—I believe it is two years from the start of the manufacturing phase but, if it is not, I will write to him and leave a note in the Library.
On the point about the WTO rules, we do not take them lightly and it is right that we work within them, but that does not mean that we do not do everything in our power to maximise the benefits to British shipbuilding. That is what the National Shipbuilding Office has been set up to do, and that is what this refresh is about: whether on shore, on the home shipbuilding guarantee or on skills, we must ensure that we win, that we succeed and that we can compete with and be just as productive as other northern European yards.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
I, too, welcome the statement from the Minister, which is excellent—what is not to like? This is about jobs, livelihoods, R&D, technology, self-sufficiency, investment and exports. I welcome the growing imperative towards a “build it in Britain” strategy. That is very important. Given our proud shipbuilding pedigree in Wales, England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, does he agree that this is great for the Union? Moreover, noting that we are a proud seafaring member of the United Nations P5 and of NATO, does he agree that we are better off together?
Jeremy Quin
I absolutely agree that we are better off together. I agree with my hon. Friend that we should build in Britain; that should be the result of this refresh. We should be not only winning in Britain, but winning export orders overseas, due to the quality of our products and ideas and the productivity of our manufacturers. I agree with all that in the context of the United Kingdom build. That is a huge emphasis and, as Scottish yards have found, whether with the British Antarctic Survey or Babcock, having the weight of the Royal Navy—a benchmark Navy—behind them and the UK Government in full support really does help to bring in those export orders. We are committed to jobs, skills and infrastructure the length and breadth of the UK.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement about the commitment to shipbuilding. May I urge him to do all he can to make sure that the ships are built in Britain, using British steel? In Rotherham, we make world-leading steel and we are the only place making speciality steel. If he could make that commitment, it would give real security to the industry.
Jeremy Quin
In the same way that we have that pipeline of 150 vessels, as the hon. Lady knows, we always set out the pipeline of what is coming up imminently to help steel manufacturers in the UK to know where the opportunities are. With some ships—for example, the carriers—a huge proportion of the steel was from UK sources. It does vary according to the technical specification. However, I am absolutely convinced of one thing: if we can increase the amount of shipbuilding in Britain, the amount of UK steel being used will increase proportionately as well.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Con)
This is welcome news and I thank the Minister for his statement, but does he agree that these warships should be built in Great Britain by great British workers, using great British steel, and—the bit that will upset the Opposition—using great British coal to make that steel?
Jeremy Quin
I feel that today I have trod on the toes of many Departments in bringing forward many policies from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Transport and the Department for Education, which are going to do a great job for British shipbuilding. I am not going to plunge into coal—I will leave that to my colleagues—but I agree 100% that warships will be made in this country by British shipyards doing a great job, as they always have done, in supporting the Royal Navy. The more UK content we can have in those ships, of all forms, the more I welcome that.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
In 1941, Winston Churchill embarked on HMS Prince of Wales to meet President Roosevelt and sign the Atlantic charter. That was a battleship—a warship. In 1947, the royal family embarked on HMS Vanguard to start their South African tour. HMS Vanguard was a battleship—a warship. May I suggest to the Minister that it would be better to spend the cost of a Type 31 frigate on another Type 31 frigate than on a national flagship?
Jeremy Quin
I respect the hon. Gentleman’s views. I remind him that the cost of the national flagship, spread over four years, is about 0.1% of the MOD’s overall budget, so this does not break the bank; it is a relatively small proportion of the overall budget. The ship has a job to do. It is not a matter of being a royal yacht, as the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) suggested earlier—it is a national flagship with a job to do. A huge proportion of the most successful cities on earth are on the coastline. It has a job in marketing and spreading the word for global Britain. I think it will be a great success. People decry it now, but I have no doubt that in five years’ time they will be saying it is great and in 30 years’ time they will not be able to imagine us not having one.
Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his excellent statement. Does he agree, though, that we should not just rely on domestic demand to drive investment in British shipbuilding but look to sell more abroad, as with, for example, the contract Babcock secured with Poland last week?
Jeremy Quin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. A lot of work went into that. I spoke to my Polish opposite number only this morning. The Poles are delighted by what they are getting. The Arrowhead Type 31 is a fantastic frigate that will do brilliantly for the Polish navy, which works very closely with the Royal Navy in developing these ideas. We have plans around the rest of the world with our allies and our friends to support their capabilities and at the same time to support design and build here in the UK.
John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The Minister prays in aid of his case international rules, but surely that requires international agreement, conformity and consensus. The Government used to claim that the issue was EU rules which no other EU country followed. Then they claimed it was WTO rules. Now it is the international order. Now in the statement they have declared the fleet solid support ships to be warships. Frankly, the last veil has been ripped away and his policy is naked to the world. Why will he not declare that they will now buy British first?
Jeremy Quin
We will be buying British in so many ways among those 150 vessels, but we will be doing that not because we have retreated into a narrow protectionist hole but because the design, innovation and skills in this country will be second to none as we work through the benefits of this refresh. The right hon. Gentleman is trying to hide behind the rules. I am trying to say: let us look at the rules to make certain they work and work in the interests of this country. That is why we have the NSO and SHORE. It is why we will have the home shipbuilding credit guarantee. We are finding ways to assist and to ensure—this is the most fundamental point; I know he wants this as much as I do—that our shipyards are as productive as every other shipyard in northern Europe. We are not there yet, we need to get there and we are determined to make that happen.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
My constituency has 23 inhabited islands and therefore ferries are never far from my mind. Babcock is the site of a state-of-the-art advanced manufacturing facility currently manufacturing Type 31 frigates. Does the Minister agree that this expert workforce are ideally placed to design and to manufacture specialist vessels that could serve Scotland’s island communities, and indeed those across the UK, for many years to come?
Jeremy Quin
I certainly agree that there are great skills and great design capacity in Rosyth. I have seen that for myself. I went there to see the new shipbuilding shed, which is a fantastic bit of work. There is a great workforce and a great sense of optimism, quite rightly, in the yard. From memory, the ferries contract has been awarded elsewhere by the Scottish Government, and it has not been a happy situation, so I would not wish to impinge on their personal grief. But are there good skills in Scotland that could be used, and is Babcock a good option? I would say so, but it is not for me to award these contracts.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
While communities across the north such as those in my own constituency recognise and appreciate industrial investment in places that share a proud industrial heritage built by generations of craft, skill and dedication, does the Minister recognise that his party was responsible for the decimation of our shipbuilding industry over many years? I join hon. Members across the House in asking him to commit to UK shipyards such as A&P Tyne in my constituency to secure these jobs. I also ask him to commit to involving and consulting the trade unions in the new national shipbuilding strategy.
Jeremy Quin
I and the trade unions I have met, particularly on the Clyde, have the same sort of vision for the future of our national shipbuilding endeavour. That is to have those high skills and to have a workforce who are trained, effective and incredibly proud of what they do, which I know is the case today. A huge number of manufacturing jobs were lost under the last Labour Government; I am afraid that the decline of national shipbuilding has not been under the purview of one party or another. But this party and this Government are determined to reverse that, and we do so by ensuring that we can compete effectively on the world stage and that we have the skills, the innovation, the R&D and the productivity. That is what this refresh is about. We will be winning, and winning well, on the international stage. I know the hon. Lady is as keen on that as I am.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his statement and very much welcome it. There is, as he knows, a great tradition and history of shipbuilding at Harland and Wolff in Belfast in Northern Ireland. It is critical that we in Northern Ireland play a central role in the national shipbuilding strategy. Can he confirm that Harland and Wolff in Belfast will have an important, practical, physical role in that strategy, and that financial benefits related to wage packets and so on will come as a boost for the Northern Ireland economy, which will be a central objective for us in getting the benefit of this strategy as well?
Jeremy Quin
It is fair to say that I am very excited by the prospects of Harland and Wolff. It is great to see a great shipyard with a terrific history hopefully sparking back into life as part of our renaissance across the UK. I am not going to be prescriptive about what yards and what procurements will be involved, as that would be wrong on all kinds of levels, but we have 150 vessels coming through over the next 30 years and £1.7 billion of procurement for MOD vessels by the end of this Parliament. There is lots of opportunity, and I wish everyone well in going for it.
UK Support for Aid Workers and the Afghan People
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
We now come to the Select Committee statement. Sarah Champion will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement, I will call Members to put questions on the subject of the statement, and will call Sarah Champion to respond to those questions in turn. Members can expect to be called only once, and I stress that interventions should be questions, not mini-statements, and should be brief. Front Benchers may take part in questioning.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
The Select Committee on International Development published its report, “Afghanistan: UK support for aid workers and the Afghan people” last Friday, one week after Russia invaded Ukraine. I thank all the witnesses we had; I thank the members of the Committee; and I thank our excellent Committee team for all their work, both on the inquiry and on putting the report together. Our focus was on the impact of the Afghanistan withdrawal on the humanitarian situation in that country, its impact on the operation of aid organisations and the people working for them, and how to help prevent similar impacts from playing out in the UK’s response to other humanitarian crises in future. We brought forward publication of our report by a week, as we noted with grave concern parallels emerging in the UK’s response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Ukraine.
UK and allied forces left Afghanistan in August 2021. The Taliban takeover was rapid. The humanitarian jeopardy is extreme, and the scale of the humanitarian response required is unprecedented. At the same time, the safety of aid workers has been compromised. Any contingency plans that the Government had for evacuating aid workers were neither apparent to the sector nor scaled adequately. Some Afghans who worked on projects funded by the UK Government are now reporting that their lives are at risk of reprisals from the Taliban authorities. Aid workers are at the forefront of responding to people in humanitarian jeopardy. Our report concludes that the Government have a moral duty towards those workers who have helped deliver UK aid projects in Afghanistan and, by extension, aid workers helping to deliver UK aid elsewhere.
The Government’s immigration schemes do not adequately support aid workers seeking safe passage to the UK. Many Afghan aid workers feel abandoned by our Government. The Committee’s concern about immigration routes was narrow: the Government’s treatment of Afghan aid workers seeking safe passage to the UK. In our December oral evidence session, witnesses told us that the Government’s contingency plans for the evacuation of aid workers were neither apparent to the sector nor scaled adequately. Our report calls on the Government to accelerate without further delay all pathways of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, and ensure that aid sector staff are explicitly recognised and prioritised for protection under that scheme.
We fear that the same approach to people fleeing a humanitarian crisis is being adopted by the UK Government in their response to Ukraine. Yesterday, we heard worrying reports that Ukrainian staff in the British embassy in Kyiv are being denied entry to the UK. Some British staff have described what is happening as “Afghanistan part 2”. Once again, we see the Government showing the same inflexibilities by only making limited, begrudging concessions to pre-existing UK immigration routes; failing to provide sufficient clarity on what routes are available; and dragging their feet in setting up new routes, or variations to existing ones. That response must change.
Following 40 years of war, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is devastating and worsening. The withdrawal of UK and allied forces precipitated the rapid collapse of the previous Afghan Government and takeover by Taliban militants. Since then, the number of people needing humanitarian assistance has grown to 24.4 million, more than half the population. Some 23 million people are facing acute hunger. It has been a harsh winter, following hard on the heels of Afghanistan’s worst drought in 27 years, and its people continue to suffer as the country emerges into spring. We are deeply grateful to aid workers, be they British, Afghan or any other nationality, for all they have done and continue to do for the people of Afghanistan. The work they do is phenomenal, but my Committee is ashamed that our Government have not given them the support and clarity they need. In our report, we urge the Government to take a broader, more holistic view of their duty of care towards people working in the aid sector. They simply do not accord those people the respect and support they deserve.
In terms of humanitarian need, witnesses told us how overlapping factors are affecting the situation in Afghanistan and the disbursal of aid to the Afghan people. There has been a complex interplay between the banking liquidity crisis and the deepening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. Women, children and minority groups are suffering disproportionately. Our Committee heard how international sanctions designed to punish the Taliban were instead cruelly punishing the people of Afghanistan. We heard how the UK Government have been too slow to act on mitigating the impact of those sanctions. In our report, we conclude that the Government should have liaised more effectively and swiftly with the aid sector, international allies and financial institutions to help to resolve the challenges that sanctions pose to the aid sector, address the collapse of the banking system in Afghanistan and free up the nominated funds frozen by the World Bank.
We welcome the UN Security Council’s December 2021 adoption of a resolution to provide exemptions from sanctions for humanitarian assistance. It also provides exemptions for other activities designed to support basic needs, such as the provision of shelter, food and water, education, health, nutrition and hygiene. We also welcome the UK Government’s adoption of that resolution into UK law at the end of January this year. We urge our Government to further step up their efforts to work with the UN and aid organisations to ensure they can effectively operate under those exemptions. Furthermore, we call on the UK Government to press for the UN Security Council to extend that resolution or bring forward further resolutions to provide additional exemptions for development assistance, closely linked to the performance of the Taliban on upholding human rights and international law.
The World Bank released a statement on 1 March, after the Committee’s report had gone to print, noting further progress on agreeing a plan for the release of further funds from the Afghanistan reconstruction trust fund. We urge the Government to do more to encourage the World Bank to swiftly release the remaining funds, so that aid organisations can use that money to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. The Government have pledged significant sums of aid since their withdrawal from Afghanistan, but the release of that aid to people who so desperately need it has been excruciatingly slow. The Committee’s report concludes that the Government should have worked faster to disburse the aid they pledged to Afghanistan in 2021.
We urge the Government to continue to support the Afghan people, to whom they have a moral responsibility given the decades of UK military and political interventions there. At the same time, we fear that the narrative of the UK not acting swiftly enough to disburse pledged UK aid will play out in their response to Ukraine. Again the Government have pledged significant sums of aid, but how quick will they be to disburse that aid to the Ukrainian people? Speed is of the absolute essence when people’s very lives hang in the balance. I commend the report, and this statement, to the House.
James Sunderland (Bracknell) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for her excellent statement. I do not want to put her on the spot, but can I ask her what duty of care she thinks the Government have towards aid workers?
Sarah Champion
The Government’s contracts with non-governmental organisations are very clear that they do not have a direct duty of care. However, my Committee felt that they do have a moral duty of care, because in the country in which they operate, they are operating as the face of the UK Government—they are going to stations with the UK flag on them, with “UK Aid” written on them, particularly when they are working directly with the UK embassy. We felt that the Government very much have a moral duty towards aid workers, even if there is not a personnel-type duty towards them.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I thank the Clerks and the Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), for this excellent and detailed report, and I pay tribute to the NGO workers on the ground. They are working in extraordinarily difficult circumstances, and I so admire their courage. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we are seeing the same problems in Ukraine as in Afghanistan, so does she agree that the Government must learn from previous mistakes and have full contingency plans in place to get humanitarian workers out of the country as and if necessary, no matter whether they are employees of a directly funded organisation or subcontractors?
The disbursal of aid to Afghanistan has been woefully slow, and we still do not know how much of the aid allocated by the Government has been disbursed. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office must publish monthly updates on the allocation and disbursal of aid to Afghanistan and countries in the region? Bureaucratic hurdles continue to hold up the $1 billion that has already been committed to the Afghanistan people through the Afghanistan reconstruction trust fund. Development in Afghanistan will continue to go backward if we are not funding healthcare workers and teachers. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government need to provide an urgent update and appoint a dedicated Minister for aid, so that we can unlock this problem?
Sarah Champion
My hon. Friend makes the most pertinent points, and I completely agree with all the issues that she raises. From our analysis, it looks like two thirds of the fund pledged in emergency money to Afghanistan has been disbursed, but we are finding it incredibly difficult to get that information, and I hope the Government are able to address that.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
As a fellow member of the Committee, I hope it has been made crystal clear to the Government what needs to be done. The report not least gives further credence to what we already know, which is that this Government have seriously and regrettably let down the people of Afghanistan. During oral evidence, the Committee heard that Afghan women were suffering disproportionately throughout the crisis, and the report recommends that the UK Government seek
“to ensure that the rights of women and girls are respected by the Taliban”,
yet this week we learned from the FCDO’s own equalities impact assessment that the scale of reductions to specific gender interventions will impact efforts to advance gender equality, with a reduction of 75% for violence against women and girls bilateral programming being just one example. Is that not a stark illustration that these cuts need to be reversed immediately and that there needs to be a Secretary of State for international development, or at the very least a Minister dedicated to the role, to ensure that the needs of the most vulnerable in our societies are properly represented and advocated for by this Government?
Sarah Champion
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, my fellow Committee member, and I fully agree with all his points. I think he would share how painful it was to hear from those women and girls during our evidence gathering, and in particular the pleas from the Afghan judges—they put their faith in us, and we let them down.
Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 56), That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Question agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Question put forthwith, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Question agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Backbench Business
International Women’s Day
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered International Women’s Day.
There is a dreadful poignancy in opening this debate today. The bombing of a Ukrainian women and children’s hospital yesterday has left pregnant women on stretchers, covered in blood from shrapnel wounds, and I would hope that the message that we send from this place to every woman in Ukraine during this week of events to mark International Women’s Day is that we stand with those women against those who wage war on their country. We stand alongside those women in their battle for a free and independent Ukraine. We stand with the people of Belarus and Russia who do not want war. I was delighted to meet the Belarusian opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, in Parliament today to reinforce that message.
In Ukraine, International Women’s Day is usually a public holiday—an opportunity to mark the unique role that women play in the culture of their nation—but this year has been very different indeed, because it is the women of Ukraine who make up the vast majority of refugees. The Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Trudy Harrison), will share my horror at seeing those women fleeing their homeland. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is right to be redoubling the Government’s efforts to cut unnecessary bureaucracy, so that we can offer women who seek sanctuary in our country swift passage.
Acts of war and aggression disproportionately affect women. In Afghanistan, just 12 months ago on International Women’s Day, that nation celebrated the remarkable contribution made by Afghan women against the challenges of the covid pandemic. Now, the hard-won progress made on women’s rights over the past two decades has been all but reversed, with a new Taliban Government having no place for the 67 women elected to the Afghan Parliament. We know that the best way we can fight dictatorships and autocracies around the world is through support for democratic capacity for effective democratic institutions.
The truth is that every democracy is fragile; it has to be nurtured. As we mark International Women’s Day as parliamentarians, we should focus every fibre of our body on how we can strengthen democracies around the world, because democracy is under threat like never before. Strong parliamentarians are representative of their people. Women playing their proper role in Parliament is not an optional extra; it is essential for our legitimacy. This year’s theme of “Break the Bias” could not be more appropriate, because there are few democracies around the world where women have an equal role in policy making and policy scrutiny—not even our own. Some 27 years on from the 1995 UN Beijing platform for action, which demanded worldwide equal participation for women in political decision making, we have seen slow progress, with just one in four elected representatives around the world being a woman.
For International Women’s Day 2022, let us call for a renewed commitment to women’s equal role in policy making and policy scrutiny to ensure progress on securing women’s roles in democratic institutions. Internationally, both our Parliament and our Government actively support the rights of women and girls. The Government, through their work on education for girls and their support for organisations such as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, work hard to help build women’s political participation. Here in Parliament, many of us are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians, and we work with legislative bodies around the world to share our expertise and knowledge. Gender-sensitive Parliament audits are a practical support that the CPA has put in place for jurisdictions to address their institutionalised gender inequality. Over the past year, the CPA has trained women parliamentarians around the world to deal with online abuse, helping to find a way forward on one of the issues that holds so many women back from wanting to seek election in the first place.
We want strong democracies around the world, but it has never been more important for our own Parliament to be an exemplar. In Westminster, there are still twice as many men as women elected to this place, demonstrating the challenges even embedded democracies have. I stand here as a Conservative Member of Parliament to say that there are three men for every one woman in my party, which is the Government party. That has to change.
Each party takes this problem extremely seriously. I know that the Conservative party does, and we are acting. It is right that we press Government and political parties to do more, but Parliament itself has to act, too, as the custodian of one of the most important parts of our democracy is our legislature. As Sue Maguire high- lighted in her report to Government in 2018, while quotas for women to come into Parliament have a place—the Labour party has made good use of them—they do not
“address the cultural and working practices in Parliament and local Government that remain significant barriers”.
We can and must challenge the Government to do more, and parties to act, but if we simply say it is the fault of political parties, we are not listening to the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
I applaud Mr Speaker for creating real momentum for change here, even before he became Speaker, by addressing for the first time issues such as the personal security of Members. We also now have a behaviour code and grievance procedures, thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom).We have proxy voting for new parents and effective procedures to deal with bullying, as we saw earlier this week, but where is the progress on the other measures that have been put forward?
Effecting change in this place can feel almost impossible. Although we have Select Committees to hold the Government to account, where is the mechanism to hold ourselves to account? There is no structure in Parliament for Members to identify a programme of co-ordinated change—coherent, transparent and accountable change—that would make this place somewhere that more women want to come to and stay in.
As the Women and Equalities Committee’s report that was published last week by my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) said, five years on from the Childs “The Good Parliament” report and 10 more reports like it, many of the recommendations that have been put forward remain unanswered. Some of the actions can be delivered by Parliament and some need Parliament to work with the Government, but above all we need a co-ordinated plan of action for the House of Commons to get our House in order and to get equal representation of women as a top priority.
I will give a couple of examples. We need to ensure that the Government implement section 106 of the Equality Act 2010, which is already in place, to require parties to publish data on the diversity of their candidates and appointments to the House of Lords, a recommendation made more than five years ago. We need to focus our House service public engagement on women’s participation in democracy and reach out to women across the United Kingdom to encourage them to consider standing for election, as we did at the all-party parliamentary group on women in Parliament’s event on Tuesday evening, which was attended by more than 100 women. Those events should not be held by Members; they should be held by the House of Commons to encourage more women to stand for election.
We need to focus the House communications team on talking about the positive changes that we have already made to our culture here as a result of the new behaviour code and the grievance process. We need to work with the Government to ensure that there is legislation and enforcement against online threats, which disproportionately affect women Members. We need to embed a programme of training for Members who are using social media. We know that those actions need to happen, but we need to have a plan and there needs to be accountability for swift progress.
We are the custodians of our legislative body. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for securing the time for this debate and the APPG officers and members for their support in it. A representative and inclusive House of Commons is essential for the fully effective functioning of a parliamentary democracy. The House itself has a unique responsibility to take steps to ensure that we are representative of the population. Recruiting good people is a matter for political parties, but parties cannot change what people think of Parliament or how they feel about working in the House of Commons. I want today’s debate marking International Women’s Day to be a call to action for our own Parliament. As Members, we need to ensure that the House of Commons is a place that everyone aspires to be part of, including women.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Hon. Members will see that there are a good number of people wishing to speak in today’s debate. I do not want to impose a time limit, so my advice would be to speak for within six to seven minutes. That way, we will get everybody in.
Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and I associate myself with her comments, especially those regarding the women and children of Ukraine.
Disagreements are par for the course in this place. We are often divided, yet occasionally there are issues that bring us together, unify our sense of purpose and drive us towards collective goals that can deliver a brighter, fairer and more equal future. This is one such issue and the tenor and tone of today’s debate is testament to that unanimity.
Ensuring that we can debate International Women’s Day is so important. It gives us a chance to reflect on where we are as a society and on the progress we have made to date on gender equality. Equally, however, it helps to highlight how much further we still must go to achieve true equality and it marks a call to collective action and shared responsibility for delivering and accelerating gender balance.
Although it is clear that we have come a long way and made significant progress in recent decades, we still have a mammoth task ahead of us to achieve full gender equality. The gender pay gap still exists, women continue to face workplace discrimination, misogynistic abuse is rife, violence against women and girls persists, and women still fall behind men in healthcare and education. While those inequalities remain, the need to mark International Women’s Day is stronger than ever.
Of course, that is particularly true given the impact of covid-19, which hit women disproportionally hard and which analysis suggests could have put gender equality back decades. At the height of the pandemic, a report looked at the impact of covid-19 on women in my city of Coventry. It found that pre-existing inequalities in debt, violence, healthcare, employment and childcare had been exacerbated. It warned that unless a gender-sensitive approach was taken to rebuilding the country and economy, decades of progress towards achieving gender equality could be reversed, so I call on the Government to review the impact of their policies on women and to ensure that the recovery from the pandemic is an equal recovery with women at its heart.
Although International Women's Day provides an opportunity to shine a light on such inequalities, it is also a time to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. In Coventry, one initiative from the Godiva Trust will see residents pay tribute to women who are special to them by helping to decorate some trees placed around the city. People are being invited to attach messages to the trees’ branches to celebrate the lives of inspiring women. That made me think about the inspirational women who have touched my life and who my message would be about. I am privileged to say that there have been many influential women in my life but I pay special tribute to my mum and my two sisters.
My mum was my single biggest inspiration. Without her influence, without her leading the way and showing me that the only thing that limits people in this world is their imagination, and most of all, without her love and support, I would not be where I am today. When she entered politics some 50 years ago—I think that is actually when I entered it too—little did I know that it would become such a large part of my life and would lead me to be right here, the 414th woman ever elected to this place.
While my two sisters did not follow the same path, politics none the less plays a part in their lives. They support me, share my concerns and experience my highs and lows. They give me my sense of resilience and we share a mutual trust and an unconditional love. They are my biggest critics and my staunchest defenders. I know that they are proud of me, as I am of them.
As we mark International Women’s Day, let us pay tribute to those closest to us: our carers, mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts. They are the often-unsung heroes who nurture and guide us, who shape our futures through their sacrifices and selfless actions, and whose very presence contributes to who and what we are today, even if we do not always recognise it. Let us pay tribute to the women whose achievements are so great, yet so often and so easily overlooked—the women whose achievements epitomise the spirit of International Women’s Day.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
It is an absolute pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. International Women’s Day is a day to celebrate and, this year, I have doggedly looked for things to celebrate, perhaps with a grim sense of determination. I will start by focusing on a few positive things, such as a young boy who, in his school assembly on Monday, said to me, “Tomorrow’s International Women’s Day. What are you doing to celebrate?”. That is how far we have come—even 12-year-old boys wish to celebrate alongside us. I thank Hugo for asking me what I was going to do. I told him that I would speak in today’s debate and celebrate international women.
I want to celebrate female entrepreneurship in this country. This morning I have been at No. 11 Downing Street to hear the brilliant women of the British Beauty Council talking about their new project to launch jobs in STEM—science, technology, engineering and maths—and beauty, focusing on the fact that science and beauty go hand in hand. We have to make sure that brilliant women in this country study science subjects and go on to fabulous careers in scientific areas. We heard from an amazing woman, Tumi Siwoku, who spoke about her journey into the beauty industry via science-based A-levels. She was meant to study medicine and become a doctor, but her act of rebellion was to make sure that she went into beauty—and, my goodness, I love rebellious women. They are the ones who push boundaries, break down barriers and do the unexpected.
I also want to talk about the female entrepreneurs I met this week at somewhere far more traditional—Goldman Sachs. They are absolute leaders in their fields, and I want to talk specifically about a very young woman, Thuria Wenbar. She is the chief executive officer of e-Pharmacy, and she talked about her excitement at launching menopause products over the counter. She is still in her 20s, but she was talking about the menopause, and that shows how far we have come. It also pays tribute to the work of my hon. Friend—and she is my hon. Friend—the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), who has done so much to break down the taboo and stigma around the menopause. Thuria spoke absolutely unashamedly of her determination to create prosperity and jobs for other women. She spoke about bias—her personal bias—in employing more women in her organisation, and that is one bias we do not wish to break.
I would like to pay tribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Maria Caulfield), who has done so much work on the menopause and women’s health. We can look forward in a few short weeks to the female health strategy coming forward, and I would like to say that, in her role as the Minister for patient safety and primary care, she has been a breath of fresh air. Staying on that theme, I also look forward to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport making a real difference with her forthcoming online safety legislation. That could be a real game changer for young women, and indeed men, for whom the online harms they currently face every single day can spill over into real life. I have no doubt about her mission and determination to bring forward a fiercely effective piece of law.
There are other colleagues I want to celebrate. My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), who is here, has done so much brilliant work on botox. It seemed really trivial this morning to be talking about the beauty industry, lipstick and botox, but her private Member’s legislation—the Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Act 2021—makes it illegal to give botox to under-18s. We need to be protecting young women from the dangers of injectables and cosmetic procedures that can go horribly wrong and alter their looks forever, and we need to be protecting young women from that “Love Island” identical face, which actually looks pretty awful. I would also like to celebrate the brilliant female scientists who made vaccines for covid possible.
But, actually, today I do not want to celebrate at all; I want to talk about International Women’s Day and the women we have seen in war who have been impacted by the Putin invasion of Ukraine. There are those killed by the war, those reporting on the war whether as a journalist or a citizen journalist via social media, and the doctors in the hospitals tending to the sick and the wounded, including the maternity hospitals that we have seen bombed.
I want to talk about one specific woman, Yaroslava Antipina. I do not know her—I had never heard of her before the war started—but she is keeping a daily diary of her life in war, and I know from what she has written that she wants to have her life back. She wants to be able to drink coffee in peace with the people she has met on Twitter. She has fled her home, and I wonder what it would feel like for all of us if we had been forced out of our homes and made to live again with our mothers in a different part of the country. She has taught me that, in Ukraine, International Women’s Day is a holiday—there is a great idea, and perhaps we could introduce that here—but it is not a holiday from war. She wears a sweatshirt that says “Superwoman”, and she genuinely is one.
Yaroslava wants to be able to buy jeans, but she does not know whether the shops will be open, or whether the small shop she has gone to today will be open between 12 noon and 3 pm, so she has launched “operation jeans”, because she just wants to have a spare pair of trousers to wear. She has established her regular no make-up war look, and she posts photographs of it. I want to imagine what that would be like for each and every one of us coming into this Chamber with no make-up. That is why I referenced cosmetic procedures and the British Beauty Council, because we take all that for granted, and if we were her, we might have to accept that, for the conceivable future, everything will look different and our faces will look different.
Yaroslava talks of “this” life and “that” life. This life is the present, her reality; and that life was what she had before—freedom, and her coffee with friends, her jeans, her lipstick and her life in Kyiv. While we celebrate International Women’s Day here, we have to recognise that, just as Yaroslava has a “this” and a “that” life, there is a life here and a life there: here there are no bombs, there are jeans in the shops and we can drink coffee whenever we want; and there they have none of those things. There are little girls in bomb shelters singing the song from “Frozen”, female doctors dodging bombs to treat the sick, female MPs staying defiantly in Kyiv—their capital—and a former Miss Ukraine brandishing her assault weapon in army uniform. There are women on the borders of Ukraine with their children, having left their husbands, their fathers and theirs son behind to fight. So on International Women’s Day this year, I cannot celebrate, but I have to have hope that, as the women of influence in this country, we can make sure that we do better.
Apsana Begum (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
It is now two years since I delivered my maiden speech in Parliament during a similar debate on International Women’s Day. In it, I paid tribute to our local history of women’s struggle for social justice, which continues to be a daily source of inspiration. To quote the amazing Greta Thunberg, International Women’s Day
“is for protesting against and raising awareness about the fact that people are still being oppressed or treated differently because of their gender”,
and we do still have so much to protest against.
Today’s debate comes as the cost of living crisis is fostering a sense of injustice, uncertainty and anxiety across the UK, set against the brutal backdrop of the pandemic and a decade of Conservative austerity. We know that the covid-19 pandemic means women have been more likely than men to lose their jobs or to reduce their paid work, given that they are more frequently employed in sectors that have been directly disrupted by lockdown and social distancing measures.
Women—particularly black, Asian and minority ethnic women—continue to account for about two thirds of low earners and are more likely to be working on zero-hour or part-time contracts. The increased overlap of working and caring responsibilities has added to the ongoing reality that caring continues to be a major factor in women’s ability to participate on equal terms. To put it simply, women still face structural economic inequality throughout their lives, and this intersects with other structures of inequality, including race and disability.
We also know that violence against women, including trans women, continues to blight our society. Women die—and they are dying—every day while support services continue to be cut. I know personally that the impact of domestic abuse on the mental health of survivors can be truly devastating, yet there continue to be many barriers and many challenges facing survivors when they try to access help. We know that ethnic minority survivors of domestic abuse suffer for one and a half times longer before seeking help. As such, we urgently need funding for services, particularly specialist community services and specialist refuges.
As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on domestic violence and abuse, I am delighted to be working with Women’s Aid and others on their campaign #DeserveToBeHeard and to argue for domestic abuse to be recognised as a public health priority. Yet while the Government invariably use the language of protecting women, their programme of austerity, real-terms cuts to benefits and pensions, and assaults on civil liberties explicitly target those of us most at risk—migrants, as well as black, Asian and minority ethnic women, and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities.
The cruel “no recourse to public funds” condition prevents women from accessing help when most at need, and the hostile and racist immigration system tightens around women facing deportation, imprisons women in unacceptable conditions and even sees women drown at sea when they try to seek safety. I plead with the Government today: please scrap the inhumane Nationality and Borders Bill, which risks criminalising refugees, including Ukrainian refugees, who arrive in the UK through an irregular route. Instead, the Government should ensure that there are always safe routes for those seeking sanctuary and asylum.
Too often, under this Government the very institutions that are meant to protect us are in fact failing us, over and over again. Women are told we must forget that only a year ago, Sarah Everard was killed by a serving police officer. We are expected to ignore that there is clearly a problem within the police regarding racism and misogyny which needs urgently to be addressed. Structural racism has long been identified in the police, with the 2017 Lammy review finding that arrest rates are twice as high for ethnic minority women compared with white women. That has been found to lead to increased distrust of the official support services among ethnic minority communities, leading ethnic minority women to be less likely to report experiences of violence and receive support.
International Women’s Day must be about highlighting those ongoing injustices, but more than that it is about pointing the way to overcoming such wrongs. Although International Women’s Day has a historical association with recognising women’s oppression and exploitation, it is also a time when we highlight victories that have been won. Whether that is standing up against violence and austerity, struggling for better working conditions or demanding equal pay, women have always played a vital role in the struggle for social justice, by rallying, organising, protesting, inspiring millions of us, and winning against the odds. That includes industrial action by match workers at the Bryant and May factory in 1888, the historic strike action by female sewing machinists at the Dagenham Ford motor company in 1968, Jayaben Desai leading a walk-out at the Grunwick film processing laboratory in 1976, and Southall Black Sisters being at the forefront of challenging domestic and gender-related violence locally and nationally for decades. Yes, today is about inspiring us to overcome, and there is lots to inspire us.
I will finish by highlighting the victory secured by Unite the Union members working for Barts Health NHS Trust this month, after strike action in which black, Asian and minority ethnic women in particular played a crucial role. I applaud their bravery and determination in fighting exploitation, standing together day in, day out, in the cold and rain, demanding the change that they deserved. That landmark win sends a message to all that pay gaps and low pay are utterly unacceptable. It shows how to challenge injustice and inequality. The message is clearer than ever before: a woman’s place is in the political struggle, in her union and, yes, on the picket lines.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
I am No. 529—the 529th woman to be sworn into this great Parliament—of only 559 women ever sworn into this place, and, while improving, the statistics still have a way to go. We are ranked as the 45th country in the world for the proportion of women in Parliament, and only 36% of our councillors are women. Against that backdrop, this International Women’s Day, I was delighted to join—unfortunately by Zoom—a meeting of businesswomen back home at the launch of Women in Business North Devon, many of whom are interested in stepping into public life. The event was organised by the fabulous Roshni Mahajan, sales and marketing director of Aramis Rugby, a British sports manufacturing brand that supplies top-flight rugby teams in the UK and abroad.
Roshni is just one great example of women in leadership roles that we have in North Devon, as are business leaders such as Kate Cox, CEO of Bray Leino, which is one of the largest digital marketing businesses in the UK outside London, and Paula Byers, founder and director of Lime Cloud Ltd, and chair of Digital North Devon, who also sits on multiple steering committees such as Tech South West. We have leaders in the social sector such as Sue Wallis, chief executive of the vital North Devon Against Domestic Abuse, and Rosie Bracher, a leading lawyer who specialises in complex child and family matters.
Michaela Willis came out of retirement during the first lockdown and set up the National Bereavement Partnership, which has worked tirelessly ever since, providing a support helpline, counselling referral, and a befriending service for all those suffering from bereavement, grief, living loss, mental health issues, and those affected by the global covid-19 pandemic. The amazing Suzanne Tracey leads the Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust and the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust, through a crucial integration of the trusts and investment in our healthcare system. I very much hope that by highlighting those women, many of whom will be unknown in their local community, their achievements may encourage others to step up, undeterred by whatever they believe is holding them back. I send my apologies to the other brilliant women in North Devon who are not in my speech today.
As women we are wired a bit differently. We often think things through so far that we have talked ourselves out of them before even considering that we could do them. In my mind that is no wonder because there are still pockets of resistance that we need to tackle, including something as fundamental as violence against women and girls. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) will no doubt jerk tears as she recalls those so tragically taken from this life by men around them, yet on the first anniversary of the dreadful murder of Sarah Everard, I received this letter from a constituent in a position of authority. The letter was, in his words, about the,
“extensive media coverage of the Home Secretary’s statement on the Government’s directive to the police about keeping women and girls safe in public places and Government money being supplied for that purpose…Of course it is important that women and girls are kept safe, but this programme shows discrimination of the worst kind in that young men and boys who suffer three times the number of murders and over four times the number of violent attacks, are totally excluded. It has been compared to a campaign to keep white people safe that excludes people of colour, and it has been brought about by well-organised campaigns by feminist extremists who see females as being superior to males, even under the law.”
I know that misogyny is alive and well in North Devon from the comments thrown, or even shouted at me as MP. When that has crossed from what might be considered “banter” to becoming abuse, I have taken steps to ensure that those responsible have seen the full force of the law. I hope other women will follow my lead and call out what is simply unacceptable, and I look forward to working with our fabulous police and crime commissioner, Alison Hernandez, as we work towards securing safer streets in North Devon.
As women in this place we all know the abuse that comes with the territory, and as I explained to those women on the business call this week who are thinking about stepping into public life, it is bad on social media as an MP, and somewhat less so as a councillor. However, as women we know that we are stronger when we work together, including the support that we all give to each other here when dealing with such matters, and I hope such issues never deter more women in North Devon from stepping into public life. I may be the first female MP for North Devon, but I very much hope I am not the last.
This International Women’s Day is particularly poignant given the situation in Ukraine, with today’s horrific scenes, and women and children leaving husbands, fathers and sons behind to fight. Many Ukrainian women have done so much, and even taken up arms themselves. In a week when we heard the President of Ukraine quote Churchill, walking down Whitehall, seeing the statue, and remembering the contribution of 7 million women in world war two, has taken on a whole new significance, with so many inspiring women on the frontline in Ukraine. Slava Ukraini—we all stand with Ukraine.
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is “break the bias”, and its website describes that as working towards a “gender equal world”, free of bias, stereotypes and discrimination. It is a world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive, and where difference is valued and celebrated. Together we can forge women’s equality. Collectively, we can all break the bias.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham, Yardley) (Lab)
I thank the Speaker’s Office for its understanding every year in making time for me to read these names, and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for always securing the debate. This year, we are joined in the Gallery by Carole and Matt Gould and their son Zeb, and by Julie Devey. They are the families of Ellie Gould and Poppy Devey Waterhouse, whose names I read out in previous years. Both were brutally killed and taken from their families.
The act of remembrance that we undertake here every year is completely down to the work of Karen Ingala Smith and the Counting Dead Women project. She is the only person keeping this data, but her painstaking work over many years has meant that, unlike seven years ago when I first read the list, we are all more aware of the peril of femicide. That was not the Government’s doing, and they did not do the work; it was women, giving their labour away for free.
This week, I invited the families of the women I have listed over the years to come here to Parliament. I and the Labour party will be working with them to build a families manifesto for change. Each one of them had stories to tell: their daughters being murdered while their perpetrators were on bail; how their mother’s killer went away only for six years because he had taken drugs before he killed her; or killings that went un-investigated because the woman had taken drugs. Today, we live in a society where the excuse used by a perpetrator who kills, to get a lighter sentence, is used to victim-blame and diminish the innocence of a woman who has been killed, in the trial of her own death.
For every name that I am about to read, there will be a story about how better mental health services, even the slightest suggestion of offender management or the availability of quick specialist victim support, would have saved their lives. The perpetrators killed, but it is on us if we keep allowing a system where women live under the requirement of giving away their labour for free in the pursuit of their own safety.
The final name on the list when I stood here last year was one that we all know. Here are the names of the women killed since that supposedly watershed moment: Karen McClean; Stacey Knell; Smita Mistry; Samantha Mills; Dyanne Mansfield; Patricia Audsley; Phyllis Nelson; Klaudia Soltys; Simone Ambler; Emma McArthur; Sherrie Teresa Milnes; Constanta Bunea; Jacqueline Grant; Loretta Herman; Sally Metcalf; Sarah Keith; Peggy Wright; Charmaine O’Donnell; Michelle Cooper; Kerry Bradford; Julia James; Beth Aspey; Susan Booth; Mayra Zulfiqar; Maria Rawlings; Chenise Gregory; Agnes Akom; Wendy Cole; Caroline Crouch; Svetlana Mihalachi; Nicola Kirk; an unnamed woman; Agita Geslere; Alison Stevenson; Lauren Wilson; Peninah Kabeba; Jill Hickery; Bethany Vincent, who was killed alongside her nine-year-old son; Leah Ware; Esther Brown; Michaela Hall; Mildred Whitmore; Stacey Clay; Linda Hood; Marlene Coleman; Sophie Cartlidge; Gracie Spinks; Kim Dearden; Michelle Hibbert, who was killed alongside her husband; Sally Poynton; Catherine Wardleworth; Sukhjit Badial; Elsie Pinder; Catherine Stewart; Ishrat Ahmed; Tamara Padi; Katie Brankin; Sandra See; Beatrice Cenusa; Patricia Holland; Louise Kam; Yordanos Brhane; Amanda Selby; Malgorzata Lechanska; Megan Newborough; Diane Nichol; Maxine Davison; Kate Shepherd; Bella Nicandro; Eileen Barrott; Sharron Pickles; Helen Anderson; Jade Ward; Maddie Durdant-Hollamby; Fawziyah Javed; Ingrid Matthew; another unnamed woman; Sabina Nessa; Terri Harris, who was killed alongside her two children John and Lacey Bennett, and Lacey’s friend Connie Gent, who was there for a sleepover; Sukhjeet Uppal; Norma Girolami; Jekouki Jaboa; Nicole Hurley; Bonnie Harwood; Katrina Rainey; Marta Chmielecka; Ruth Dent; Josephine Smith; Dawn Walker; Yvonne Barr; Sarah Ashwell; Tamby Dowling; Pauline Quinn; Ilona Golabek; Alexandra Morgan; Tricia Livesey and her partner Anthony Tipping; Bobbi-Anne McLeod; Bori Benko; Jennifer Chapple and her husband Stephen; June Fox-Roberts; Malak Adabzadeh; Fernanda; Amber Gibson; Lily Sullivan; Caoimhe Morgan; Julia Howse; Beverley Taylor and John Taylor; Mary Fell and her husband; Kirsty Ashley; Brenda Blainey; Judith Armstrong; Freda Walker; Marlene Doyle; Yasmin Chkaifi; Lucy Powell, my constituent, who was killed at the age of 21; Marena Shaban; Lesma Jackson; Ashley Wadsworth; Charissa Brown; Katy Harris; Nicola Shaba; Dawn Trusler; and Valerie Warrington, alongside her husband.
I want to mention the names of four other women. Three women have been killed in the last month where no suspect has yet been charged. They are: Clair Ablewhite; Valerie Freer; and Naomi Hunte. Finally, a mention for Jomaa Jerrare, whose body was dumped and set on fire in a layby last August. Nobody has been charged with her murder.
Many women like Jomaa do not appear on our lists because no one is ever charged with their killing or because they die by staged homicide in a sudden death by falling from a building, overdose or suicide and we never look into the history of domestic abuse in their cases. The list is painfully long, but in reality it is much longer. We can make it shorter. Let us act faster.
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
The quality of the silence that accompanies the reading out of those names is always moving and compels us to change. I commend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for her work. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on opening the debate and leading on this important issue. Sadly, we need to keep leading, following and working to change the world. Seeing the televised images of the bombing of a maternity hospital speaks of such unimaginable evil, and surely that must compel the world to see things differently.
I am pleased to speak today as the 448th woman in Parliament. I did endeavour to find out from the House of Commons Library the number of men elected thus far so that we could see how much ground we must cover to begin to catch up, but that figure is still being sought. I am pleased none the less to be No. 448. I echo the hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) in paying tribute to my mum, who was born into poverty in 1930s Glasgow and outperformed her start in life by dint of her fierce personality. She changed the world for me, and she is my staunchest supporter, too.
I would like to pay tribute today to some of the amazing women in my constituency, who all, in their own way, are showing a better world and inspiring younger women to take their place. I will speak a little about the political scene. Although I see women excelling and coming forward in strong numbers across all sorts of different sectors—not least during the pandemic, when behind the amazing Pfizer and AstraZeneca success, women were very much leading the way—the issue of role models still exists, and that includes, in politics, how difficult it sometimes is to inspire other women to stand. The comments from my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) underpin why that challenge has become so difficult.
A few years ago, in my first term, I experienced a death threat and a court case. Women in my constituency have seen and still see what I go through—I am facing exactly the same situation again—and I reach out to them because their contribution to local government could be immense. They would bring tremendous experience and insight and they would be a power of good, but can I persuade them to stand? No. Even though we have really powerful role models, there is work to be done. I welcome the work on the online harms Bill, which I know will start to make a real difference in that sphere. Until then, it is for women to show the way.
I recently met Dr Amal, who was the first Speaker in the United Arab Emirates—indeed, the first Speaker in the Arab world. What an incredible role model she is. With her dignity, grace and courage, she is truly world-changing. Interestingly, in terms of her position and contribution, she paid tribute to the men in her life, and I would like to echo that. She paid tribute to her husband, her father and her sons, who have been her staunchest supporters. She said—there is some relevance here today—that behind many good women, there are often good men, and I offer the example of my colleagues today. Although women are showing a strong lead, we need to move together and it will take all of us to do that.
Let me turn to the women in my constituency who have all been honoured in the past year. First, there is Dorit Oliver-Wolff—an octogenarian now, but unstoppable. She is a holocaust survivor who has dedicated all her years to education and to reaching younger generations to inspire in them a message about how they can play their part in making the world a better place. She speaks even now and led on our Holocaust Memorial Day event. She is a published author and was a pop star in her younger years. Her defiance and commitment to a better world are unparalleled.
I will also profile Laura Murphy at The WayfinderWoman Trust. Run by women for women, it helps those who are feeling anxious and uncertain about themselves or their future. By building self-confidence and skills, it enables them to challenge the barriers that are facing them and to break the bias. It has been hugely impactful for women right across my constituency and beyond.
I will also mention the award winners Lucy Butt and Hollin Preston, who launched Bramber Bakehouse, which, again, was award-winning this year. Bramber—this is a very nice connection for us here in Parliament—was the constituency of William Wilberforce, who is one of my personal heroes for his work around slavery. Bramber Bakehouse provides baking, wellbeing and employability programmes for female survivors of human trafficking, equipping and empowering them.
With such women leading in all sorts of ways, I feel confident that the world can be a better place. Eastbourne is a better place for their work and we will hear more and more examples today of how women are really taking the lead and making the difference. We wish them all every success.
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)
This is the fifth International Women’s Day debate since I was elected in 2017, the fifth time that I have sat here to listen to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) read out the names of women killed in the last year, and the seventh time that she has read that horrific list compiled by our friend Karen Ingala Smith as part of her Counting Dead Women project. This year’s list is even longer than the last, but with several cases yet unsolved and many yet to go through court, that vile list and those grim statistics will sadly only increase.
It seems that those 125 men clearly have not been listening. They clearly did not hear as women around the world said, “Enough.” They did not see or hear those women at the vigils for Sarah and were not listening as we debated in this place and spoke about women’s rage and pain and what it is like to live in fear. We can add those men to the many whose victims were included in the work of artist Wilma Woolf, who visited Parliament this week. Her decorated dinner plates show women killed by men, listed by year and with a symbol to indicate how they met their deaths. Those symbols show a grim range of causes, from strangulation to being burnt, poisoned, drowned, shot, pushed from a balcony, decapitated and so on.
Wilma says of her work, made in conjunction with the Femicide Census, that it is designed to remember the women who have needlessly lost their lives and to highlight the institutionalised and systemic acceptance of this human rights abuse, which is often regarded as an inevitable part of men and women co-existing. The Femicide Census states that
“there is little suggestion that any intervention over the past ten years has had a significant impact or even any impact at all on the number of women being killed by men.”
This, then, is surely now an absolute emergency.
In the last couple of weeks alone, we have talked about this crisis of violence against women and girls—violence, rape, murder, whether at home or in a war zone. This violence affects 51% of the population—women who work, women who vote, women watching as we fail to do anything at all to reduce these horrific statistics.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Does the hon. Member agree that in some walks of life, such as the armed forces, women face even greater barriers to receiving support for domestic violence and harassment, and that the Government should work to ensure that there is parity so that the right support is offered to all women?
Rosie Duffield
I thank the hon. Member for that point; I absolutely agree.
What do women have to do? Should we collectively go on strike, stand still, lay down, leave our workplaces and homes or stand in the road or the motorway, silently disengaging with the systems and society that refuse to see or hear our rage? This is not a political hot potato; it is about society. Our representatives here have to lead, demand change and show change. It is our duty. Men need to know that without question or exception, this will not be tolerated and that nothing at all awaits them if they hurt or kill women apart from a prison cell.
Families of victims visited us here this week, again, thanks to my heroic hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. Their pain at the loss of their loved ones has been made worse by layers of injustice, keeping those wounds as raw as when they first heard that devastating news. These injustices would shock most people, such as the killer of their daughter, sister or mother still having control of her money or access to her children; or the fact that he raped her not being included in the charge sheet or factored into the sentencing decision. We have to do better, and this all has to change urgently through drastic action, changes to our courts, police and legal systems—whatever it takes. We should demand this on behalf of women in the UK, and I am demanding this as someone whose name could once have been read out by my hon. Friend.
Let us show that we are listening and making these lists shorter every year. I pray that next International Women’s Day, we do not have to be as angry, that we are celebrating change, hope and, above all, freedom for the incredibly brave women of Ukraine.
Claire Coutinho (East Surrey) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on initiating this important debate. As ever, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and the many hon. Members who have spoken so movingly about the women in Ukraine and women facing the most severe violence in this country.
In the spirit of this year’s theme “Break the Bias”, I want to focus my remarks on girls and women in science, maths and tech careers. I want to start by telling two stories. Born in 1815, Ada Lovelace was the child of poet Lord Byron and mathematician Lady Byron, and had a passion for mathematics from an early age. Despite childhood illness, Ada let nothing hold her back. Aged 12, she decided she wanted to fly. She examined the anatomy of birds and explored the best materials to create herself a set of wings. As a teenager—at just 18—she was working with mathematician Charles Babbage on one of the very first computers, almost 200 years ago. Despite later marrying and becoming a countess, Ada did not give up her passion for a life of leisure, and her work on the analytical engine means that she is widely recognised as one of the world’s first computer programmers.
Half a century after Ada was born, Agnes Pockels was born in Germany. She could not study at university like her brother because women were not allowed to at the time, and she had sick parents at home and therefore a lot of caring responsibilities. Stuck at home carrying out all the household chores, which I am sure we will all recognise, Agnes noticed soap building on the surface of her washing water. Aged 18, she began conducting experiments at home to understand more, and although she was locked out of accessing scientific literature, this did not stop Agnes. In 1891 she published her first scientific paper “Surface Tension” and she is now recognised as a pioneer in the field of surface science.
If we ask ourselves why we are here today, it is because women have historically been disenfranchised, disempowered and devoiced.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The hon. Lady is bringing to our attention a very interesting woman who made a lot of scientific progress. Does she know about Caroline Herschel? Together with her brother, she was an astronomer. She did more work than him, but her work was not recognised. Does she agree that we need to sing the praises of women from the past as much as possible?
Claire Coutinho
I agree. There are so many we could mention today—including Rosalind Franklin—whose work was not properly recognised at the time and whom we should recognise now.
Women have been shut out of the room where decisions are made and locked out of the jobs with the highest returns. I am glad that today we can celebrate much progress since the time of Ada and Agnes, but the fact is that women are still playing catch-up after centuries and centuries of inequality. PhD computer and data scientists are powering the economy, creating new billion-dollar companies in life sciences, artificial intelligence, fintech, health tech and beyond. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg—three of the richest people on the planet—were all STEM students and they now lead companies that are shaping the world around us, with arguably more power and certainly more wealth than our political leaders. In the years ahead the new Wall Street is going to be a wet lab.
We know that STEM subjects are some of the highest value added courses for future earnings. We also know that demand is surging for people to fill new high-quality tech and data science jobs. This field is now where the decisions are being taken and where the high-return jobs are being created. I want women to get their fair slice of the economic pie so that we are not playing catch- up in the decades to come.
Since 2010, under successive Conservative Governments, the number of women accepted on full-time STEM undergraduate courses in the UK has increased by almost 50%, but women still remain deeply under-represented in STEM subjects. Girls are only half as likely as boys to say that their strongest subject is science or maths, despite the fact that we know that they now regularly outperform boys in these subjects. A Girlguiding survey last year showed that over half of 11 to 21-year-old girls and women said that they felt that STEM subjects were more for the boys. Only 14.5% of engineers are women, and only 13% of STEM workers at management level are women. This is bias at work, and for the future of equality in this country we need to break it. There could not be a better time.
The success of the covid vaccine roll-out is an inspiration to so many young women in this country, who want to be the next Kate Bingham, Professor Sarah Gilbert or Dr Emily Lawson—or perhaps the next Ada Lovelace or Agnes Pockels. Luckily, today we live in an open society where women can access the world of academia, science and enterprise. However, we are still fighting centuries of bias. That is why I am delighted to be working with our fantastic Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza to encourage more women into advanced mathematical courses in particular. We will be hosting a roundtable later this month, so if any fellow Members are interested, please do get in touch. It is of the utmost importance to ensure that in the centuries ahead women are not playing catch-up once again.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)
It is always a privilege to speak in this debate, and I thank the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for bringing it forward year on year.
Despite the great progress made by the women who have come before us, women today are still subject to huge economic, social and political inequalities right across the world. Intersectional inequalities in particular should be highlighted here today. In its 2020 report and recommendations, the First Minister’s national advisory council on women and girls defined intersectionality as
“a framework for understanding how multiple categories of identity, such as gender, race and class, interact in ways that create complex systems in terms of oppression and power.”
How must it feel to be a woman who is disabled or of colour in the world today, even here in the UK? We know that disabled women are often disproportionately impacted by many of the inequalities experienced here.
The Glasgow Disability Alliance has spoken of the triple whammy facing disabled women today—from being disabled, being a woman and dealing with the impact of covid-19. An estimated 19% of women over 18 have a disability, compared with 12% of men. It is astonishing, and difficult to comprehend. Women, and disabled women in particular, face great bias and disadvantage in the workplace. Measures such as the right to call for flexible working from the start of employment would benefit those people, and benefit women generally, because women—let us be honest here—have a hugely disproportionate share of caring responsibilities, making it difficult for some of them to maintain or even take on work.
Women are also more likely to miss out on things like statutory sick pay. The UK, as we all know, has one of the lowest sick pay rates in the OECD, and this means that many women are not eligible for it—even women on maternity pay. So this might be a good place and time to call for an urgent overhaul of the wholly inadequate SSP system.
Crucial and long-awaited reforms to employment law are needed to keep caregivers—mainly women—and disabled women in the workplace and ensure that they get the support that they need to stay in work should they choose to do so. Disabled women are also disproportionately impacted by gender-based violence, and I thank the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips)—but I do not want to thank her; I want her not to have to do this year on year. We know that domestic violence and abuse are often under-reported. The World Health Organisation has estimated that around a third of women globally will be subjected to physical or sexual violence in their lifetime.
In 2017 the UN cited research estimating that disabled women experience domestic violence at twice the rate of other women and experience violence specifically because they are disabled. This has to stop. In Scotland there is a programme called “Equally Safe”, which is our strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls, focused on the need for prevention of violence. We need to make their priorities—achieving greater gender equality, intervening early and effectively and tackling perpetrators—things that happen as a matter of course right across the UK. We must continue to press for legislation to tackle gender-based violence, especially against women—it does happen to men as well, and we should never forget that.
Today we are all thinking of Ukraine, and showing solidarity with the women there. How many of us will ever forget the sight of a pregnant women being stretchered out of a hospital? This has to stop. There are many things that we can do, and I am going to make a personal plea to the Minister at this point, although I know it is not her responsibility. We cannot have people sitting at borders waiting to cross them. We have all acknowledged that the majority of refugees in Ukraine are women and girls; we have seen pictures of them at borders saying farewell to their men who are going back to fight. We should not be making people wait to come here. I would also call for article 11 of the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities to be taken into account as part of someone’s refugee status to help them to come here sooner.
All of us here, especially the women, have often been asked to give advice to young women who want to enter public life. I have been asked—and I had to think about it—how I got started. Well, I got started because a man stood down as a branch convenor and no one else would do it. I thought, “Here I go”, and I put myself forward, because I had been badly treated in a previous employment. The way I did it was this: I had to think of myself putting on a hat which would make me a different Marion; a Marion who could say and do things that I would normally not be able to say and do. I have given that advice to young women, but what I would really like to be able to say is “Ditch the hat; just cut the bias.” Let us do this on equal terms without having to build ourselves up to do it.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) for that inspiring close to her speech. I do not wish to disabuse her in any way, but I think she will find that quite a lot of men do quite a lot of pretending too. We may cover it up better, but the hon. Lady gave the right advice: everyone is better if they are just themselves, and we are better if we feel empowered to be ourselves.
This should be a debate in which we celebrate the re-empowerment of women. I say “re-empowerment” because there is now some evidence suggesting that in prehistoric societies women were not disempowered or subjected to male patriarchy. However, recent progress is being thrown into reverse, and not just by terrible wars and by that terrible list that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) reads out every year. In particular, the rights of women to women-only safe spaces are threatened—safe spaces such as public toilets, women’s hospital wards and women’s prisons.
Nearly all violence against women is committed by men, but there is a new and growing category of violence against women committed by people who call themselves women but are biologically male. We should always respond positively to people with genuine gender dysphoria, and I deliver this speech with kindness in my heart, but the Sexual Offences Act 2003 defines rape as when a person
“intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person…with his penis”
without consent. The Crown Prosecution Service reports that between 2012 and 2018 more than 436 cases of rape were recorded as being committed by women. The penis is a male organ, so these rapes are committed by men presenting themselves as women.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
Bastions of feminism—and I hear one on the other side of the House—who highlight this risk, and others such as Germaine Greer, Professor Kathleen Stott and Professor Jo Phoenix, and journalists such as Suzanne Moore, are bullied online and even hounded out of their jobs because they talk about this. But we, as legislators, must be clear and courageous about what a man is and what a woman is.
Today’s interim report from the independent review of gender identity services for children and young people by Dr Hilary Cass notes the rapid increase in the number of adolescent girls presenting with gender distress. It states:
“At present we have the least information for the largest group of patients—birth registered females first presenting in early teen years”.
It is essential that we understand why we are witnessing this historically unprecedented number of young girls who are finding puberty so difficult to navigate. The Government’s proposed conversion therapy Bill must be reviewed in the light of this, and we must wait until the full report comes out before we present the Bill for Second Reading.
It is a scientific fact that our biological sex is immutable. Professor Lord Winston said on the BBC’s “Question Time”:
“I will say this categorically—that you cannot change your sex. Your sex actually is there in every single cell in the body.”
The responsibility for clarity starts with us as legislators. We have to be clear about what words mean in our legislation—but, astonishingly, some of us are reluctant to be clear. A woman is an adult female human. Only this week, the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) was asked to define a woman on the media, and she was unable, or unwilling, to give a clear answer.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
I would like to ask the hon. Member for evidence for the statement he has just made. I would like him to provide a transcript of my comments—any quotes that he can find anywhere that would indicate that at any point I have not been clear about what a woman is. It is quite easy for me, given that I am a woman.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I have not furnished myself with a quote, but I am very happy to write to the hon. Lady. I can promise her that she did not answer the question when she was asked it.
Anneliese Dodds
I am afraid it appears that the hon. Member may not have followed the evidence concerning what I stated. Perhaps he has consulted social media rather than looking at what I actually did state. I hope he will withdraw the comment he has just made.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
If I have misled the House by misrepresenting the hon. Lady, I absolutely apologise for doing so. I will check the facts, and I will set the record straight if it is necessary for me to do so.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
I have just looked up the quote from the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). It may well be that she can clarify this. She was trying to explain the Labour party’s official definition of a woman, but she was asked for her own definition of a woman. She said:
“with respect…I think it does depend what the context is surely.”
She was not giving a clear personal definition, but perhaps she is able to do so now.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I will give way to the hon. Lady if she will give a clear definition.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. This has been a very good-natured debate so far, and it may now be useful if we just move on.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
There have been others representing the Opposition Front Bench, Mr Deputy Speaker, who have said things like “I am not going to go down that rabbit hole.” Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition said on “Marr” that the phrase “only women have a cervix”
“is something that shouldn’t be said. It is not right.”
This is a strange way to stand up for women’s rights.
The Government must reply to this debate with clear definitions of “man” and “woman”, as enshrined in the Equality Act 2010. They must commit to preventing biological men, whatever identity they claim and with whatever sincerity they claim that identity, from gaining access to women-only safe spaces. If they do not, the Government are failing to protect women.
Anneliese Dodds
Is the hon. Member aware that I referred in my remarks to the Equality Act, which makes that provision for single-sex spaces, and that I have done so repeatedly? It appears that he was not aware of that. I have no problem with criticism when it is on the basis of what I have done, but with respect, I do have a problem with criticism on the basis of things I have not done, particularly during this debate.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I was not actually talking about the hon. Lady at that particular point, but she has put on record what she feels, and maybe when she replies to the debate she will give us a definition of what she thinks a woman is.
The Government must also challenge the Scottish Parliament’s proposed Gender Recognition Reform Bill, because it intends to endow all UK citizens with new controversial rights that have not been approved by this Parliament. That was never the intention of the devolution settlement. Anyone from any part of the UK would be able to acquire a gender recognition certificate in Scotland with no medical diagnosis. They could then change the sex on their birth certificate and so gain the right to use women-only safe spaces. That is completely unacceptable.
Mrs Miller
I absolutely respect my hon. Friend’s right to make the speech that he is making, but he refers to safety in women-only spaces. Can he be clear in his remarks that for more than 10 years under the Equality Act, organisations such as Women’s Aid and Refuge have been ensuring that those spaces are absolutely safe by using risk assessments on everybody who uses them, whether they are men or women or indeed people who may be trans. This issue, while important, is already being practically dealt with by those organisations.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I am afraid that a great many women do not agree with my right hon. Friend, and I am speaking for them.
Joanna Cherry
Following on from that point, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there has been some confusion in the past about the extent to which single-sex services can be provided under the Equality Act, and that the planned updated guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission will be very welcome?
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I thank the hon. and learned Lady for that intervention, and I note what she says.
The SNP Minister Shona Robison said when she was introducing the Bill:
“There is no evidence that predatory and abusive men have ever had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory behaviour.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 3 March 2022; c. 65.]
That comment really misses the point. The point is that the Bill does create new opportunities for predatory men and I am afraid that my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) has to accept that there are plenty of instances where biological men have taken advantage of this new freedom being granted them, to the detriment of the safety of women.
Wera Hobhouse
I just want to clarify this point. Because there are some predatory men who will always find loopholes for violence, is that a reason for not protecting the most vulnerable people that we have—that is, the transgender community?
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I do not follow what the hon. Lady is saying. I am in favour of protecting the trans community in this country. What I am not in favour of is allowing biological men into women’s spaces where they can threaten women as a matter of right, however risk-assessed they might be. I do not know how you risk-assess somebody going into a public toilet or into other women-only safe spaces. The fact is that women are taking flight from the political parties that are supporting this kind of agenda. At least the Conservative party can be a safe haven for them if we stand up and speak for women.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
I would like to say that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), but actually it is not. It is unfortunate that he chose today to make his views known to us. I found them most unhelpful and out of step with today’s debate. It is a real pity that he did not use this opportunity to celebrate women, rather than take more time than any woman has taken today to make his speech.
I would like to start my contribution by reflecting on the shared and collective experiences of working class women in the Jarrow constituency over the last 90 years. As this country recovers from the covid-19 pandemic, I am reminded of the history of struggle that my constituency has faced in the past, and of how, despite being generations apart, the struggles of unemployment in the 1930s are difficult to separate from the aftermath of the covid-19 pandemic. It is important to note—and relevant to this debate—how both of those struggles have predominantly impacted working-class women.
For women in my constituency, the covid-19 pandemic has brought back economic and social circumstances that would not look out of place in the 1930s. Throughout the 1930s, it was women who suffered socially as a result of endemic unemployment and it was they who had to face the landlord, the butcher and the greengrocer as they had to manage a home on a significantly lower income. Ninety years later, throughout the coronavirus pandemic, when I look at the livelihoods of some in my constituency and the withdrawal of vital support and rising food and energy prices, it feels like history is beginning to repeat itself.
During the pandemic, support schemes such as the job retention scheme and the self-employment income support scheme overlooked the existing inequalities that women face in the labour market at a time when women took on the majority of home schooling and childcare, regardless of whether they were in paid employment or not. The Office for National Statistics has reported that since the start of, and at every point during, the pandemic, women reported significantly higher anxiety than men, with women being 1.3 times lonelier. A report from the Institute for Public Policy Research from April 2021 shockingly reported a 62% increase in the number of women disclosing that they had experienced sexual violence in the first four months of the pandemic. In the north-east alone, there was a 179% increase in reports from women of abuse.
When society grappled with the issues faced by 1930s unemployment, which peaked at 80% in Jarrow, the national Government targeted the poor through the means test. When this country faced the unprecedented economic effects of the covid-19 pandemic, this Tory Government made the choice to withdraw the £20 increase to universal credit. All those actions, past and present, have one common dominator: for the people in my constituency, they have had a disproportionate effect on working class and marginalised women. As we rightly reflect on the great successes and the battles that have been won by generations gone by in the fight for women’s and girls’ rights, I would like to remind the House of how critical it is as we mark International Women’s Day that we remember the responsibility we have in this House for how our actions here impact on all the women in our constituencies, and of the battle to get women into this place. On this, the late, great socialist Ellen Wilkinson said:
“Women have worked hard; starved in prison; given of their time and lives that we might sit in the House of Commons and take part in the legislating of this country.”
I would like to personally say how fantastic it is that, in my local area, the leader and deputy leader of South Tyneside local authority, the Member for a neighbouring constituency—my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mrs Lewell-Buck)—and the local police and crime commissioner are positions all represented by women. I was proud to stand on Labour’s 2019 manifesto, which sought to address some of the imbalances in our society that I have referred to, particularly with the commitment to close the gender pay gap by 2030, the demand that all workplaces have a menopause policy and the policy that survivors of domestic abuse would be entitled to 10 days of paid leave. Those much-needed policies have unfortunately been largely ignored and have faded away as we enter the current post-pandemic political world. They are policies that have never been more needed.
My constituency is full of outstanding, brave and inspirational women, from doctors and nurses in our NHS to volunteers in our food banks, from teachers in our schools to workers in our shops, and in so many other positions both voluntary and paid. Women contribute so much to our communities, and they are often on low pay and in insecure work. On International Women’s Day, I say thank you to them.
I commit to all the women in my constituency and beyond to continue holding this Government to account on all issues, but none more so than those issues that so often have a disproportionate impact on women and girls.
Jane Hunt (Loughborough) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this debate. She is a leader among women, and I thank her personally for all the help and support she has given to me since I was elected in 2019. Thank you very much.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) made an extremely moving speech in which she read out a very long list of women who have been murdered over the last year. I would add the name of a women from my Loughborough constituency who was not murdered but suffered life-changing injuries at the age of 19 that mean she will never again live a normal life. Her name is Angel Lynn, and hon. Members will perhaps have seen the CCTV video of her being picked up by her boyfriend and physically carried into the back of a van. She was kidnapped and, to use the words of the court, “fell out” of the van at high speed on the A6 in Loughborough.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I remind the hon. Lady that this case is sub judice.
Mr Deputy Speaker
That is the advice I have received, so please be very careful. The Attorney General has referred the sentence as being too lenient.
Jane Hunt
I apologise, Mr Deputy Speaker.
Since it was first observed in 1911, International Women’s Day has been a driving force for change. It is a day not only to empower women and celebrate their achievements but to raise awareness of equality issues and the very real injustices that women still face today. This year is no exception, with the theme of “Break the Bias” encouraging us all to call out gender bias, discrimination and stereotyping to ensure greater female participation and progression in our communities, our workplaces and our schools, colleges and universities.
As an MP, I am incredibly fortunate to be able to use my experiences as a woman in the workplace and as a mother, as well as the experiences of the thousands of women in my constituency, to help influence the change that is needed. Sadly, however, I am in a very small minority of women who have had this opportunity, being the 499th female of only 559 to have ever been sworn into the House of Commons—this is, of course, fewer than the number of MPs elected at any one election.
Thankfully, we are seeing the number of female MPs increase, with 220 women elected at the last election, which is the most ever. That said, it means that only 34% of MPs are women, despite the 2011 census finding that 51% of the population are women. There is clearly a lot more work still to do to ensure women are properly represented.
Margaret Ferrier
Does the hon. Lady agree that we all have a part to play, men included, in getting women elected? Former councillor Gordon Clark encouraged me to stand for election, and I will be forever grateful that he did. Men can use their platform and voice to further equality in these spaces, too.
Jane Hunt
I absolutely agree. Councillor Richard Shepherd of Charnwood Borough Council encouraged me to stand as a candidate for the Conservative party.
If we want to increase the number of women in public life generally, we must ensure we are leading from the front. I know this is of particular importance to the Government, the Opposition and the House, and I welcome that, over the last decade, there has been a real focus on removing the barriers faced by women who want to become an MP and enter government, most recently with the introduction of the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Act 2021, which will ensure that women are not forced to choose between becoming a mother and progressing in their career.
The importance of having more women in Parliament cannot be overstated; not only do women have a unique perspective on society and the workplace, but they have been responsible for, and instrumental in, some incredibly important pieces of legislation, such as those banning female genital mutilation, criminalising domestic violence and ensuring that women can build up pension entitlement in their own right. They also help to inspire the next generation of female politicians and women in public life. I was inspired to get into politics after hearing that our first female Prime Minister had taken office, causing me to investigate what that meant for our country and understanding that politics is a profession for women— I was 13 at the time.
As well as in Parliament, it is crucial that we have female representation in all walks of life, particularly in the workplace and the boardroom. I am delighted that progress has been made in that area, with the UK having the highest women in work index score in the G7 and being second in the international rankings for female board representation. However, there are still more barriers to remove if we are to create an environment where women can really progress, such as bias around pay and promotion, unacceptable workplace cultures, and issues with the ability to balance work and caring responsibilities, which all too often fall disproportionately on women. I know that the Government are committed to tackling those issues and I am fully supportive of the action we are already taking, for it is vital that we support women in the workplace.
I am talking about women such as the impressive managers and leaders I met last year at Tarmac, in my constituency, who were incredibly skilled experts, leading the way in their respective fields. Whether they are nurturing, shaping business or developing projects and goals, women have a great contribution to make and I urge us all to work together to ensure that women have the opportunity to put their stamp on local communities, businesses and the future of this country.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
This week, I attended a meeting with the brave Ukrainian women politicians at the British Inter-Parliamentary Union to discuss the humanitarian impact that war has on women and girls. News last night that the war criminal Putin now bombs maternity hospitals fills us all with disgust—this is clearly a war crime. Yesterday, I chaired an event with six brave Afghan women to discuss the regressive impact the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has had on women’s and girls’ rights. One told me:
“Before the Taliban takeover I was someone. The day after the Taliban took over I was no one.”
It was clear from the meeting that any engagement with the Taliban must be done on the basis of strict conditionality in support of women’s and girls’ rights in public services, employment and civil society. I wish to take this opportunity to express my solidarity with those and other women in the world living in war zones or under repressive regimes.
Today, however, I wish to talk about access to reproductive healthcare, which has been crucial in the improvement of women’s rights globally. The development of the contraceptive pill in the middle of the 20th century is considered one of the most crucial developments in the women’s rights movement; reproductive rights are fundamental to the physical, psychological and social wellbeing of women. I am chair of the all-party group on sexual and reproductive health in the UK, and we know that there are still too many obstacles facing women in accessing this vital healthcare. One woman recently said:
“I find it very difficult to find a clinic that’s accessible and has appointments out of office hours.”
Figures from University College London, published last year, show that the proportion of unplanned pregnancies in the UK has almost doubled during the pandemic. There is still much work to do to ensure that women and girls have full control over their reproductive health. In 2020, the all-party group published the findings of our inquiry into access to contraception. We found that women are finding it increasingly difficult to access contraception that suits them, and this is a situation made much worse by the pandemic. Even in today’s The Guardian there is an article by Nell Frizzell entitled
“A 10-week wait for a coil? British women are facing a quiet crisis in contraceptive care”.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
I want to put on record that one reason why women are finding it increasingly difficult to access contraception easily is that we have a number of commissioning funding streams in the NHS, which is leading to under-commissioning of this vital resource. At a time when perhaps one in three pregnancies are unplanned, which is leading to more abortions, which are themselves a less safe method of dealing with reproductive health than contraception, will the right hon. Lady join me in encouraging the Government to look properly at how contraception is commissioned?
Dame Diana Johnson
Absolutely. I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for all the work she has done; she took a particular interest in this issue when she was a Health Minister. That brings me to my next point: despite practitioners’ best efforts, covid-19 exacerbated existing problems—including long-standing funding cuts and the fragmentation in commissioning structures to which the hon. Lady just referred—leading to further restrictions to access.
The public health grant has faced serious cuts over the past decade. Evidence presented to our inquiry suggested that sexual and reproductive health budgets were cut by £81.2 million—12%—between 2015 and 2017-18. It is estimated that during the same period contraceptive budgets were cut by £25.9 million, or 13%. In Hull, where my constituency is, spending on contraception has fallen by 38% since 2013-14, and almost half of councils have reduced the number of sites that deliver contraceptive services in at least one of the years since 2015.
Our inquiry heard that long-acting reversible contraception fittings have been most severely impacted. In 2018-19, 11% of councils reduced the number of contracts with GPs to fit LARCs, and GPs are not adequately funded to provide LARC, which disincentivises their provision. The disparity among regions is stark. In my city, the rate for GPs prescribing LARC is only 2.1 women per 100,000; whereas in other parts of the country it is 51.5 women per 100,000. Access issues have particularly hit marginalised groups, with services reporting a drop in the number of young, black, Asian and minority ethnic people requesting the services.
As we continue to emerge from the pandemic, we have a unique opportunity to reshape contraceptive services according to the needs of women. For example, we should offer contraception as part of maternity services. If we integrated care around the needs of individuals, women would be able to have all their reproductive health needs met at a single point of care. I hope that those points, and the recommendations from our report, are reflected in the Government’s upcoming sexual and reproductive health strategy.
I wish to finish by talking about telemedicine for early medical abortion. I am absolutely furious at the Government’s decision to end telemedicine for early medical abortions after 30 August, ignoring the clinical evidence and advice of many royal colleges and clinicians. I am sorry that the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), who was in her place earlier, has left the Chamber, because I wanted her in particular to hear my comments on this issue.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I agree entirely with the right hon. Lady. Like me, she will welcome the fact that Wales is continuing the arrangement that I understand is to be drawn to an end in England in September. That leads to questions in Wales as to why it is being permitted. There are really serious questions, particularly on this day, about why the Government here are bringing the arrangement to an end at the end of covid.
Dame Diana Johnson
I absolutely agree with the right hon. Lady. Let me clear, so we are all aware in the Chamber, that telemedicine for early medical abortion services has enabled thousands of women to access care at home via both pills being posted to them following a telephone consultation with a qualified nurse or midwife. The evidence from the medical community is absolutely crystal clear. A study of more than 50,000 abortions before and after the change in England and Wales, published by the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in February 2021, concluded that telemedical abortion provision is
“effective, safe, acceptable, and improves access to care”.
Evidence also shows that telemedicine means women can access an abortion much earlier in their pregnancy, with 40% of abortions provided at less than six weeks.
As well as the consensus in the medical community, women—including the influential Mumsnet—also support the continuation of telemedicine for abortion services. An independent poll of more than 1,100 women throughout the UK, commissioned by the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, shows that a clear majority want telemedicine for early medical abortion to remain.
As the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) said, the Welsh Government have announced that they will make the pathway permanently available in Wales. I therefore struggle to see how the decision to end this service in August is in line with the Government’s commitment to put women at the centre of their own healthcare, as set out in the vision for the women’s health strategy. It is simply based on the Health Minister’s own prejudice. It is deeply disappointing and it flies in the face of all the other measures that have been taken within the NHS around virtual appointments and to use digital technology.
Caroline Nokes
I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments on this matter; she is making a really powerful point. Does she feel, as I do, that this is sending a message that the Government do not trust women to make their own decisions about their own reproductive health?
Dame Diana Johnson
The Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee puts that very well. That is exactly the message that is being sent out. I notice that time is going by, so I will conclude.
I, alongside many parliamentary colleagues across the House and in the other place, medical bodies and women’s groups, such as the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners and Women’s Aid, are calling on the Government now to explain exactly how they will review this decision, as they have promised to do. Where access to reproductive healthcare is limited, there is a ripple effect on the health and social wellbeing of women and girls. We must continue to stand up for the rights of women to have full control over our own health and our own bodies. We still, apparently, have some way to go to achieve that.
Ruth Edwards (Rushcliffe) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for securing this debate, which is always moving, inspiring and wide-ranging.
We have quite rightly reflected on the horror that Putin’s war in Ukraine is inflicting on women there, which was demonstrated in last night’s barbaric bombing of a maternity hospital. The haunting speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) reminds us—as it does every year—of the many women who are not with us to celebrate International Women’s Day today. Among them this year is my constituent Clair Abelwhite whose murder has shocked the rural community of Colston Bassett in Rushcliffe. The case is ongoing and an arrest has just been made, so I will not be discussing it any further today, but I did want to put it on record that my thoughts and prayers are with her friends and family, especially with her small children.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) also brought up the achievements of women in STEM, and I will be asking her to feature in my campaign for British Science Week next week, when we are profiling some of the brilliant women who have STEM careers, and I hope to encourage more women and girls into those.
Today, I want to celebrate the achievements of an incredible group of women—female entrepreneurs—whose energy, dynamism, creativity and sheer bloody hard work create new jobs and grow our economy. The UK set a new record last year: 140,000 women started their own businesses. In total, 20% of new firms are now led by women, but—and there is a but—it is estimated that only 1% of venture capital goes to female entrepreneurs.
I want to call out two brilliant women in Rushcliffe—Sarah King and Claire Dunn of “we are radikl”. They decided that this had gone on for far too long and are trying to do something about it. As the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows) proved in her speech, if you want something done, get a woman to do it. They have started their “Over Being Underfunded” campaign to increase access to investment for female entrepreneurs. I went to see them last week—they have an office just down the road from mine. My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) said that she loved a rebel. Well, they have a brilliant piece of artwork on their wall, which is called, “Rebels get results”. It is a fabulous print and I am looking at purchasing a copy for the Chief Whip, who, I am sure, will be delighted with it.
Their campaign has three main asks. The first is to extend the current timeframe from two years to three to secure the investment that is offered to entrepreneurs via the Government’s seed enterprise investment scheme. That extension would reflect, on average, the greater amount of time that women spend on caring responsibilities —it was twice as much as men during the pandemic—which obviously gives them less time to spend on their businesses, meaning that, sometimes, they take longer to scale. Women are also less likely than men to have access to investor networks, so it takes them longer to build those relationships.
The campaign is also asking for gender, race and ethnicity reporting to be introduced on the seed enterprise investment scheme, in terms of both the entrepreneurs it works with and the investors. Finally, it wants to see more support, mentoring and awareness campaigns targeting early-stage women entrepreneurs, because they know women are less likely to know about schemes such as SEIS and more likely to be up for mentoring and other similar types of support.
The “we are radikl” team hope that Ministers in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Treasury will engage with the campaign, and that BEIS’s enterprise strategy, to be published later this year, will reflect its asks. They are doing so much to address the problem, building their own network of investors, Halo, and breaking down myths and perceived bias in the investor community. The Government commissioned the Alison Rose review in 2019, which identified a £250 billion boost to the UK economy through breaking down barriers to female entrepreneurs. However, we will not get very far if 99% of venture capital is passing female-led firms by. That is something the Government must turn their attention to now.
I welcome the huge amount of work the Government have done to get women into senior positions in business, and I am delighted that we are now second in the world for female representation on boards. That has increased by 50% in the past six years—as it should. We must now focus our attention on doing more to empower our female entrepreneurs. If we are to take advantage of the record number of female-led businesses founded last year, that must be a priority for us.
I wish a happy International Women’s Day to Sarah, Claire and all the brilliant women they work with. I look forward to working with them and seeing the jobs and innovation that their businesses will bring to the UK. I hope Ministers will agree to meet us to learn more about the experience of the female entrepreneurs in the “we are radikl” network and that those experiences can be better reflected in the Government’s approach to supporting female entrepreneurs.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (Ruth Edwards), and I thank the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for securing the debate.
International Women’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women, to reflect on the progress we have made in fighting for gender equality, and to campaign for the change we still need to see in our society. I will come on to each of those points shortly, but I will begin my speech by focusing on the international part of International Women’s Day—in particular, the women around the world whose lives are being torn apart by conflict and violence.
Women in Ukraine face unimaginable hardship as they watch their home towns being attacked, as they make the heart-wrenching decision whether to leave their family and their country behind in search of safety and as they are forced to defend their country against Russian aggression. Women in Afghanistan see years of progress in educating girls being rolled back overnight, face a crisis of hunger and economic collapse and remain separated from their families as they too try to reach safety.
We know that war has a devastating impact on the lives of women. It increases incidents of gender-based violence and the appalling use of sexual violence. It disrupts essentials services such as health and education that so many women and girls rely on, and it leads to the displacement of millions of people.
I hope the Government can commit to specific and practical support to women in Ukraine and Afghanistan. For example, there are often shortages of sanitary and period products as conflicts unfold, so could the Minister ensure that they form part of the UK’s aid to Ukraine? In Afghanistan, there is still a need for the Government to do more to help the women left behind, for example by supporting efforts to restart girls’ education in the country. I also urge the Government to do more to support women in Afghanistan who want to rejoin their families in this country, including many of my constituents.
Turning to some issues closer to home, I raise once again the proposal for Valerie’s law, which would introduce mandatory cultural competency training for the police and other agencies dealing with black victims of domestic violence. According to the domestic violence charity Sistah Space, 86% of women of African or Caribbean heritage in the UK have either been a victim of domestic abuse or know a family member who has been assaulted. Yet despite this alarming number, the police still too often ignore the nuances that complicate black survivors’ experience with trying to get support. For example, some black women are told by the police that they cannot see any bruises, leading them to dismiss dangerous and life-threatening situations. Bruises are not always as visible on black women’s skin as on women with lighter complexions.
The UK’s largest single provider of domestic abuse services, Refuge, recently published data showing that black women were 14% less likely to be referred by police to use its services than white survivors. Valerie’s law is named after Valerie Forde, who, along with her baby daughter, was murdered by Valerie’s ex-partner in 2014 despite reporting threats that were overlooked by the police. I am working with Sistah Space to help to campaign for this important change, and I am looking forward to an upcoming petitions debate on the issue.
Secondly, I am proud to chair the Labour Women’s Network, which supports women standing for election and advocates for greater representation within our party and beyond. Over the last year, we have been leading a campaign, Keep the Good Stuff, which recognises that some of the innovations during the pandemic have been beneficial to women in in balancing their work and family lives. I firmly believe that employers, political parties and indeed the Government must look closely at how flexible working and other pandemic-related measures can continue in the years to come. Another part of LWN’s work is training women to stand for public office—for example, through the Jo Cox Women in Leadership scheme. Sadly, we now have to dedicate half our programme to resilience and self-care given the levels of online abuse that women standing for office can expect to face. Women from black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds, members of our LGBT+ community and disabled people experience more online abuse than other people. We must see more action from both the Government and the social media platforms on this issue. We will be watching closely to ensure that the online safety Bill lives up to the promises on this issue.
I end my speech on a positive note by recognising some of the inspirational women whose work and activism in my constituency too often goes unnoticed. They are women such as Charlotte Blades and Gwen Fayemi, who help to run Bexley food bank; Jattinder Rai, CEO of Bexley Voluntary Service Council; Ruth Russell, volunteer chair of Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice; Sarah Batten, co-director of The Exchange Erith; and Kavita Trevena, who runs a support network and community investment organisation for women suffering from post-natal depression. I also thank the female councillors in my constituency for all their hard work, and send my best wishes to the excellent female local candidates standing in the local elections in May. Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the brilliant women in my office without whom I could not do my job: Abby, Yinka, Grace, and Alice.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to join in this debate. Like other Members, my thoughts this afternoon are with the women of Ukraine. I particularly thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for her speech, which frankly had me filling up, so I am glad I have had some time to deal with my emotions.
Thinking of war situations where women are leaving or seeing their sons, husbands and fathers being involved in fighting, 30 years ago last week the independent state of Bosnia was founded, having itself been subjected to significant wars. I am reminded of my regular visits to Srebrenica and the memorial at Potočari, which is lovingly maintained by bereaved women who lost their sons, fathers, brothers and uncles. We all know the story of what happened with the genocides in Bosnia. Many of those women do not have a body, or even a body part, but they are dealing with their grief by maintaining the memorials to other victims as well as their own. At this time, there will inevitably be bereaved women who have left their husbands and sons behind and do not know what their ultimate fate is going to be. For me as a Member of Parliament in this fantastic first-world country of Great Britain, I feel hopelessly inadequate watching these events unfold. We must do everything we can to support all those victims, and particularly to give safe havens to those refugees who are fleeing.
I would like to reflect on some of the other contributions made today, particularly that of the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson). I say to the Government that as the right hon. Lady has shown, we are making lots of noise about women’s health and breaking lots of taboos in that space, but fundamentally, the biggest source of our oppression is our biology—our reproductive biology. The ability of women to control their fertility and manage their reproductive rights in a safe way depends on adequate contraception services, and also on a safe abortion law. I will repeat what I have said many times in this place: the abortion law is more than 50 years old. It was written before we had medical abortion, when abortion was a surgical procedure and was much more dangerous for that reason. If we are really going to look at women’s reproductive rights from the perspective of safety, may I helpfully suggest that we need a review that does not rely on individual Members of Parliament tackling this as a matter of conscience? This is about how we deliver a safe environment for women to be able to manage their reproductive rights and their fertility. Until we properly bring that law up to date and into the 21st century, any semblance of a positive women’s health strategy is for the birds. I leave that as a challenge for the Government.
I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on bravely stepping into the debate about sex and gender, and the conflict of rights that arises from conflating the two—a conflict of rights that has not been adequately tackled by either of the Front-Bench teams in this place. Frankly, that is a disgrace; it is not fair to transgender people or to women, and it is high time that we did so. I am glad that my hon. Friend has done it, and the fact that he is a man doing it on International Women’s Day is a matter not for criticism, but for celebration. I am also pleased to see my hon. Friends the Members for Devizes (Danny Kruger) and for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) present, because on the last two occasions I attended this debate, there were no men. This is a way forward, because we need men to value and celebrate women too; this should not be a women-only party.
Jackie Doyle-Price
My apologies—how could I forget my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley)?
Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)
I had planned to listen rather than speak, but can I say two things to my hon. Friend? The first is to ask whether in winding up this debate, the Minister can say what harm was done by, and what benefits there were from, early, easy and safe contraception by telephone. There is a responsibility on Government to give that information in the open so that we can challenge it if necessary, or agree with it if they say it was safe, easy and convenient—that it had benefits.
Secondly, on the issue of sex and gender, I agree with my hon. Friend that people need to speak much more openly, and that those who call people like Professor Kathleen Stock a dangerous extremist for her book “Material Girls” clearly have not read it. She, Jo Phoenix and others have written very plainly and sympathetically about trans people, but have also written determinedly that sex matters, and that women should be safe and feel protected.
Jackie Doyle-Price
I thank my hon. Friend for those comments. The fact remains that women are entitled to single-sex spaces for their own sake; this should not just be about risk assessment and danger. We should be able to make choices about when we want to enter spaces without men present, and that should be as important as any potential risk that any man might pose.
I will focus the substance of my comments this afternoon on the criminal justice system, though, as we are talking about breaking the bias. I do so in my capacity as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on women in the penal system. Without reiterating points made by my hon. Friends, this comes back to the point that men and women are different, and our laws and—in particular—our criminal justice system need to reflect that.
We have had a real move towards gender neutrality in how we approach public service delivery and how we produce law, but standing here in a debate to commemorate International Women’s Day, I tend to view gender neutrality as just another way of centring men, because it is making us all the same, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the criminal justice system. We have a penal system built on prisons and based on the principle that we incarcerate violent, dangerous men, and that has been the approach to women. We have seen study after study that has shown that prison is not the best place for women offenders, because more often than not, women offenders are more vulnerable than their male counterparts.
Call me a pink-hearted liberal, but I tend to view our prison population as being full of people who have been failed by the state, and that is a matter of shame for me. It is particularly the case when it comes to women. We know that there are high rates of illiteracy and innumeracy among our prisoners, so how are they going to get on in life? We know that there are a huge number of people who have been through the care system and then been left on the scrapheap. In the case of women, we know that many of them are victims of sexual abuse, and in that context, prison is not the best place for them, and study after study has shown that.
Every time we make progress in this area and we start to say, “This is an opportunity for a first intervention to support women and address that vulnerability”, we then seem to go backwards. I highlight the fact that this Government have a female offenders strategy but equally are investing in 500 more prison places for women, and we need to properly join the dots and use the opportunities to make interventions to support women and break the cycle of offending. We all know that once someone has been incarcerated, the chance that they then embark on a lifetime of reoffending and re-entering prison is very high. That is not good for them, but nor is it good for society or the taxpayer. We need to get this right.
We know also that many women do not belong in prison in the first place. One issue I have been taking up with the Ministry of Justice is the extent to which women are remanded in prison for their own protection. We have a mental health policy that has been removing police cells and prisons as places of safety—recognising that they are not good environments for people who are mentally unwell—but we are still remanding women in prison for their own safety. I thought it would be only a small number of women, probably no more than a dozen a year. Having raised the issue with the Government, I could not get any data on it. However, Her Majesty’s inspectorate of prisons visited three prisons last year and in total found 68 women who had been remanded in prison for their own protection. They were not people who had committed an offence, and it was not a punishment. It is totally inappropriate for a country such as this to be remanding women in prison for that purpose, and that was in just three prisons. Across the whole system, we know that women being remanded for their own protection are a significant proportion of the prison establishment, and frankly that is not good enough. I am ashamed of it, and I call on the Government to do better.
My criticism is not with the Ministry of Justice. One of the issues is that the Ministry of Justice is sweeping up the failings of other organisations within the public sector. It is sweeping up the ability of local authorities to offer safe spaces for women to be sent to when they are at risk. Mental health services are sweeping up that failure by the Department of Health and Social Care, and I encourage the Ministry of Justice to be rather more robust in its dealings with other Departments and say, “You know what? These are not our problems, they are yours.” We should not be dealing with vulnerable people within our estate.
The other side of the criminal justice system where women are particularly negatively impacted is as victims, and we have had a number of debates in recent weeks about the poor prosecution rates for sexual violence crimes and rape in particular. Having spoken to victims, I understand that one of the reasons for that is that they are treated as a piece of evidence in that prosecution. If someone has gone through trauma, constantly reliving that in a dehumanising way is not the best way to ensure that we bring people to punishment. We really have to look at that.
There has been a lot of investment in services, but we have still not got it right. My biggest challenge on that point is that the likelihood of a victim getting justice depends on who they are. Victim-blaming, which we heard reference to earlier in the debate, is at the heart of that. Over and over again, assumptions are made about victims that impede their ability to get justice. White working-class girls in northern towns and cities were victims of abuse for many years before public authorities would pay proper attention to it, because they were not prepared to make that challenge.
I also highlight what we loosely describe as “honour killings”. What kind of a phrase is that to describe people being murdered? They are murdered by their families, who should love them and keep them safe, and we call that an honour killing—“honour”, which is a positive word, and “killing” for murder. That very phrase is an illustration of the discrimination against those victims; I am getting emotional just thinking about it.
In the context of the list that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) read out, we do not have to do much of a study to realise the socio-economic background of most of those victims. The only ones that we ever read about in the papers—the ones who the media get excited about—are nice white middle-class people with professional backgrounds. People who engage in prostitution disappear every week and do not get a column inch, but they are victims. They are women who are victims of male violence against women and girls.
Let us not pussyfoot around it: this is a gendered crime. My hon. Friends who are present—my hon. Friends the Members for Boston and Skegness, for Devizes, for Harwich and North Essex, for Totnes (Anthony Mangnall) and for Worthing West—will not take offence when I point out that those crimes are committed by men, which is exactly what we need to face up to. We will not tackle that issue unless we tackle it as a society, which means men stepping up too.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an extraordinarily impassioned speech. She is absolutely right to make the point that men are 99% of the problem, but we can be 50% of the solution.
Jackie Doyle-Price
I welcome that comment from my hon. Friend and I am not surprised to hear it from him. I would go further than that, however: we will not fix the problem until men become part of the solution. I am afraid that the Government need to stop pussyfooting around by talking about violence against women and girls and call it what it is—male violence against women and girls.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
It is a genuine pleasure to follow my friend on the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price). As a former Health Minister, her comments about the importance of Health Ministers paying heed to experts and patient safety are incredibly well made. What we are seeing now is an absolute disgrace and I know that we will get it overturned.
As I look around this Chamber, I am honoured to be surrounded by many brilliant and inspirational women. We often focus, as we have done in this debate—it is important—on the way in which women’s lives could be improved, but I want to give a clear message to women, particularly young women, about how great it is to be a woman.
I love being a woman and I love being an woman MP—number 430. I worry that we are sending some bad messages to young women. Once they have navigated adolescence, which is hard for everyone, we talk about pay gaps, glass ceilings, judgment about whether they will have a child, worry about whether they can have a child, constantly having to refight the battle that, “It is my body and I control it,” and the violence. Then there is the menopause, osteoporosis and the pensions gap, and then they might find themselves in an inadequate care system that employs low-paid women to support older women facing social isolation. It is not a happy picture, is it?
There are many issues that, of course, blight women’s lives in my constituency and beyond, but today I want to challenge that narrative and celebrate how great it is to be a woman. Young women going into the new workforce in the future have so much to look forward to. There are huge opportunities in the workforce of the future, with improved research on women’s health issues, a longer healthy life expectancy, and a culture that is changing how we think about family roles and recognising the key care-giving role that men are starting to play.
I learned my politics, as a young woman in the 1970s and 1980s, from watching and learning from the women around me—my mother, my aunties, my grandmother—and they formed me. However, I learned that what went on in the home and the discussions women had around the table were often not actually the same as what was talked about in public. I think that is particularly true of those of us from a working class Irish population in this country. I learned that women as individuals have power, and we can influence things and do remarkable things, but I also learned as I grew up that unless we have economic and political power to change the structures in which we live, we can never be equal in that society. I have seen such a change, and I have been part of that remarkable change. Thanks to the women in the Labour party that I joined in the 1980s, we have changed structures, forced through all-women shortlists and changed the face of Parliament in 1997.
In Bristol, I am very proud to have worked for women MPs at that time—we had women MPs leading that charge—and I am really proud to work with my hon. Friends in Bristol at the moment, the Members for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I commend the positive celebration by Bristol Live of 137 women from across Bristol this week. If we look just at the vaccination effort, I would like to highlight my long-time friend and colleague, Bristol’s director of public health, Christina Gray. The vaccination effort was led by the head nurse, Anne Morris, and the clinical commissioning group was led by its chief executive, Julia Ross. I would also like to welcome Sarah Crew as our new police chief constable. There are more amazing women involved in community action than I can mention today, but I really want to pay tribute to those women in my constituency who are leading and inspiring in fields as diverse as tackling food poverty, the charitable sector, music and the arts.
In my lifetime, the opportunities for women have expanded exponentially, and I am so proud of all those women here and across the country—I am proud to be one of them here—who are continuing to push the boundaries so that everywhere we can lead our lives to the full, because it is really fun being a women. I love how we form friendships, share experiences, swap tips for getting through life, trade secrets, organise, challenge, do politics and make change. I love our creativity and our variety, and I love how we always remember what we can achieve if we put our minds to it. I want to celebrate that joy.
We can achieve so much individually, but we do need structures to support women’s efforts, and the Labour party has consistently taken action to ensure that we get the structural change that women need. Labour Governments have shown what can be achieved, and Labour Governments introduced legislation on equal pay, sex discrimination, equalities, the minimum wage and maternity rights. The next Labour Government will do the same, I hope with my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds). There can be no levelling up anywhere unless women’s work, inside and outside employment, is at the heart of all plans, and currently it is not—not just on pay, but on good terms and conditions. There was so much during the pandemic that we can learn about for the future that was led by women. Companies with women at the top perform better and women-led businesses contribute billions to the economy, and we will be at the heart of the next Government and the next rise in the economy.
I am the mother of three boys, who are growing into fantastic young men. I am so proud of them, and I am so conscious of how important women are as role models for everyone, not just other women. We need to ensure that conversations and education focus not only on what women can achieve, but on how important our male allies are, and that tackling many of the challenges mentioned today requires a change in the dominant culture surrounding male behaviour. Following the very sad loss recently of our colleague Jack Dromey, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) said, when she spoke about Jack, that he thought his role in life was to lift her up. I am so honoured to have my husband Rob to do the same for me, and I would not be here without him.
It is a century since the first women Labour MPs were elected. I am privileged not only to be the MP for the great constituency of Bristol South, but to be surrounded by so many others, and I pay tribute to them all. In my time here, we have had Brexit, covid and now war. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) highlighted the other day that over 90% of the Brexit debates were dominated by men. We will not let that happen when we talk about the war, the future and the horrific things happening to women right now in Ukraine. Men do often dominate the public face of such debates, but we will not let them do so. Our message to women is, “We are here, we are staying, we are growing and we are pulling you up with us”.
Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)
It is a privilege to speak again in the debate on International Woman’s Day. It has become something of a cliché for men speaking in this debate to talk about themselves as having suddenly awakened to feminism when they become fathers of daughters, and to me that has always rather prompted a question about what sort of world those fathers thought that the mothers of their daughters lived in. None the less, it is perhaps not a wholly useless lens through which to look at some of this debate.
I sent my daughter, Eleanor, to school on World Book Day dressed as Rosie Revere, Engineer, a character from a book by the American author Andrea Beaty. It is a series called “The Questioneers”, which includes a character called Sofia Valdez, Future Prez. For five-year-old Eleanor, the idea of a female Prime Minister is very much already on the table, and that is an idea we can all get behind, be we fans of Margaret Thatcher, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) or indeed the Deputy Leader of the Labour party. Perhaps the fact that I made Eleanor’s dress for World Book Day myself is also a glass ceiling smashed, although it reminded me that there is no word for “seamstress” that does not imply that only women can sew. We still swim in a soup of linguistic everyday sexism, and the fact remains that engineering and other male dominated professions have a long way to go.
When I was a Minister at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, I was able to foster massive growth in the diversity of people working in AI and cyber only because we started from such incredibly low numbers. Strategies are in place. They start at school, and we cannot go fast enough. However, there is something that I would like to go slower, which is time. The vast majority of young women and girls report that they have been harassed or groped at some point. YouGov reports that more than two-thirds of women have felt unsafe walking at night, and only slightly fewer report feeling unsafe in taxis, with a tradesperson in their home, or even walking alone in the daytime. Those experiences are wholly alien to the vast majority of men, and that total disconnect is a huge part of the problem.
To put that another way, today Eleanor is five. How long have I got before she comes home to tell me that she was harassed, or worse, on the school bus? How long has she got until I worry when she has to call the plumber to a student house? How long has she got before she fears the route she takes walking home? What can we, from this privileged platform in Parliament, do in the meantime to try to address some of those fairly sickening thoughts? The answer, of course, will never be enough.
I commend the Government’s approach to putting more resources into the police and—crucially—into prosecution, to tackle the worst of violence against women and girls, as well as into education and beyond, to tackle the culture that will, in due course, see more women doing supposedly male jobs, and more men doing traditionally female jobs. We must all show, rather than simply say, that it can be done, although I am sure my dressmaking skills will be left to myself. This is society’s problem, not solely that of Parliament. This debate must be about equity as much as it is about equality, and providing everyone with the same opportunities to live, work and play safely means providing different people with the different tools they need to get over the same obstacles. I wholly endorse the approach of the Welsh Government to the telemedicine that was referred to earlier in the debate, and I hope that this Government will come to the same conclusion when they review that.
If I could pick just one area in which to urge the Government to go even further than they currently do, it would be tackling the multiplicity of factors that mean childcare still falls disproportionately on women—something exacerbated hugely by covid. In everything from the design of our towns and cities and the attitude of employers to the average time spent commuting, we can do so much more to give men and women equal opportunities to succeed. By tackling childcare we can perhaps unleash the productivity of half the population even further.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I call Liz Saville Roberts.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Diolch yn fawr iawn, Dirprwy Lywydd. Many of us like to think that history is a series of incremental improvements, but recent events show that to be naive. I am afraid that I begin with the sad observation that many of the inequalities and barriers facing women today have remained stubbornly obstinate. We should be alert to the fact that history is not a one-way route to nirvana.
The covid-19 pandemic underscored gender divisions in our society, and it has proved them to be long standing and structural. They include poverty and job insecurity, with global management firm McKinsey noting that women’s jobs were nearly twice as vulnerable as those of men during the initial months of the pandemic. It also found that women made up 39% of global employment but accounted for 54% of overall job losses during the period. One explanation for the disproportionate effect on women is that covid-19 increased the burden of unpaid care, which women are expected to perform as part of the gender role assigned to them—to us—by society.
Even in the chaos of war, such gender roles endure. For example, we have seen, from afar—we are lucky, are we not—how many Ukrainian women have stepped up to care for family, friends and neighbours, as men are conscripted to fight against Putin’s oppressive invasion. Of course, women also make up the majority of adult refugees from Ukraine, and many thousands of them are, to our shame, being delayed in seeking sanctuary in the UK due to the painfully slow and limited Home Office visa system.
Women have a unique perspective on war because of the expectation on them to be care givers. They hold families together as they are battered by events beyond their control. We see that in this war, and the nature of digital images being transferred to us almost instantaneously has brought home to us the sheer shock of the changes that can be wrought upon families by events completely beyond their control. We see that playing out tragically.
Closer to home, in Wales, gender equality charity Chwarae Teg has shown that inequality is often driven by the burden of caring responsibilities falling disproportionately on women. It demonstrates that such responsibilities account for 24.1% of economically inactive women in Wales, compared with 5.8% of men. That is why Plaid Cymru, in our co-operation agreement with the Welsh Government, is expanding free childcare to all two-year-olds in Wales to provide greater support for women to pursue their own careers and life goals.
The right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) raised another area where progress is slow: political representation. In the Senedd, 43% of Members are female. The figure for Welsh MPs is lower, at 35%, and only 29% of Welsh councillors are women. Without a vibrant and diverse political culture that ensures that women are represented in all positions of power and values their contribution, how can we ever hope to end gender inequality?
Plaid Cymru plans to address that glaring democratic deficit by backing Senedd reform. I am excited about this. It would include expanding the number of Senedd Members, which we desperately need for effective government and effective scrutiny—60 Members is not enough to carry out those roles—as well as introducing a voting system that is as proportional as possible and establishing gender quotas in law. I am excited about that. That in itself would help to break the bias.
I turn to women’s safety. We have witnessed the murder of Wenjing Lin in Wales and, of course, Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa as well as all the names tragically listed earlier. Hundreds of women have been murdered at the hands of men in recent years. That reminds us of the shockingly high levels of abuse, violence and predatory behaviour that women face in Wales and across the UK. For example, 71% of women say that they have experienced sexual harassment in public places. Such a situation cannot continue to be tolerated, and change is needed. One positive proposal is for the justice and policing system to be devolved to Wales, so that we can align the support that we have from our Parliament more effectively. Devolving justice would enable us to tackle structural inequalities such as gender-based violence. It would allow us to integrate the Welsh Government’s Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act 2015 with policing, courts, prisons and other services that are currently run from Westminster.
Let us bear in mind that we still do not have a women’s prison. Many of us do not want one, but we have no residential provision in Wales at present. It was last mooted three years ago that this would be changed, but we are yet to have that, and we should place education, health and housing at the heart of prevention and rehabilitation for offenders. A high proportion of women who enter prison are themselves victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault. By devolving justice, we could expand community alternatives to prison so that women in Wales are closer to their families and their children as part of their rehabilitation. We could shift the obsession with incarceration and look at supporting vulnerable women and tackling the underlying issues that lead to offending. The time to act is now.
The First Minister of Wales said this week that it is not a matter of “when”—rather, he said that it is a matter of “when” and not “if” justice is devolved; if only I could express myself more effectively when I am enthusiastic about something. I am pleased that that is now the Welsh Government’s position and I would very much like a similar position to be iterated from Opposition Front Benchers here. That commitment runs alongside our co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru.
There is far more that I could say on the topic of International Women’s Day, but I believe that the points I have outlined represent some of the most pressing issues. I am proud that my party, Plaid Cymru, is calling for positive change for women and girls in Wales and the wider world.
Danny Kruger (Devizes) (Con)
It has been humbling and very disquieting to listen to the accounts that we have heard of abuse, hatred and discrimination, and, of course, violence and murder. I pay particular tribute to the family of Ellie Gould and to their friends, the family of Poppy Devey Waterhouse, who have been in the Public Gallery this afternoon—Ellie was a girl from a family of Wiltshire people who was murdered very young, as was Poppy. I pay tribute to their campaign for the law to change and I look forward to the conclusion of the Wade review, which is looking into the circumstances of those murders.
I want to speak, first, about the economy in which women find themselves and, secondly, about the politics of gender. We have heard that behind every great woman is a great man, and I am proud to stand behind so many great women on the Government Benches, and opposite so many great women as well. I am the son and grandson of full-time working women, who are also mothers—very good mothers, I emphasise—and I spent 10 years working with my wife for the charity that we founded together. We worked in prisons, including in Holloway prison before it was thankfully sold off, disbanded, closed down, and I am very glad that my children have such role models in their mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.
I echo the point that the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) made about the way that opportunities have opened up for girls and young women in our time. Of course, women have all the legal rights that they need and, increasingly, equality is becoming a reality, but there is so much more to be done, as we have heard. Perhaps just as worrying is that the idea that women can have it all often just means that women must do it all —that they must continue to do all the work that they were doing before. That presents very difficult choices, not just for women. I also made the World Book Day costume for my daughter; I advise my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) just to use cardboard boxes. That is what I did; it is so much simpler than sewing something together. My daughter wanted to go as the “Boy in the Tower”, which was a very easy costume to put together—I recommend it.
My simple policy point is that we need a more balanced economy. We need work to be closer to home. We need men and women to be able to mix the work that they do for pay in the commercial economy with work that they do with their children and elderly parents and work in the community. That would be better for everyone—for children, older people, our neighbours and ourselves.
Let me move on to the difficult topic. I regret the suggestion from Opposition Members that International Women’s Day is somehow not a moment in which it is appropriate to discuss what actually a woman is. I wish that this was not a controversial topic, but the fact is that it is, and surely this is a time and a place in which that topic can be discussed. I notice that the leader of the Scottish Government has today announced an official apology to the victims of the Witchcraft Act—the victims of the hunt for witches back in the early modern period in Scotland. I hope she would also extend some sympathy to the victims of today’s witch hunts. Women—mostly women, but also men—are vilified, cancelled, professionally destroyed or physically threatened for their beliefs. They are people who simply believe in a biological difference between men and women. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) for their courage on this topic. I call attention to the interim report from Dr Hilary Cass, which is just out, which highlights the vertiginous increase in young teenage girls presenting as trans. I am afraid I do not believe that we have suddenly discovered a whole new population of trans people who were repressed or denied. I fear that, by telling people that they can change sex, we are further confusing a lot of very confused young people at the most confusing time of their life.
Just as great a concern is the biological males deciding in adulthood that they want access to women-only spaces. I echo the points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) and for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price). I hope there is some value in a man saying that. I think that trans activism is a new form of misogyny. It involves the essential denial of reality. I think we need a legal definition of what a woman is. A woman is an adult female. It is a biological and immutable reality and it is time to recognise that in the law.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger). There are many things about which we disagree, but there are some things about which we agree, and I thank him for his kind comments. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this debate, and the many hon. Members who have made interesting and valuable contributions, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), who is such a doughty campaigner for disability rights and the rights of disabled women in particular.
During this International Women’s Day debate, it is the women of Ukraine who should be uppermost in our minds. This morning I and other female MPs—a cross-party group—met the Ukrainian ambassador’s wife. She impressed on us the terrible burden that Ukrainian women face as they flee their country with their children, often leaving their male relatives behind and uncertain of their destination. The majority of the now millions of refugees fleeing Ukraine are women and children, and they need visa-free access to the United Kingdom with their children. We must match the European Union on this, no ifs and no buts. Let’s get on with it.
Women are particularly vulnerable in war because of their sex. This is because women are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence at the hands of men. That violence is sex-based and directed at women because of our biology and the fact that we are weaker than men. Sex matters. I do not know why we call it gender-based violence, because it is not gender-based violence; it is sex-based violence. Gender is a social construct. Sex is a material reality. I would like to hear us talk more about sex. I would like to hear us talk about the sex-based pay gap. I would like to hear us talk about the fact that, as Professor Alice Sullivan has said so powerfully in The Guardian today, it is mothers and not fathers who bear the burden of parenthood. Research shows that men often get a pay premium as a result of parenthood, but women’s pay goes down.
I would also like us to be able to say, as is the case in law, that lesbians like myself are same-sex attracted women, not same-gender attracted. What you cannot define you cannot protect, and what you cannot name cannot be properly discussed and debated. That is why the stealthy erasure of sex-based language from our statute book and public and private policy making should be resisted.
It is also why politicians and policy makers should be precise in their language, and should not conflate sex and gender.
Last month, one of Scotland’s Supreme Courts reminded lawmakers that reference to the protected characteristic of sex in the Equality Act 2010 is a reference to a man or a woman for which purpose
“a woman is a female of any age.”
The court said:
“Provisions in favour of women”
based on the protected characteristic of sex
“by definition exclude those who are biologically male.”
That is the law. I am quoting from paragraph 36 of the judgment by the highest court in Scotland in the case of For Women Scotland Limited against the Lord Advocate and the Scottish Ministers. So I defy anyone to claim that what I have just said is transphobic. It is not; it is the law, and it is based on the Equality Act, which also protects trans people from discrimination by means of the very widely drawn protected characteristic of gender reassignment.
The Equality Act was passed by the Labour party; all credit to them for doing so. I know that the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman)—who is not in the Chamber, but for whom I have the highest regard—was instrumental in the passing of that Act. It is also hugely valued by my party, so much so that when our current First Minister was drafting the constitution for an independent Scotland in 2014, she decided to enshrine in that constitution the protections afforded to women and the other protected characteristics in the Equality Act. It was going to be part of the fundamental law of Scotland. I think it would be good if more Scottish politicians remembered that and celebrated it.
I want to quote from an excellent column in today’s Telegraph. I am not in the habit of buying or reading the Telegraph, although a very dear friend of mine—who is now dead—used to say that she bought it every day so that she would have something reliable with which to disagree. However, this is a very good column by Suzanne Moore, who says:
“Words matter, because women naming ourselves and our experience matters. As the American social reformer and women’s rights activist Susan B Anthony had it: ‘No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party who ignores her sex.’”
And, in my view, no self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a political party that makes her rights as a woman or a lesbian conditional on her acceptance of gender identity politics. My rights as a woman and a lesbian are not conditional on my accepting gender identity politics. Nevertheless, as a member of the advisory group of the organisation Sex Matters—and I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in this respect—I am aware of many cases across the United Kingdom of women being harassed and investigated at work for expressing gender-critical views.
Now, however, we can fight back. Thanks to the courage and resilience of a woman called Maya Forstater and her legal team, we have an Employment Appeal Tribunal ruling that gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act. That was a major victory for freedom of belief and freedom of speech across these islands. Professor Jo Phoenix of the Open University and postgraduate student Raquel Rosaria Sanchez of Bristol University are just two of the brave women who are taking their universities to court for failing to defend them from harassment because of their gender-critical views. Across the United Kingdom, many women, and indeed men, are now taking their employees, and membership organisations such as the Green party of England and Wales, to court for discriminating against them on the grounds of their belief that sex is real and immutable.
I say to all the gender-critical women who are watching this debate today that we are starting to win this debate, and people like me will not give up no matter what is thrown in our road. Maya Forstater’s win is not the only significant one since the last International Women’s Day. I have already mentioned For Women Scotland’s win in Scotland’s Supreme Courts; Fair Play for Women also achieved a major court victory in a case about the meaning of “sex” in the census in England and Wales, although it was not so successful in Scotland.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
The hon. and learned Lady is making a terrific speech. Would she agree that men have to stand up for women’s rights, too? There are too many men who stand back from this debate and say, “Oh well, this is a women’s issue. I’m not going to get involved.” I think that is a shame, and that is why I spoke in today’s debate.
Joanna Cherry
I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Even worse, there are many men—young men—involved in this debate who have embraced a new form of misogyny. I know that to my cost, and I hope that that will start to change.
But I am trying to be positive, and I want to list a couple of the other successes there have been in the last year for gender-critical women such as myself. My friends at the LGB Alliance are registered as a charity now, and they held a major conference that was attended by many parliamentarians. I see some of them here today. Sadly, however, a straight, married Member of this House saw fit to protest outside the conference, which was organised by lesbians to discuss the rights of same-sex-attracted people. I thought I had seen the last of that sort of lesbophobia in the ’90s, but it turns out I was wrong. I repeat that lesbian rights are not conditional on our accepting gender identity theory.
Another positive development has been the Equality and Human Rights Commission entering the debate on self-identification and on how to frame the quite appropriate ban on conversion therapy. The commission entered the debate with a voice of calm common sense, reminding us that human rights are universal and that all protected characteristics under the Equality Act deserve protection. Others have mentioned the very welcome interim report on the Cass review today, and I hope the Minister will be able to assure us that the Government will look carefully at that report and look into the alarming phenomenon of so many young women feeling so uncomfortable with their identity as women as they go through puberty in our society that they feel they have to change their identity to cope with those pressures.
Sir Peter Bottomley
Can I make two points to, and through, the hon. and learned Lady? First, Suzanne Moore ought to have been able to write her column for The Guardian, and I hope that The Guardian will report the hon. and learned Lady’s speech in full tomorrow and explain why Suzanne Moore cannot publish her thoughts in her own newspaper, as it once was. Secondly, on the LGB Alliance conference, which I attended, I went up to some of the people protesting outside and asked if they had read the book “Trans” or the book “Material Girls”. They said no. I invited them to join me in asking Liam Hackett, the chief executive of the anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label, if he would withdraw his words describing Kathleen Stock as a dangerous extremist for giving her plain views on women’s rights.
Joanna Cherry
I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says, and I am proud to call Professor Kathleen Stock a friend. She is an admirable scholar, a feminist and a lesbian who has written carefully about these issues, and the way she has been traduced by students at her university and, sadly, by some politicians in one of my favourite cities, Brighton, is absolutely disgraceful. I want to be positive today, however, and I think that on this issue the tide is turning. I am living proof that cancellation does not always work.
Just before I sit down, I have a couple of questions for the Minister. Will she back the Equality and Human Rights Commission to produce solid guidance on the definitions of protected characteristics and single-sex services? A lot of the harassment I have described stems from women setting out the case for single-sex services and then facing wrongful accusations of transphobia. Secondly, will she push for Government Departments to end the use of external human resource benchmarking schemes for legal compliance with the Equality Act? As we saw in the Akua Reindorf report from Essex University, some external benchmarks—sadly, some from Stonewall, of which I used to be, but no longer am, a supporter—have been wrong in law. Finally, once the EHRC has published some decent guidance, will she review civil service HR policies to ensure that they are in line with the law of the land under the Equality Act, rather than in line with prejudiced lobbying groups?
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), and I salute her courage in talking about these issues. They are not always easy, but they must be discussed.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this important debate. Many important topics have been discussed today, not least early access to telemedicine for early-stage abortion, which merits much further discussion in this House, but I will concentrate on a topic that my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) so movingly covered: women and girls in Ukraine.
Images from war are often characterised by tanks, physical destruction and the loss of life in combat, but conflict is as much about those on the sidelines as about those on the frontline. We know from history that, in war, rape is routinely used as a weapon—a barbaric weapon. It causes incomprehensible damage to victims, it subjugates women through fear and stigma, and children born as a result of these violent acts often struggle with issues of identity.
Sexual violence in conflict has rightly been recognised as a war crime by the International Criminal Court. Such violence has been a stain on our history, and I am appalled that we are already hearing reports of history repeating itself in Ukraine. Speaking at an online event hosted by Chatham House, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister reportedly shared details of how Russian soldiers are raping Ukrainian women in the occupied territories. Julie Bindel, the investigative journalist, has reported that well-known porn sites have had new videos uploaded by Russian soldiers documenting disgustingly brutal crimes. We cannot let these atrocities go unpunished.
Under the leadership of this Government, and following an initiative spearheaded by the noble Lord Hague, there has been a great deal of progress to end sexual violence in conflict. The integrated review set out clearly the mission to “strengthen justice for survivors”, the G7 communiqué set out plans to prevent and end sexual violence against women and girls in conflict, and last year the UK, alongside its allies, issued a strong statement that the use of sexual violence as a weapon in conflict is a red line akin to the use of chemical weapons. The Prime Minister has spoken strongly in this place to say that sexual violence in conflict will not be tolerated and that those who are found to have committed it will be punished.
The challenge for all of us in this place is that, to achieve this, survivors in Ukraine must come forward and we must have a co-ordinated international approach to collect the evidence. We all know that we have challenges domestically in encouraging women to come forward to be heard, but imagine the fear of coming forward for a woman who has not only been abused but whose country has been invaded—by Russia, which effectively decriminalised domestic violence in 2017.
We must now send a clear message to the women of Ukraine that they will be supported. Our actions must be stronger than just words: we must collate the evidence; we must engage with the International Criminal Court; and we must prosecute. None of us can allow this to pass us by. We all have a responsibility. On this International Women’s Day we must say that sexual violence in conflict is not inevitable, and we must never allow it to be inevitable.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Streatham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to participate in this debate and to celebrate the trailblazers who made it possible for so many women to come through these doors and sit on these Benches: the women who fought, protested, sacrificed and put their lives on the line in their effort to secure gender equality and to grant women the right to go to school, to work, to vote, to open a bank account in our own name, which is such a simple thing, and so many other rights that we could not bear to live without. I argue those women would want us not just to celebrate but to continue agitating, because there is still a long way to go and more to be done if we are to get to a state where women can truly be considered equal to men.
This year, as on every International Women’s Day, organisations have taken to social media to share their commitment to gender equality and to breaking the bias, which is this year’s theme. In response, the “Gender Pay Gap Bot” Twitter account tweeted the pay gap of those organisations. Some organisations could hold their head high, such as Contact Company, Abbeycroft Leisure, St John Ambulance and a few others, but unfortunately these organisations were in the minority.
In 2022, we still live in a society in which 83% of the UK’s most popular jobs have a gender pay gap. Recent Labour party analysis shows that, at the current rate of progression, the gender pay gap will not close until 2059. We need urgent action to change the system and address pay inequality, which is not just plain wrong but leaves so many women vulnerable to abuse.
The representation of women in senior positions, right across society, is still woefully low. I am proud to be part of a parliamentary Labour party that is 51% women. I will not pretend that that happened overnight, but when the time came, we did not wait for attitudes to change and we did not rest on platitudes. We took action to increase representation, and the result is someone like myself, who is the product of an all-women shortlist. This is a parliamentary party that reflects society not only in its make-up, but in the quality of debate and in the policies that are put forward.
So to all those in organisations across the country who are wringing their hands and saying, “Oh, it’s so hard. What do we do on women’s equality?”, I say, “You are just making excuses”. Change does not come just because time goes on; it is something that people have to make happen. Because of the work of women in this House and across society, enforcing equality has never been easier, as we have best practice, policy and legislation—all these different things—at our disposal.
In 2022 the under-representation of women in senior roles and a gender pay gap is a choice. So I will not applaud all the colourful social media bits that have been put up by different organisations, and the events and seminars for women that have gone by in past days. I will not applaud those organisations for saying that they are trying, because they are just failing. The ones that continue to preside over these situations have made a choice. Their choice has been to discriminate against women every single day, and they should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
It is right that we have discussed domestic gender inequality, as that is obviously extremely important, but we must remember that we are celebrating International Women’s Day, which is a day for all women, wherever they are in the world. Our minds rightfully turn to the plight of women in Ukraine who are facing Putin’s aggression: those women we all saw this morning in the maternity hospital; those left behind in the country, as so many women often are in this situation; and those who have fled and are currently being denied asylum by countries such as ours, alongside refugees from other countries who are also fleeing war and persecution. My hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum) was right to say that no one could claim to support standing up for all women if we allow a heinous piece of legislation such as the Nationality and Borders Bill to go ahead, which will only worsen the situation for some of the most vulnerable women in the world.
Finally, I worry about a movement for women’s equality and a feminism that does not represent all women, of all classes, nationalities and races. I was sad to hear black women speak of being feminists but not being able to call themselves such because they do not believe that movements for women’s equality typically represent their experiences as black women. When the majority of women in the world are of colour, a women’s movement that does not recognise the impact that racism plays, and the fundamental role it has in increasing inequality among women, is not truly a movement that represents all women, and it is not worth what it says it is worth. That is not acceptable. The idea that we should fight for women’s equality but make concessions for a certain group of women first, and then later we can get to this other group of women, has been the bane of the women’s equality movement, and that absolutely has to change. We have to demand equality for all women and we have to do it right now.
In this country at the moment the equality we seek for women does not have to be so hard. In 2022, if your organisation continues to preside over under-representation and a gender pay gap, it is simply just trash. If you are not actively a part of the solution to end gender inequality, you are simply just another part of the problem.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I want to echo the opening remarks of the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller). She is absolutely right: today we stand in solidarity with the women of Ukraine. Our hearts go out to them in their suffering, and we stand in awe of their bravery and resilience. Women are all too often the most vulnerable, and they are the real victims of war and conflict. The hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) has just made a passionate speech about that. Globally, an estimated 736 million women have experienced sexual violence—that is one in three of us. More than 80,000 women were murdered in 2020, most at the hands of a close relation. Violence extends to children, too; 60 million girls are being sexually assaulted on their way to school every year. Those are not just numbers—they are human beings who feel pain and fear, and are being traumatised throughout their lives.
UN Women notes that violence disproportionately affects low-income countries, but our country is no beacon when it comes to women’s safety. Last week was the very sad first anniversary of Sarah Everard’s horrific murder by a Metropolitan police officer. The police response to the Clapham Common vigil was violent, too. Today, we are still waiting to hear of serious steps to stamp out misogyny in the Met once and for all, but it is not just about police forces. Misogyny is deeply ingrained in our culture, being present everywhere from schools to nightclubs to the courts.
Drink spiking has received a lot of public attention recently. It is a particularly vile form of violence against women and girls. One third of women have been spiked or know someone who has been.
The Government’s end-to-end rape review laid bare the failures of the criminal justice system. Last year, less than 2% of rape cases ended in conviction, adding insult to injury for survivors who find the strength to come forward and report rape—which only one in six women actually do, because they mistrust the system. No wonder they do.
What has been done in the past year to break the bias and to ensure that nobody is disadvantaged by their gender? Well, not enough. While racism and homophobia are considered hate crimes, misogyny is not, despite nearly every woman having experienced gender-based harassment. We have discussed it in the House, but I am still convinced that misogyny must become a hate crime. Although such a measure would not be a silver bullet, there are many reasons why it would mean progress: it would allow for the more accurate collection of data on harassment and make the collection of such data mandatory; it would set a precedent that such behaviour is unacceptable; it would curb the street harassment that 68% of all women experience on a near daily basis; and it would stamp out low-level behaviour based on misogyny so that it would not lead to much more serious offences based on misogyny.
Misogyny needs to be tackled in all settings. I have previously talked about the provision of age-appropriate education on consent in schools. The delivery of age-appropriate relationship education by experts in every school would be a very good start. It cannot be left to a postcode lottery. Some schools do it very well but, as I have said before, it cannot be for maths or language teachers to do such important work. It has to be delivered by experts.
As the crisis in Ukraine continues to unfold, many women will become displaced and especially vulnerable. We cannot allow refugees from Ukraine or elsewhere to fall into the arms of traffickers or abusers.
Finally, the Government must listen to and champion women’s voices. They are the agents of change. We women have made progress—often painful and slow—and we still have a long way to go, but I wish to echo the words of the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) in saying that it is fun to be a woman. It is important to be here. To everybody who listens to today’s debate I say: come forward. We need you.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
It is a privilege to close the debate for my party. It has been a pleasure to listen to many eloquent and important speeches from Members of all parties. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for securing this debate.
I found it difficult to know what I wanted to say this year. I felt there was so much that I might want to cover, particularly given the situation in Ukraine—I will try to touch on some of that—but I also felt a bit deflated, if I am honest, because in other ways I could easily have given the same speech today as I gave last year.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I should say to the hon. Lady that although I indicated to her that she did not have long to speak, people have fortunately been quite brief, so she has a little longer than I indicated.
Kirsten Oswald
I am grateful for that, Madam Deputy Speaker. We will see how we get on.
It does sometimes feel a wee bit like groundhog day in these debates, because women still have to strain every sinew and despite that, not so much changes. But there are bright spots, as the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) put it well, and I want to acknowledge and celebrate them as well.
Nobody here will be anything other than deeply concerned about the women and girls in Ukraine as they walk away from what were their perfectly normal lives in this unimaginably terrible situation, leaving everything that they have known behind them—and, as an aside, for goodness’ sake let us waive the visas and let these women in. All of us will have seen the footage of the women who had gone into hospital to give birth, but instead were being carried out, heavily pregnant and injured, on stretchers. They were under fire at the very time in their lives when they were at their most vulnerable. It is almost too much to comprehend. We will probably, and hopefully, never know what it is to walk in those women’s shoes, but we absolutely stand with them in the face of this wickedness.
There are so many shocking tales from Ukraine, no doubt familiar to women and girls in war zones across the world, as the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) set out so clearly. I also saw footage of a whole bunch of pushchairs and prams parked up outside a railway station in Poland by mums who must have known that the mums who were fleeing Ukraine with their wee ones would need them. I thought that that was amazing and it was a chink of light in the darkness there.
I know that the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is “breaking the bias”, which is a welcome focus. At home and further afield, the lens through which everything is seen, including the decisions that affect our lives across the world, is still a male one. That applies whether we look at work, at health—we have talked about the recovery from covid—or at politics. Too often that bias, those barriers, or that ingrained misogyny remain.
I was very pleased to see Baroness Helena Kennedy’s report on misogyny and criminal justice in Scotland. It is a welcome step forward. As the report highlights, not all men are misogynists, but all women experience misogyny. I am heartened, too, by the continued laser focus on this by our First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her gender-balanced Cabinet. The Scottish Parliament continues to become more diverse, slowly but surely changing—to be honest it has been far too slow—to reflect the Scotland that we know, and we are the better for that, because we need our representation to reflect all of us. Making sure that we actively support marginalised communities in all of that is important.
Regardless of that, politics might not always be a comfortable space to inhabit. I take the point of the hon. Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) that we should enjoy it as much as we can, but there is often a nasty undercurrent—online in particular—which is wearing. None the less, we do need women in politics. A woman’s place is in politics. A woman’s place is in decision making. We can see that, where that is true, there are better ways to do things. In Scotland, for instance, we have seen world-leading legislation to provide free period products; legislation developed directly with women’s organisations that acknowledges domestic abuse as much more than just physical violence; and a determination to incorporate into Scots law the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.
We also have a fantastic women’s health plan in Scotland, which is so important. The focus on the menopause, which, for far too long, has not been spoken about, is profoundly helpful. I have been very pleased to hear a number of hon. Members mention the menopause today.
I really welcome that focus on women’s health. I am a woman with polycystic ovary syndrome, and I am not alone in that: 10% of women worldwide experience either PCOS or endometriosis, yet less than 3% of UK research funding goes into researching women-specific conditions—that is women-specific conditions as a whole, not the condition that I am referring to. PCOS is little understood. Basically, there is a black hole where research should be. If Members want to know how it might impact on the menopause or on becoming an older woman, they can forget it. The information does not exist, but I have no doubt that, if that condition affected men, the research would have been done. Moreover, if men experienced the levels of sexual violence that women do, we would not have seen the disgraceful pantomime of Raith Rovers and Clyde football clubs transferring, retransferring, and then trying to untransfer a man who had been ruled in a civil case to be a rapist. I must say that I felt that Raith Rovers’ International Women’s Day tweet, waxing lyrical about forging women’s equality together, was somewhat bold, or just extremely offensive, given the circumstances.
I have seen some people—men, actually—ask why that had never seemed to be a problem before. “Why now?”, they ask, suggesting, and some actually saying, that those of us who are unhappy about it are jumping on a bandwagon. I will tell them why: we are ground down by this kind of thing day in, day out, and thank goodness we have made enough progress over the past few years that women feel able to say “Enough.”
I take my hat off to the incredibly brave woman who found herself at the heart of that situation, and these strong, principled female players, coaches and teams who were not willing to stand for it any longer. To the men who stood up with them, I say thank you. We all need to stand up if we want to break that bias at every level, but it is not easy, and that sorry episode should never have happened.
I will close by reflecting on the difference that individual women make, going about their lives but improving the lives of others as they do so. We all know those women. They are all around us—our families, our friends—and they are absolutely worth celebrating in this debate. They are women such as my three East Renfrewshire councillor colleagues Angela Convery, Annette Ireland and Caroline Bamforth, who work tirelessly day in, day out to improve the lives of others. They are women such as the three young East Renfrewshire women named in the YWCA Scotland “30 under 30” list, Marissa Roxburgh, Elise Kelly and Kira Hendry. They are women such as Rena McGuire, Ashley McIlvenney, Annmarie Strain and Oonagh McKinnon, who work tirelessly to deliver transformational change in our community—I am sure hon. Members will wish them all well; they are up against one another for a community award, but they probably all deserve to win.
I could go on adding the names of amazing women in my community; I could stand here all day and do that, and I am confident that all hon. Members here could do the same for their constituencies. There are also women such as Carolyn, Nix, Tracey, Katie and Freya, who support me as I support constituents. These women, and women the world over going about their business, stepping up, stepping forward, making things better for others and for those coming after them—they are the women who inspire me daily. Let us all try to be more like these women. Let us always stretch a hand out to others as we continue to push forward, and maybe then we will see real and sustained equality.
Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)
It is such a pleasure to speak in this debate as we mark International Women’s Day. I thank the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for proposing the debate and the Backbench Business Committee for securing it.
Has it not been wonderful to hear so many examples of incredible women this afternoon in fields from science to business, health, education, the arts, politics, trade unions and more? Has it not also been important to celebrate, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol South (Karin Smyth) rightly said, how wonderful it is to be a woman?
As we celebrate those examples, however, that celebration is tempered, as was mentioned earlier, by the realisation of the dreadful situation so many other women are in. The International Development Committee statement before this debate drew attention to the appalling circumstances of so many women and girls in Afghanistan, which was rightly underlined by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) in her remarks. Many speakers have also expressed sympathy for and solidarity with the women and girls of Ukraine.
As so many have said, it is hard for us here to imagine the horror and anguish those women and girls have faced over the past few weeks, whether they are still in Ukraine under Russian bombardment or have fled for safety, leaving brothers, fathers, partners and sons behind. Many have referred to what took place yesterday, with the Russian army bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol—almost too appalling to contemplate. For many of us, it is also horrendous to contemplate the circumstances for those women now having to give birth in bomb shelters in those areas under attack. Putin’s invasion is an attack on sovereignty, democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and women. Yesterday, Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska, offered her testimony from Ukraine. In it she named some of the child casualties of the war such as Alice, Polina and Arseniy. In their name, we fully support—I am sure I speak for the whole House—providing the people of Ukraine with all possible political, economic and practical support to repel Putin’s forces.
This afternoon we have heard another awful list of names—that read out by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). Her testimony, delivered every year in this debate, highlights the shocking scale of the epidemic of violence against women in this country, without losing sight of the individual tragedy that lies behind every statistic. As she said, the perpetrators killed, but we in power can and must do better. My colleagues here and in the other place have time and again brought pressure to bear, not least during the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. We argued for the inclusion of domestic abuse and sexual offences in the definition of “serious violence”; for violence against women and girls to be a strategic policing requirement, giving it the same prominence as terrorism and organised crime; for safeguards on the extraction of data from victims’ phones; for a lifting of the limit on the prosecution of common assault or battery in domestic abuse cases; and for a review, finally, into spiking so that we can get to the bottom of this appalling practice. None of those measures was included in the original Bill; they were all the result of campaigning with powerful women’s organisations beyond this House, and they were all achieved, I am sorry to say, in the teeth of Government opposition. Outside that specific legislation, it was also pressure from those organisation and from the Opposition that resulted in violence against women and girls becoming a strategic policing requirement, giving it the same prominence as terrorism and organised crime.
But there is so much more to do. As my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) said, we need drastic action that recognises that this is an emergency. Will the Government now introduce the other measures contained in Labour’s comprehensive Green Paper? Will they ensure that there will be a specialist rape unit in every police force area? Will they bring in minimum sentences for rape and for stalking? Will they make misogyny a hate crime, as has rightly been called for? Will they publish a perpetrators strategy, as the Domestic Abuse Bill requires this to happen before the end of next month?
Violence against women and girls—male violence, as was rightly said—is not just a criminal justice issue; it is also a public health one. More than 60% of women accessing mental health services have experienced domestic abuse—an appalling statistic at the heart of the Women’s Aid campaign, #DeserveToBeHeard, rightly promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Apsana Begum). That is one of many reasons why we have committed to guarantee mental health treatment within a month for all who need it and enable 1 million more people to access treatment.
We had high hopes that the Government would be similarly ambitious when, this time last year, they announced that we would have a new women’s health strategy by the end of 2021. Well, it is now March 2022 and we are still waiting. In fact, we are waiting longer and longer—for cervical screening appointments, for breast cancer appointments, and for routine gynaecological treatment. We are seeing services cut, or in line to be cut, such as the access to telemedicine for early abortion that has rightly been referred to by so many Members today, and we are seeing areas of extreme need, such as PCOS—polycystic ovary syndrome—and endometriosis, still not being dealt with properly.
Life expectancy and outcomes for many women are actually worsening. As my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North West (Taiwo Owatemi) has repeatedly emphasised, black women are now 40% more likely than white women to experience miscarriage and four times more likely to die while pregnant, yet we still lack any hard targets for improvement. Waiting lists were already at record highs even before covid-19 hit, but we can do something about it: previous Labour Governments reduced waiting times from 18 months to 18 weeks. We have to learn from that change, act on it, and secure the future of our NHS, providing the staff, equipment and modern technology it needs to treat women on time.
As so many have said, we also need change for women in our economy, now more than ever. My party introduced the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Equality Act 2010, rightly referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) as a Labour achievement. Those advances were often delivered hand in hand with the trade union movement. We understand that our society, our economy and our country are poorer if women cannot play their part. Women hold the key to a stronger economy. Women-led small and medium-sized enterprises contribute about £85 billion to economic output, and companies in which women are more prominent are ultimately more successful, yet women are still less likely to be able to access as much finance as men when they try to set up companies, and only eight of the FTSE 100’s chief executive officers are women.
Backing women in business is not just the right thing to do, but makes hard-headed economic sense, yet we are still dragging our feet. We cannot do so any longer. That is why we have committed to 100,000 new businesses, many of them run by women, in the first term of a Labour Government. It is also why we would act to boost family-friendly employment rights. Last year, the gender pay gap actually increased—one of the few statistics that has not been mentioned in this debate—but that followed a decade of slower reductions than under the Labour Government, as referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Bell Ribeiro-Addy).
As my hon. Friends the Members for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) and for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) said, much of this precarity for women has been accelerated during the pandemic. We need gender pay comparisons across companies as well as ethnicity pay reporting in order to tackle compound inequalities. We need to tackle workplace harassment, including third-party harassment. We need to implement the International Labour Organisation’s convention against workplace harassment, and we need to ensure that flexibility is in the hands of women workers, not just their employers, as is currently so often the case. We must recognise childcare as the fundamental economic infrastructure that it is, not the afterthought it so often seems to be for too many women and families in our country. Finally, we need to measure the impact of policies on women, as the Government legally should do.
International Women’s Day is always a bittersweet moment—a chance to celebrate how far we have come, to note with regret how far we still have to go, and to recommit ourselves to the struggle for women and girls today and for our daughters and granddaughters tomorrow. My party now has as many women MPs as the proportion of women in the country, aiding us in this struggle, but there is still so much more to do—particularly in local government, as the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) and my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) said. It is also critical that we prevent the abuse of women on social media. The hon. Member for North Devon (Selaine Saxby) spoke powerfully about the impact of this abuse on women politicians, and I commend her on her honesty. To reflect on some of the discussion that took place previously, it always makes sense to check what a woman has actually said, rather than what a man suggests she has said on social media.
Women across our country deserve security, prosperity and respect. That is what a Labour Government will seek to ensure, and as long as we are on these Benches, it is what we will deliver as we seek to break the bias.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)
I start by commending, as others have, the work that Mr Speaker has undertaken in this House to protect women, to encourage more women parliamentarians and to support all parliamentarians, but I know that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, provide that advice to us most nights in the Tea Room and throughout the House. It is certainly appreciated by me, and everybody in this House.
I start with my number. I have heard many numbers today, and I am proudly No. 456. I begin by thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who has brought this debate to the House. I know that she has worked tirelessly as a parliamentarian in this place in the interests of women, and I am so pleased to be able to support such staunch advocates of gender equality in this year’s International Women’s Day debate.
I will start by briefly running through some—hopefully all—of the speeches in brief to reflect on those comments. My right hon. Friend started with the need to encourage more parliamentarians, which is critical, to represent society. That is a particularly important thing for me, as a mum of four daughters who I talk about so often. I am afraid to say that none of my daughters want to go into politics, and at a recent event I spoke at, I asked all the women to put their hands if they had daughters. I then asked whether any of those daughters would consider a career in politics. I am sad to say that none of those hands stayed up, so we have much work to do.
The hon. Member for Coventry North East (Colleen Fletcher) referred to the Godiva Trust celebrating lives, and she talked about her mum and two sisters. So many of us talk about the support systems, who are often men. I was delighted to hear about the dress-making and costume creations that have been going on in the House.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) spoke so powerfully, as ever. I thank her for the work she does on the Select Committee. It may have been her son, but she referred to the 12-year-old Hugo. [Interruption.] Okay, he is not her son. He was questioning how she would celebrate International Women’s Day, and she spoke about female entrepreneurs. It is important that we never take for granted our freedoms and conveniences, as she spoke about so powerfully.
I am grateful to have this chance to speak about some of the issues raised already today and to share some of the work that the Government are doing to support women and girls in the UK and around the world. I begin by saying, as many Members have also said, that my thoughts are with all those affected by the events in Ukraine at this very difficult time. So many Members have referred to the atrocities that have been going on in that country.
We strongly condemn the reported Russian attack on a maternity and children’s hospital in Mariupol. An attack on a hospital constitutes a breach of international humanitarian law. The loss of innocent human lives is deplorable, and we call for this attack to be documented and investigated. Putin’s directive to bomb a baby hospital is beyond barbaric. There can be no one more helpless than a new-born baby, and Putin’s decision to hurt and kill women, babies, children and medical staff has outraged Members in this House, and people in this country and across the world.
We continue to stand united with our international partners in supporting the Government in Ukraine. International Women’s Day provides us with an opportunity to reflect on our role in the international community, especially in supporting women and children affected by conflict around the world. I have been so inspired by the women MPs in Ukraine, who no longer have their children in their arms, but instead hold an AK-47 assault weapon.
The issue of gender-based violence has featured heavily today. As some Members have pointed out, we are also reeling from the tragic deaths of Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and many of the women that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) so poignantly listed. That painfully long list of women killed by men is such a poignant and powerful, if not utterly tragic, reminder that more work must be done. I put on record my thanks to Karen Ingala Smith for compiling that record.
As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has said, we do not accept that violence against women and girls is inevitable. My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) referred to the inevitability of sexual violence in conflict, but other hon. Members have said that they do not accept that. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary has said that it is not inevitable and she is making it her top priority.
In October, the UK began the £67.5 million “What Works to Prevent Violence: Impact at Scale” programme in this country, which is the first global effort to scale up proven violence-prevention approaches. Earlier this week, the Government strengthened their world-leading efforts to end violence and harassment in the workplace by becoming the 11th country to ratify the International Labour Organisation’s violence and harassment convention.
The safety of everyone in our country, wherever they are, is our priority, but we know that crimes such as domestic abuse and stalking disproportionately affect women and girls. Tackling such crimes remains a top priority for the Government. The tackling violence against women and girls strategy sets out areas of activity that are already under way and more than 50 new commitments to help to ensure that women and girls are safe everywhere—at home, online and on the streets.
We have made good progress on those commitments, including supporting the introduction of Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth as the national police lead for violence against women and girls. We introduced our landmark Domestic Abuse Act 2021 to fundamentally transform our response to tackling that crime. As soon as parliamentary time allows, we will introduce a new duty on employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
In my role in the Department for Transport, I have responsibility for the safety of women and girls on the transport network. I am fortunate to work alongside many inspirational women, particularly the Rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton); Diane Gilpin, CEO of the Smart Green Shipping Alliance, who has worked in technology and design across Formula 1, banking and telecoms; and Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who is one of Britain’s most famous mechanical engineers and space scientists, and who is currently using satellite technology to predict weather flows.
No one should ever have to face the risk of violence when travelling. This International Women’s Day, I was proud to be in Birmingham to join our transport champions for tackling violence against women and girls to launch their 13 recommendations for making our transport networks safer in the short, medium and long term. Those proposals are a crucial step in the Government’s long-term commitment to ensure that women and girls can travel alone, safely and without fear. I look forward to collaborating across Government with police forces, local transport authorities and transport operators to respond to those recommendations.
Many hon. Members have referred to health. We are committed to improving women’s health outcomes and reducing disparities. The Government are making women’s voices heard and placing women’s voices at the centre of that work. This week also marks LBT Women’s Health Week. The Government recognise that, as part of that, we need to improve the current access to NHS fertility services in England for all couples, including those in same-sex partnerships.
Dame Diana Johnson
As the Minister is talking about women’s health and women’s voices, can she explain to the House why the Government have decided not to extend telemedicine for abortion services beyond the end of August this year?
Trudy Harrison
I have certainly heard those calls and I am sure that they have also been heard by Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care. I understand that a review will take place, but I will ask my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to write to the right hon. Lady with a response.
Karin Smyth
To add to the point of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson), I watched the faces of the many brilliant women MPs present when that was mentioned and I think that Conservative Members are not aware of what their Government are doing against all the expert advice and against all the policy advice of the Department of Health and Social Care because of the individual conscience issues of some Ministers. I hope that the Minister does take those calls back, because that is clearly not the will of the House today.
Trudy Harrison
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I just repeat what I have already said about liaising with Health Ministers. The wellbeing and safety of women requiring access to abortion services has been and will continue to be our first and foremost priority. The Department of Health is developing a new sexual and reproductive health strategy that will set out the ambitions to improve reproductive health outcomes and wellbeing. The strategy will include a focus on improving information and access to contraception to support women to make more informed choices, but on the specific point that she and the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Dame Diana Johnson) made, I will endeavour to liaise with colleagues.
Sir Peter Bottomley
The House will be reassured by what the Minister has just said about liaising with colleagues. Can I say through her to the Whips that if there is a clear vote in this House, I would vote to extend the telemedicine service and I would encourage my hon. Friends to do the same? I suggest that the Chief Whip asks his colleagues to consult each of us what our views are.
Trudy Harrison
I am sure my hon. Friend’s comment has been heard.
There has been much talk about the economic empowerment for women, and this leads me on to some of the other steps we are taking to address the barriers that women face in the workforce. I myself was paid off when I was pregnant with our first child. We know that the pandemic has been one of the greatest challenges this country has faced in decades. Women’s economic empowerment is pivotal to our post-pandemic recovery, in the wake of even greater potential for wage inequalities for women, although of course it is not just women who face these difficulties. We need to make it easier for all employees to understand if they are being paid fairly and how decisions about their pay are made, and I am really pleased that we are going to stop asking about pay history during recruitment.
There has also been much talk about STEM, which has been so wonderful to hear about. In 2022, education remains a top priority for our Prime Minister. Earlier this week, he launched a new girls’ education skills partnership programme on private sector investment in girls’ education, which supports adolescent girls overseas. We have made great progress in increasing the number of girls studying STEM subjects, but at present women make up only 24% of the STEM workforce.
Trudy Harrison
I am afraid that I cannot give way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) referenced the importance of language, and it is so important that, as he says, we protect the language of females—of women, adult human females, girls, mothers, women who breastfeed and mothers who work. I think that is so important. It has been a pleasure to speak in this important debate.
Mrs Miller
Madam Deputy Speaker, it is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair. I thank the 27 right hon. and hon. Members across the House for taking part, and the Minister who spoke in response to the debate for her advocacy for women on so many issues. I hope she is able to discuss the content of the issues raised today with the Minister for Women and other colleagues. The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald)—I hope I have pronounced that correctly—said it was groundhog day, and I am afraid I tend to agree with her on so many of these issues. When it comes to women in the House of Commons, we need to make sure that the Government, Parliament and the parties are working together to get more women into this place after the next election. I hope that the positive energy coming from today’s debate goes out to the women around the world who live in areas of war, because it is those women who need our help and support the most.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have given notice to the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) that I would raise this point of order. She challenged me to clarify exactly what she had said, and to correct the record if I was wrong in suggesting that she had not answered a question clearly. The question she was asked by Emma Barnett on “Woman’s Hour” was very simple. She was asked:
“And Labour’s definition of a woman?”
and she answered:
“Well, I have to say that there are different definitions legally around what a woman actually is. I mean, you look at the definition within the Equality Act, and I think it just says someone who is adult and female, I think, but then doesn’t see how you define either of those things. I mean, obviously, that’s then you’ve got the biological definition, legal definition.”
I suggested that that answer was unclear. I think I am correct in my representation of that answer.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. He said that he would endeavour to correct the record, and he has sought to do so. Would the hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) like to follow that point of order?
Anneliese Dodds
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) for giving me notice that he was going to make a point of order, but he actually stated that I was unable to define what a woman was. That is not true. I am a woman, obviously. Okay, we all occasionally might use the odd “um” or “ah” in an interview, but if he listened to what I said, I said “adult female, under the Equality Act.” Also in that interview, which he did not quote, I said that the Equality Act protects on the basis of sex, although some of his comments and those of others intimated that I did not. I stated that there is a biological definition and also a legal definition. If he wants to dispute whether any of those definitions are extant, I am happy to have that discussion. I do not think that his argument would hold water, because it would not be a correct one. I feel that he should still withdraw those original remarks, but I accept that, at least from his point of view, he has attempted to set out his view. I do, however, think it is a mistaken one.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Lady for answering that point of order. There is clearly a difference of opinion, and that is not a matter on which the Chair can adjudicate, and nor should the Chair try to. The facts have been satisfactorily put on the record, and I am grateful to everyone concerned for doing so.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this house has considered International Women’s Day.
Barnet Police Station
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Theresa Villiers (Chipping Barnet) (Con)
This petition, and its online equivalent, have been signed by more than 1,000 people, because they want to save Barnet police station. The Mayor of London has shut the front desk and now wants to sell off the building, and we want to stop him doing that.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of the constituency of Chipping Barnet,
Declares that petitioners strongly object to the Mayor of London's decision to close Barnet Police Station and his subsequent plans to sell off the building.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to press the Mayor of London to drop his plans to permanently close Barnet Police Station and to work to re-open it as soon as possible.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002716]
Sir Richard Shepherd
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)
It is with both sadness and pleasure that I speak in this debate as a tribute to my dear friend, Richard Shepherd, a friendship that extended almost 40 years. I have written a tribute to Richard in this week’s House magazine. He was one of my closest political and personal friends. How often did we lunch together in his favourite Italian restaurants, discussing how we were going to extract ourselves from the subjugation of European government? It is entirely appropriate for this tribute to be on the Floor of this House of Commons, whose attention he held on every occasion. I feel him here now. He was a most unusual speaker. He only did so when he felt he had to, but when he did it was always an intensely emotional experience. He reminded me somewhat of what we have heard of Charles James Fox in the late 18th century, and particularly Fox’s last exchange with his friend Edmund Burke at the time of the French revolution, with tears streaming down Fox’s face as they parted company.
I remember, too, heady days when my wife Biddy and I spent time on holiday with Richard in Florida and elsewhere. Later in his life, I would sit in his drawing room opposite a painting of Clumber park, where in my youth I often played cricket, or on the telephone recalling our great parliamentary battles and our friendships with other patriots, so many of whom have sadly died. I am glad to say that Chris Gill still lives near us in Shropshire.
I strongly recommend that hon. Members read Richard’s speech of 21 February 1992 on his private Member’s Bill for a referendum on the European issue. The Bill was drafted at my suggestion by one of the Government’s former parliamentary counsel, Godfrey Carter. Margaret Thatcher came to the debate and voted with us shortly before she left the House of Commons. In that speech, he said of Maastricht:
“I belong to a union—the Union of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is a political allegiance which I gladly give. It is one of sentiment, one of passion, one which has been fashioned over the course of centuries. That is to be set aside because the Treaty of Union seeks to make me a citizen of elsewhere. I would be a citizen with a profound and essential difference: I could not control the laws, in whole areas, by which I would be governed.”—[Official Report, 21 February 1992; Vol. 204, c. 581.]
His Protection of Official Information Bill largely became law, and he voted against the Government on the Scott report as well as at many other important moments in our political life over the last 30 years.
On so many evenings as we left the Chamber late at night, particularly during Maastricht, Richard would simply say, “See you down there,” by which he meant the Members’ entrance, where his car would pull up to give me the inevitable lift on the way to his home in Kensington, which was once owned by John Galsworthy, who wrote “The Forsyte Saga” there. He was Back Bencher of the year in 1985 and parliamentarian of the year 10 years later. He was greatly loved by his constituents of Aldridge-Brownhills, where he increased his majority by 10,000 between 1979 and 2010.
Richard created Partridges, the famous food store now in Duke of York Square, which gained a royal warrant. He took advice from Garry Weston, who owned Fortnum and Mason. I am so glad that Richard’s brother, John, who is managing director, is in the Gallery with his family. Davida, his sister, was his ever diligent parliamentary assistant.
This being a Thursday afternoon on a one-line whip, some of his parliamentary friends cannot be here. I will therefore briefly read out some of their tributes to him. The chairman of the 1922 Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady), said:
“Richard was a great defender of liberty and democracy. He never forgot that the sacred duty of our Parliament is to protect the hard-won freedoms of the British people and to guard against the growth of an over-mighty Executive. He was a principled and courageous man who made a great contribution to public life.”
My right hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd West (Mr Jones) said:
“Richard Shepherd was an outstanding parliamentarian who devoted his work to advancing and upholding, as he put it, our very sense of liberty and confidence in our system of government and its institutions. As such, he was an admirable and remarkable man.”
My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) said:
“Richard was a passionate campaigner for the rights of Parliament and democracy and in doing so was not afraid of either Ministers or Whips, who he frequently annoyed. I was working for Margaret Thatcher and remember well her robust arguments with him over freedom of information but also the respect she had for his always principled position. Parliament and the country owe him a considerable debt.”
My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) said:
“Richard was a true gentleman, a great independent, committed free spirit and a truly kind man.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said:
“Richard was a superb parliamentarian. He spoke his mind even when it was not popular with party leadership. He was proved right far more often than not. He was unwavering in his determination to see the UK out of the EU superstate. He will be missed.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) said:
“Richard was a man of principle who would never stay silent when he saw our cherished liberties being undermined. He put his country before his own advancement and was a fine example of a true parliamentarian in the great tradition of England.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) said:
“Richard represented everything that is best about an MP. He was a gentleman with the emphasis on gentle; but with a steely determination to act fearlessly in the best interests of our country.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) said:
“I remember Richard as an excellent and principled Parliamentarian, a kind and thoughtful colleague, and one who would do what he could to help his friends. I was sorry to hear of his passing and send my condolences to his family.”
Notice the word “gentle”, the word “kind”; that was the measure of the man.
I would also like to put on record that several Opposition Members have also paid tribute to Richard, such as the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) and the right hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz).
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
I am greatly moved by the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and the memory of our friend the former Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, whom, as a new Member, one was rather scared of, because his emotion could be so overpowering and his passion could be so devastating. I learned at first hand how that could be harnessed to the public good when I, as a young spokesman on constitutional affairs, was conducting the opposition to the Scotland Act 1998, which laid down the foundations of the devolution settlement that we are now trying to make work. Everything that he warned about that Act has come true, including the way that it has divided Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom politically and emotionally, the way that it has been exploited by nationalists and narrow nationalism, and the way that it has led to a political and legal dispute between the Parliaments and Governments of the United Kingdom and Scotland.
I also have to put on record one word that Richard kept raising with great passion: “consanguinity”. He kept talking about the consanguinity of a united people—that is, we are all a people of a common blood. Personally, I think our consanguinity goes wider than the United Kingdom, but he believed this with such force and it pains me greatly that so many of his predictions came true. He was a wonderful parliamentarian and I will never forget him.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
What is so striking about all those quotations from parliamentary colleagues is that they are absolutely interchangeable. They were all written separately and they all said the same things. I can take that one step further because in preparation for this event this evening, I took the trouble to look up the obituaries in a variety of papers, ranging from The Guardian on the left to The Daily Telegraph on the right. And guess what? Those tributes are absolutely interchangeable, too. They talk about his independence of mind, his integrity and the fact that he was a true gentleman and a man of principle.
All I can add that I do not think has been said before is that, as somebody who has been here for merely almost 25 years—I am therefore a relative newcomer by comparison with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and, indeed, Richard—I believe that he set an example that all of us were proud to follow, sometimes even to the point of having the Whip suspended for a little while.
Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), and I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on his very moving speech. I had the pleasure of knowing Sir Richard, not for as many years as my hon. Friend, but when I was a young man, I was first an undergraduate and then a graduate student at the London School of Economics—Richard’s alma mater—and he was a great hero of mine.
My hon. Friend mentioned a speech that he gave on 21 February 1992. I was living in Berlin at the time, and I spent a lot of time in the British Council library trying to understand what on earth was going on in my own land while I was living abroad learning German. Richard was a beacon for me at that time, and I commend the speech to which my hon. Friend referred. In a book, Edward Pearce, the journalist, referred to Richard’s speech on that date, on Second Reading of the Referendum Bill, as belonging in any anthology of great parliamentary speeches. Colleagues can look it up for themselves. It begins at column 581. I want to quote the last sentence because it has been for me a beacon for many years and showed how well Richard understood the central issue within the European question. He said:
“I say as a last note to the House that our people should ‘not go gentle into that good night’ but should rather ‘rage, rage, against the dying of the light’ that requires us to live under laws that we cannot change or control.”
Sir William Cash
I want to add a little bit to what my hon. Friend has just said. He was followed immediately after that speech by no less a person than Mr Peter Shore, the great Labour exponent of dislike of the idea of European government. He said:
“I think that the House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) for introducing the Bill and giving us an opportunity of addressing the most important issue that has come before us during the lifetime of this Parliament, which will shortly end.
The House will also be grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the clarity and passion with which he argued his case.”—[Official Report, 21 February 1992; Vol. 204, c. 589.]
And there was more besides.
Mr Bacon
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have that text in front of me. When I was a teenager, my father lived in Canada and I spent a lot of time going over there. Peter Shore was for a while the Trade Secretary or Transport Secretary and tried to thwart Freddie Laker’s attempt to introduce cheap airline tickets. As a very young man, I was extremely interested in cheap airline tickets. It took me some years to realise what a great man Peter Shore actually was, and my hon. Friend has done us a service in reminding us of that now.
In conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I thank you for the chance to speak in this debate? I hope that we all remember Sir Richard Shepherd for his extraordinary contribution.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Richard Shepherd was a gentle spirit and a poetic soul, as illustrated by the contributions of my right hon. and hon. Friends. I simply want to add to the accounts of his generosity, civility and courtesy. I invited Richard to speak in my constituency, and with typical humility he said, “Really? I don’t very often get invited to travel across the country to speak.” But surely enough, he did. He travelled from Aldridge-Brownhills to the Lincolnshire fens and addressed a luncheon function. He charmed everyone not by what he said but by the way he was. What he said, accorded closely with my own views, of course, but that is not really the point I want to make. He was such a humble, gentle, poetic soul.
I well remember that on that occasion I gave him a small gift of a watercolour that I had painted. Years later he said to me, “I treasure that painting you gave me, John. I treasure that painting.” It touched my heart, as he touched the hearts of so many people here, so many from his constituency and so many people more widely. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) for the chance to pay this tribute to a very great parliamentarian and a still greater man.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker, because I got stuck trying to get back for this debate. I will not detain the House for long, because I know that my hon. Friend the Minister will want to say something herself because of her own connection with Sir Richard Shepherd.
I arrived in this House in 1992, when the Maastricht treaty was in full flow, or at least was about to be. I was greeted by two people. One was my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash), who destroyed the rest of my career, and the other was Richard Shepherd, who finished off the job. They persuaded me that my base instincts were the right ones and therefore I should give evidence to them by voting against the Government. I did, in fact, and was persuaded by them to do that. Richard was kindness personified, as I am sure many people have said. He was very interesting and amusing, but we forget that it was not just on Maastricht that he was so emboldened. He led the charge in the Conservative party on freedom: he was a forerunner of freedom of information and of the rights of whistleblowers. He challenged even the great Lady Thatcher herself, and she became very frustrated with him on a number of occasions, but, much as he adored and supported her, he still rebelled against her when the need was there.
I came to the House in 1992, a young Member full of hopes and aspirations; and then I saw Richard, who never sought public office, who thought that being here was enough in itself and that making your mark through your intellect, courage and determination would leave behind you a record of success to which many who might enter ministerial office could never point a finger—and to that extent I thank God for Richard Shepherd.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) for introducing so ably this very important debate, which has been graced by a number of wonderful tributes to Sir Richard Shepherd that I cannot hope to match. All I would say is that in my 20 years in the House—I am one of the most junior Members to contribute this evening—I came to regard Richard Shepherd as a man of infinite principle combined with charm and good humour. That is not a bad thing to say about any Member of Parliament from any party in the House. He never wavered in his belief that one day the United Kingdom would become master again of its own destiny. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone will understand what I am about to say: if Richard Shepherd had been here on 29 March 2019, he would have been a Spartan too.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
No one has yet mentioned Richard Shepherd’s passionate defence of the rights of this place and the Members of this place. I well remember, before the days when we had automatic timetable motions—new Members will not be able to imagine that there could have been such days, when we did not have timetable motions and the Government had to introduce a so-called guillotine motion if they wanted to curtail the debate on any Bill or, indeed, any matter—that Richard Shepherd used to sit there, on the second Bench below the Gangway, and oppose and speak against and vote against and force a vote upon every single guillotine motion that the Government brought in. That had quite an effect. It was hard to believe then that he was in fact such a charming, passionate gentleman.
Sir William Cash
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. He also sought to be Speaker, and he received 136 votes in that contest. Heaven alone knows what would have happened if he had managed to win it.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am sure that the answer to that point of order is that we would have been sitting all night, every night.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Wendy Morton)
Let me first convey my grateful thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) for securing the debate, and for sharing with us all so many memories and so many stories, but also for sharing his tributes with those of colleagues. You shared one of your own memories, Madam Deputy Speaker. We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin), my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon), and my right hon. Friends the Members for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois). On a Thursday afternoon, when many Members will have left for their constituencies, the fact that so many colleagues are here this evening is a huge tribute to Richard.
Richard—Sir Richard—was a decent man. He was fair, honest and thoroughly principled, as we have heard. He was someone who cared for his constituency and his constituents. It was said that when many cared about spin, Richard cared about substance. Today has been an opportunity for Members to share their feelings and their condolences. I know, as the current Member of Parliament for Aldridge-Brownhills, that in the last couple of weeks constituents from right across the constituency—I do not know whether to call it my constituency or his constituency: our constituency, perhaps—have emailed me, stopped me in the local supermarket and approached me in Aldridge village, on Brownhills High Street and in the communities in between, to share their stories and ask me to pass on their sympathies, which I have duly done. They have expressed the joy that they felt and that was felt across the constituency when Richard was knighted. He made a difference to the lives of so many people. One constituent said:
“To call on Sir Richard in a time of need was to know that he would do all he could to either assist with the problem himself or find someone who could.”
That is important to all of us in this place.
It did not matter which political persuasion someone came from; many local people had reason to be grateful for Richard’s help. I would like to share one story that was shared with me by a constituent. I am sure she will not mind me naming her: she is a lady called Sue Satterthwaite. She is our local historian in Aldridge. She told me that when David Partridge received his MBE, Sir Richard invited him, three members of his family and Sue for a tour of Parliament. Richard met everyone in Westminster Hall, and after a few moments, he asked Sue to step a little to the left. When she asked why, he said:
“That is perfect. I know how much you value our democracy and the history of this place. You are standing on the exact spot where Charles I received his death sentence.”
Sue shared that story with me. For that constituent, Sir Richard created one of the most memorable days that she had experienced. That was something that he was able to do. It is also a powerful reminder of the importance of democracy, as we watch all that is going on around the world, particularly at the moment.
I join my hon. Friends in this place this evening to pay tribute to Sir Richard Shepherd, my predecessor, who I know represented his constituents with a tremendous sense of duty and purpose. As we have heard, he was a strong and independent voice. He was never one to shy away from the controversial debate, and he was often even argumentative. He is remembered by some as a Maastricht rebel, back in the 1990s, and in holding true to his views on the European Union he remained fearless, as we have heard. His often principled stance is to be celebrated. His record in defence of whistleblowers and his fight for transparency is to be applauded. He was greatly loved and respected in Aldridge-Brownhills for 36 years, and greatly respected by his friends and colleagues in this place. He was a fine parliamentarian, and our thoughts are with his family at this time.
It has been an absolute privilege to respond to this debate on behalf of the Government, and I again say to thank you to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I am sure the whole House would like to thank the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) for having secured this debate and provided an opportunity for the House to pay tribute to one of its greatest ever Members. Sir Richard was a passionate parliamentarian, and we will not see his like again.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. The purpose of the regulations is to raise the national living wage and national minimum wage rates on 1 April 2022.
We should be proud of the labour market’s recovery from the pandemic. In the UK, the current number of payroll employees is over 400,000 more than pre-pandemic levels, while unemployment has fallen to 4.1%. That is in no small part down to Government intervention in protecting jobs and livelihoods, ensuring that businesses can get back to working with their customers, increasing footfall, and getting back to a sense of normality so that they can go through the gears. On the economic recovery, GDP recovered to the pre-pandemic level at the end of 2021 and increased by an estimated 7.5% over the year.
However, we are aware, clearly, that a key issue on people’s minds is the cost of living. We have already acted to support households with rising energy bills. We recently announced a package of measures worth £9.1 billion in the coming financial year, including a £200 reduction in energy bills and a £150 rebate in council tax bills for all households in bands A to D in England. That is in addition to measures already announced, such as the universal credit taper rate and freezing fuel duty for the 12th year running.
We are committed, in our recovery, to supporting the lowest paid. We cannot have a recovery off the backs of the lowest paid. Since 2015, we have increased the national living wage significantly faster than average wages, and more than twice as fast as inflation, meaning more money for the lowest-paid workers. An increase in rates this year will continue to protect the lowest paid against the increase in the cost of living.
The regulations will increase the minimum wage rates from 1 April. We estimate that that will give a pay rise to around 2.5 million workers, and I am delighted to say that we accepted all the rate recommendations made by the Low Pay Commission in October 2021. The independent Low Pay Commission brings together the business and worker stakeholder views, informed by expert research and economic analysis, and I am grateful for its well-informed recommendations and the work it has done to reach them.
We have set a target for the national living wage to equal two thirds of median earnings by 2024. When the Low Pay Commission made its recommendations last October, it took into consideration that target and the strong economic and labour market recovery—to that point—as well as the remaining uncertainty and feedback from the wide range of stakeholders it spoke to and engaged with.
We are pleased that the increase keeps us on track to reach the target for 2024, which we remain committed to. The LPC’s recommendations are based on significant stakeholder evidence from business, worker, and academic representatives. Businesses told it about the concerns they face, at this stage of the recovery, and how they continued to plan for the future, based on our target for the national living wage.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I thank the Minister for giving way. May I congratulate the Government on being able to increase the national minimum wage in this way? It is extremely good news. However, I feel that the figures, which the commission came up with, are a little odd. Would it not be easier, from the point of view of a worker or apprentice, if the figure was rounded, so they would know that they were getting £8.90 or £5.20—or whatever it might be—rather than these rather odd, random figures?
Paul Scully
The figures are based, as I said, first on the evidence, weighing the benefits for the lowest paid with the increased cost pressures on business. Of course, it is not only for the minimum wage or living wage itself, but pushing the differentials up for other people who are slightly further up the chain. I suppose that we could make the argument, “Do you want a rounded percentage or a rounded cost?”
Having had that evidence, there is then, effectively, a negotiation between the employers’ and workers’ representatives on the commission. They then come up with that recommendation, in between, of what they feel the economy can bear. It is not always rounded—clearly, that would be easier for everybody concerned—but we do not always allow perfection to be the enemy of the good. I think we have come up with something that is good for low-paid workers and for keeping to the manifesto commitment.
The national living wage for those aged 23 increasing by 6.6% to £9.50 is an increase of 59p. A full-time worker will be more than £1,000 better off over the course of the year. The regulations also increase the rates for younger workers and apprentices, and the accommodation offset, so workers aged 21 and 22 will receive an increase of 82p an hour to a minimum hourly rate of £9.18. Workers aged 18 to 20 will be entitled to an extra 27p an hour, taking their rate to £6.83. Under-18s will have an increase of 19p to an hourly rate of £4.81, and apprentices aged under 19, or those in the first year of their apprenticeship, will receive an increase of 11.9% to an hourly rate of £4.81—51p more.
I will announce another change to the regulations that we will shortly bring forward. Last year, we asked the Low Pay Commission to gather evidence on the use of the live-in domestic worker exemption to minimum wage entitlement, which exempts employers from having to pay the minimum wage to workers who live in the employer’s home and are treated as part of the family, such as au pairs. The Low Pay Commission heard evidence from au pairs, domestic workers, and agencies for those workers. The commission concluded that the exemption is not fit for purpose, and recommended that it be removed. We have accepted that recommendation, and will introduce legislation to remove the live-in domestic worker exemption when parliamentary time allows.
We have pledged to continue raising the minimum wage in the coming years. As I mentioned, our manifesto includes a target for the national living wage to reach two thirds of medium earnings by 2024.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
The Minister talked a lot about consultation with business, but he will be aware that some businesses do not comply with the legislation. Can he tell us a bit more about that, what the Government are doing to invest to ensure that their national minimum wage compliance unit is fully staffed, and whether there will be any approach to increase staffing in that area?
Paul Scully
I thank the hon. Gentleman. Enforcement, which is covered by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, is clearly really important. We work closely with HMRC to ensure that it is resourced to enforce in this area. We will also look at a single enforcement body, as part of our wider work. One of the things that it will look at, in a number of enforcement areas, is the national minimum wage and the national living wage. Clearly, that will bring even more experience and resource to bear for it to enforce in this area, along with a number of other areas that businesses may be encroaching on. That is really important, because if a business is falling short in one area there is every chance that it is falling short in other areas as well. By bringing those enforcement regimes to a single enforcement body, it will be more effective and efficient, and it will be able to drive out poor behaviour by employers.
We understand the difficulties faced by business, workers and consumers at the moment, and our targets remain dependent on the economic circumstances, but we will continue to monitor the labour market. The draft regulations ensure that the lowest-paid workers are fairly rewarded for their valuable contribution to the economy. We will continue to monitor the impacts of increasing the national minimum wage, and will remain abreast of concerns on the cost of living. We will shortly publish this year’s remit to the Low Pay Commission, asking it to provide recommendations for new minimum wage rates to apply from April 2023. In the meantime, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the Minister for setting out the draft regulations. As he said, their purpose is to amend the National Minimum Wage Regulations 2015 to increase the single main hourly rate of the national living wage, which applies to people aged 23 or over, and to increase the national minimum wage for those aged 21 or over, those aged 18 or over, those under 18, and apprentices who are under the age of 19 or in the first year of their apprenticeship. As the Minister said, the draft regulations also increase the maximum daily amount for living accommodation, known as the accommodation offset rate, which is counted towards pay for the purpose of calculating whether the minimum wage has been met.
The regulations are not contentious and we will not be opposing them today. Any rise in the minimum wage is welcome. That is not to say that there are not areas where we think more could be done and more progress made. It is also fair to say—this is not a criticism of the Minister—that the rates were set before the current inflationary pressures that we have been talking about over the last few weeks emerged.
We recognise that the regulations provide for different rates of national minimum wage for different age groups, at the recommendation of the Low Pay Commission. We note that there is an above-inflation rise for 21 and 22-year-olds and apprentices. However, conversely, the rise is below inflation for those aged 18 to 20 and those under the age of 18.
We also note the Government have retained the age limit, which we think fails to acknowledge that those under 23 face many of the same pressures as those over 23. Many have to pay rent and other bills, and buy food and fuel. Those costs are not cheaper just because a person is younger. Perhaps the Minister can set out why it is still the Government’s position that those between 18 and 20 should be paid a far lower rate than those aged 21 for exactly the same work, and even less than those aged 23 and over. The impact assessment for the regulations notes that the roll-out of the main rate for those aged between 23 and 25 has gone smoothly, so I would be interested to hear from the Minister whether he will consider extending that rate in the light of the progress made so far.
The Opposition value the contribution of people in work equally, regardless of their age. We believe their value to society and the economy is worth the full rate of the national minimum wage; it is time that everyone was paid the same rate for the same job. There are increases in the cost of living and the pressures faced by people in work. One in six working households are in poverty. Despite increases in the minimum wage, we have had a decade of stagnation—debts have been running up and savings have gone down. Millions of people are unable to deal with an unexpected loss of income or an unexpected one-off payment, and are in a very precarious economic situation.
Of course, none of this helps those who are self-employed—almost half of whom, according to the TUC, do not earn the minimum wage. There is an argument, for another time, about whether all those who are self-employed are genuinely self-employed or whether they should be classed in another category.
As the hon. Member for Glasgow South West noted, not everyone who is entitled to it receives the national minimum wage. Underpaying remains a serious problem, particularly in certain sectors of the economy such as the care sector. Employers continue to find ways to cheat their workers out of pay. The Government’s list of shame, which came out at the end of last year, of minimum wage transgressors showed the care sector along with hospitality and retail as the main sectors where transgressions took place.
I note the Government have finally appointed a new director of labour market enforcement, 10 months after the departure of her predecessor. The Government have said part of that role will be to oversee an annual assessment of the scale and nature of non-compliance in the labour market. I know the new postholder has only been in the job for three months, but I hope the Minister can set out in his reply what work has been done on that matter to date and what level of detail the assessment will entail.
As I have mentioned, in December last year the Government named and shamed 208 employers who were failing to pay their workers the national living wage or the national minimum wage. Those employers were found to have breached the law to the total of £1.2 million, leaving some 12,000 workers out of pocket. Of course, not all those underpayments will be intentional, but there can be no excuse for underpaying workers. Some of those employers included such well-known high street names as House of Fraser and Waterstones, and I am sorry to say that even Lancashire County Cricket Club appeared on the list. Those are not fledgling companies that can say that they were not aware of the legislation. There really can be no excuse for such long-established employers failing to pay the right amount to their staff.
I note that on the list there are some companies that are well known for contracting with the public sector, such as Mitie and Greencore. Those are not fledgling organisations either, and they really ought to know better. The question for the Minister is whether he thinks that Government ought to be doing better. Why should minimum wage transgressors be allowed to pick up contracts from the Government, the NHS or any other part of the public sector? Does he agree that we really ought not to be rewarding that type of behaviour?
I wonder whether the Minister has had any thoughts on the geographical spread of those found to have broken the regulations. The top regions on the list were the east midlands, London and the north-west, in that order. Does that mean there is a particular problem in those regions, or does it mean that people in those regions are more willing to report issues? I would be grateful to hear the Minister’s reflections on that. It is also worth noting that the investigations referred to in the report were concluded between 2014 and 2019, so some of the breaches that appeared on the list were up to eight years old. I wonder why it has taken so long to conclude the investigations.
It is right that we call out those who are in the wrong, but we need to go further. This would be an opportune point at which to hear from the Minister about the progress in the Government’s own consultation. The “Good Work Plan” established a new single enforcement body for employment rights. The Minister will know that three quarters of respondents to the consultation for that plan supported a balanced approach to enforcement, based on compliance and deterrence.
It was also noted in the consultation that there was support for a compliance notice system for less serious breaches, giving employers a fixed period of time to take corrective action before further measures, such as the issuing of a fixed notice, are taken. Even the TUC has agreed that there should be greater use of labour market enforcement orders and undertakings, recognising that they form an important bridge between informal action and official prosecutions.
When the Minister responds, can he tell us how many enforcement orders have been issued? If he cannot tell us that today, perhaps he can write to me with that information. Can he also tell us how many undertakings have been given by employers, how many undertakings have been breached subsequently, and how many prosecutions have followed when undertakings have failed? It is important that stronger sanctions are imposed as a deterrent. Some of these fines are for only a few thousand pounds, and it does not seem as though there are many prosecutions, either. Finally, when will the single enforcement body that has been promised so often end up on the Order Paper as part of some legislation?
We want to build a Britain where everyone in every part of the country, regardless of their background, can get a good quality job that provides security, treats them fairly and pays them a proper wage to enable them to live a good life.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see a friend of the worker in the Chair, Dr Huq.
I thank the Minister for his presentation, and I will make a number of points. First, the so-called national living wage is no such thing. The Scottish Government promote the real living wage, which is set by the Living Wage Foundation and which is £9.90 an hour; you will be aware, Dr Huq, that in London it is £11.05 an hour. Although there is a suggestion that the Government have introduced a living wage, it is not a real living wage.
Setting minimum wage rates appropriately is important because workers spend their wages in the wider economy, so there is a boost. I noticed that the Minister did not develop that point, but businesses have an interest in ensuring that there is an adequate minimum wage rate level, because workers spend that money in the private sector and use it when they can.
The reality is that in-work poverty remains the norm and is on the rise. One other way of helping to tackle in-work poverty, in addition to the national minimum wage rates, would be the much-promised employment Bill. We have been waiting for it for four years, so perhaps the Minister can tell us where it is, and whether it remains a priority for the Government to help workers in the gig economy, where work is traditionally low paid and where there is, I am afraid, a lack of enforcement of minimum wage rates.
I want to develop the points made by my fellow Glaswegian, the hon. Member for North Wiltshire, regarding some of the figures. I have been and remain concerned about the age discrimination that goes on in the national minimum wage rates, and they do look peculiar as they have been presented. Perhaps the Minister can explain why, for example, a 17-year-old could be working in McDonald’s flipping hamburgers next to a 37-year-old who was doing the same job but would be paid a different rate. Both are participants in the labour market and they are doing the same job, but with vastly different wage rates. I am not sure that that is sustainable going forward.
Perhaps the Minister can also explain why some wage rates seem to be getting a low increase—in fact, some of the increases are lower than the price of a Freddo bar—while others are getting a big increase. There does seem to be a presentational difficulty with what the Minister has put forward. I would be obliged if he could write to the Committee to explain why for some wage rates the increase is 9.8%, for example, and for some it is 4.1%. I am sure that apprentices will welcome their increase, because that is something that we have raised before.
Could the Minister also write to the Committee on the current number of vacancies in the national minimum wage compliance unit and the actual numbers employed by that unit? I am concerned that according to the last figures that I saw, in a parliamentary answer, the numbers employed by the state in the national minimum wage compliance unit are a tenth of those chasing social security fraud. I think that ensuring that we have a good and robust national minimum wage compliance unit will help more workers in the economy.
My last question for the Minister is this. We are obviously in a cost of living crisis. He has today presented figures for April onwards, but he will be aware of the forecasts that inflation could increase within the next year, so what scope does he have to review the minimum wage rates still further? Is he in a position to look at those wage rates and increase them further, or is it possible that he may be in a position to do so in the next financial year? I ask because that may very well be required in the cost of living crisis.
I conclude by reminding the Minister of the words that we heard yesterday at the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, of which I am a member, from the great writer and author Jack Monroe about the consequences of the cost of living crisis. I would hope that every Minister has placed those words in their offices and on their walls, so that they know exactly what they need to do going forward.
The Chair
Order. Both Opposition speeches went a little out of scope of the regulations. I am very nice, so I let that go, but we are talking about just these regulations. Would anyone else like to say anything else? No. In that case, I call Minister Paul Scully to respond.
Paul Scully
Thank you, Dr Huq, and I thank hon. Members for their contributions to this debate. The national minimum wage and the national living wage will make, and do make, a real difference to millions of workers across the country. The increase will be welcomed, I am sure, by the people who see a real, tangible benefit. Undoubtedly, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West said, we have the ongoing cost of living issues, and we need to look at the measures in the round, but as you rightly say, Dr Huq, we do not want to go out of scope of the measure being debated. It is therefore important that in other debates we can look at support measures for everybody, but especially for the most vulnerable in our society. We can do that in other fiscal events and in other places, with other measures that we have. However, I am glad that there is agreement that the lowest-paid workers in this country deserve a pay rise, which will help to protect them from rising inflation and protect their standard of living.
This year’s change means that on 1 April, workers on the national living wage will be earning more than £5,000 more than they did in 2015, when the policy was first announced. Younger workers will also get more money through the increases to the other national minimum wage rates. There were a number of questions about the differentials between those. The apprenticeship figures were a lot higher because we are gradually aligning them with the under-18 rate, which was preannounced by the LPC back in 2020. It has given businesses the opportunity to become aware of that and to factor it into their cash flows, for the reasons that I have given.
Let me address the point about the differentials for people doing the same job—the example was flipping burgers. Young people have a competitive disadvantage when entering the labour market because of their lack of work experience, and because they have less knowledge of the area. They may have lower productivity while they are being trained and learning the job, and employers may need to provide additional training. Any minimum wage structure has to recognise and reflect that, because if we do not have that within the system, some employers may well be unwilling to give young people those critical first opportunities that are really important for them. None the less, we are starting to align more of the age group’s living wage to make sure that we can flatten it as much as possible, and we continue to monitor economic conditions.
We are indeed more cautious about increasing wages for younger people, but for the right reasons. We want to make sure that they get paid as much as possible, but we also want to make sure that they are in work. At the end of the day, the cost of living situation is far easier to face if people are in work in the first place, although it is still a challenge. What we do not want to do is to stifle our productivity. We do not want to stifle our recovery, which is one of the reasons why we have more people on payroll now than we did pre pandemic. That is a testament to our plan for jobs and growth.
The hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston talked about enforcement and naming and shaming. Some cases can be incredibly complicated to go through and can involve quite technical breaches. None the less, it is right that we do not exclude companies from being named and shamed because of ignorance of the law, but it can sometimes take a while to enforce. Bear in mind that we paused the naming and shaming process throughout the early stages of the pandemic, and we are now effectively playing catch-up with some of those cases.
Justin Madders
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I appreciate that sometimes these things are quite technical, but it has been eight years. What is the reason why it has taken so long for some of the cases to be published?
Paul Scully
As I say, some of that was the pausing of the naming and shaming, and we are effectively playing catch-up on that.
On the percentage points that the hon. Member for Glasgow South West talked about, he asked whether I would write to him, but I recommend that he looks at the Low Pay Commission report, which details how the LPC came up with them. That content is already there. There are 400 full-time equivalents in the enforcement area of the national minimum wage under HMRC, but I will certainly look into the vacancies and fill in any more detail for the Committee in writing.
I think I have covered most of the points that have been raised.
Chris Stephens
I do apologise, but I think the only thing that has not yet been covered is whether the Government are keeping the minimum wage rates under review for the next year because of what is happening with the cost of living crisis.
Paul Scully
It is difficult to do mid-year, but there will be other fiscal events, and there are other areas of support for people during the cost of living crisis. At the moment, we are going through the process of setting the remit for the Low Pay Commission to consider. It is doing a lot of evidence work now. April and May are usually its busiest time for gathering evidence, which it then considers. The LPC effectively goes away on retreat in the autumn to have those negotiations, and we usually announce the figures in October so that they are ready to start in the next financial year. It is difficult to get something substantive mid-financial year, but, as I say, there is always scope for us to look at how we can work through the cost of living crisis and pressures, which will invariably increase.
We all know that with Putin’s war, he has inflicted misery on Ukraine, and it is right that we support Ukrainians and stand steadfast with them. Hon. Members will have seen the increase in sanctions this morning, and they will inevitably have an effect on us. That is the price we are paying for Putin’s war and for freedom, frankly, and we have to acknowledge and face up to that. We will certainly see what we can do in the round, whether it is on energy, inflation or supply chains. However, I am going slightly off on a tangent, and I do not want to push that too far.
Once again, I put on the record my thanks to the Low Pay Commission for the evidence gathering that it performs and the way it works to get a consensus between employers’ representatives and workers’ representatives, which is not always easy. The LPC believed that it would face a particular challenge this year, but it came up with a really good settlement that will benefit millions of people up and down this country. I am looking forward to receiving the Low Pay Commission’s recommendations for 2023 later this year, but in the meantime I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
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BACKBENCH BUSINESS
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Covid-19: Deteriorating Long-Term Health Conditions
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered people with deteriorating long-term health conditions during the covid-19 pandemic.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this debate on what I believe is an important topic: dealing with the deterioration in people with long-term conditions during the covid-19 pandemic. On several occasions in Westminster Hall and the Chamber, we have discussed the various impacts of the pandemic on the health service and various sections of society, but this issue has not been highlighted before, so I am grateful for the opportunity. I thank hon. Members who have supported the debate.
It is worth remembering that we are dealing here with a range of conditions, and I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. As Members know, I have a family interest in rehabilitation for survivors of stroke, which I will certainly touch on. However, we are not simply talking about stroke. There are many other conditions that affect people, including cardiovascular conditions, neurological conditions such as multiple sclerosis, and cystic fibrosis—to name but a few. They have all been affected in one way or another by the consequences of the pandemic. That is why a number of the organisations who support people with such conditions—I am grateful to various charities, to which I will refer in a moment—have come together to assist us in bringing together some information for the debate, which we think needs greater public airing.
There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in the UK with long-term conditions, which range from stroke and dementia to Parkinson’s and spinal injury. They have all been particularly affected, and often acutely affected, by the pandemic. Sadly, some people have lost their lives during the pandemic, and we must be honest and recognise that. Some people may be clinically vulnerable as a result of their condition. In other cases, people will be more vulnerable because of other factors that are linked to their condition. In both circumstances, however, they have suffered because of the effects of the pandemic, and we need to turn that situation around.
We all know that, for many people in society, the lockdowns and other restrictions that we had to have meant social isolation and the suspension or adaptation of things that they were used to doing. However, the pandemic has had a much greater impact on people with long-term conditions than on the rest of us, because it meant missing out on crucial support from informal carers—the family and friends who come in and help—and fewer opportunities to use the cognitive, physical and social abilities that are so important for rehabilitation. Trying to keep one’s mobility going is one example. If someone is unable to do that for a number of months, it is inevitable that the situation can deteriorate and the adverse effects of the condition progress. That is a real and measurable impact.
Some conditions are progressive, meaning that they get worse over time, whereas others are not. However, even where they do progress over time, it does not mean that the level of progression of the condition cannot be arrested and delayed with support and therapy. It can make a difference for everyone.
Of course, there is an impact on mental health as well as physical health. For example, the Stroke Association’s research suggests that 69% of stroke survivors feel more anxious and depressed than before the pandemic. Similarly, people suffering from MS and other neurological conditions have found it tougher during the pandemic. Some 29% of people with MS have had appointments cancelled or delayed, and 53% said there had been a reduction in specialist support.
The British Heart Foundation has raised particular concerns, to which I am sure we will return, about delays in diagnosis and treatment for people with heart conditions. That includes preventive measures—diagnosis and then drugs that can prevent worsening cardiovascular conditions.
The situation is similar, too, for people in the UK living with cystic fibrosis. It is a smaller number—some 10,800 in the UK—but again, they are particularly vulnerable. Many found that specialist staff with respiratory expertise were being redeployed elsewhere, which created challenges for the specialist units dealing with them. People have had real difficulties right across the board.
The pandemic also meant the suspension of many community rehabilitation services. That is important, because those services are often delivered by a range of therapists. In the case of stroke, for example, that will involve physiotherapists, speech and language therapists, clinical psychologists and occupational therapists. For other conditions, people will have dieticians, podiatrists and others. Community rehab services underwent an enormous change in the pandemic, and with many staff being redeployed elsewhere, we need a strategy for getting them back. We need a strategy right across the piece for recovery from the pandemic in relation to these long-term conditions. I have made calls in this House in the past for a long-term strategy and plan to deal with stroke, but the same applies to many of these other conditions too, and they all ought to be linked together.
In the case of stroke, about half of stroke survivors had therapy appointments or home care visits cancelled, and of course many people—this applies to other conditions too—felt unsafe going into hospital for appointments, so we need to be catching up fast. Virtual therapy can work in some cases. For example, my wife’s speech and language therapy was able to be done online to some degree, but she cannot do the physiotherapy online in the same way, which leaves a significant gap. If I may, I will start with stroke and then move on to the other conditions, simply because stroke is the one that I am most familiar with.
The rehabilitation for stroke survivors is just such an important part of the pathway. We sometimes think of it as something that happens only in the first weeks and months after a stroke. That is not the case. Research increasingly shows that, with good rehab, people can continue to improve over a significant number of years after their stroke. Unfortunately, we are not delivering the level of services for the length of time that we would wish and that the Government want to deliver them for. NHS England’s national stroke service model outlines the aspiration for all stroke survivors to receive rehab support for as long as they can benefit from it. It should not be time limited but, as of April 2021, 58% of services were time rather than needs based. That does not seem to have improved; the situation has been made harder by the pandemic.
Of course, not only is rehabilitation important for the individual’s quality of life but it makes a cost saving. If we could get more people on the stroke pathway receiving early supported discharge rehabilitation, that could save about £1,600 over five years. That may not seem a vast amount, but when we think about the significant number of stroke survivors in this country, it is a really worthwhile saving, even in relation to that one condition.
We have done great work in improving acute stroke care, but what we have not done at the same pace is keep up with the rehab and life after stroke. That has been the Cinderella end of the service, and I think that that is true for many other conditions too. There was a lack of consistent provision even before the pandemic, and unfortunately the pandemic has made that situation worse.
I will quote one stroke survivor’s carer referring to what happened after their family member’s stroke in early 2020:
“My mum has severe dysphasia and with no speech therapy for 5 weeks while with me, and limited speech therapy while in hospital, her progress is not what it should be. This is severely impacting on her recovery and wellbeing.”
I know personally the importance of consistency in speech therapy and other matters. A stroke survivor says:
“I have felt my mobility worsen as my usual exercise activities were not available”.
Nobody disputes that some restrictions were necessary. What I am saying now is that we need to have an urgent plan, with funding behind it and a set of measures and goals, and a means of measuring attainment of those goals, to ensure that we catch up across the piece.
The latest snap figures suggest that we are struggling to meet even our own aspirations. Just one third of community rehab teams meet treatment time targets. Over 43% have waits of 15 days or more and, alarmingly, stroke survivors wait, on average, 10 weeks to see a psychologist. One of the things that people really do not appreciate about strokes is the significant psychological impacts that can occur. Unless we get the psychological issues resolved as best we can, that has an impact on the survivor’s ability to get the maximum benefit from the other therapies available. That is why it is really important. There is a real opportunity to join those various things together, to allow people to regain the skills that they have lost, and to hone and keep the skills that they retained after their stroke, or other condition. That would bring both social and economic benefits for all.
Community rehabilitation services for all these conditions have been hugely overstretched. Just 17.3% of stroke patient received the guideline recommended levels of support in 2021. We have discussed in the House before the real problem with a workforce strategy. Allied health professional representative bodies have all said that they are willing to step up to the plate, but they need the numbers. It is particularly difficult to get speech therapists, neuro- psychologists and so on. We need to do more on that.
I recognise that the Government are doing a lot more to improve things in many areas of the NHS, but we need to do that on rehabilitation as well. In addition to the other benefits that I listed, rehabilitation ultimately means fewer visits to GPs, less delayed discharge, and less demand, in the end, for acute care in the health sector and for social care as people get older and struggle with other issues. It reduces demand right across the piece.
The 2021 paper “Moving forward stronger” had contributions from some 20 charities and professional bodies representing a range of conditions. It was headed up by the Alzheimer’s Society, which called for a fully funded national rehabilitation strategy to run for two years, and for the NHS to appoint a national clinical lead to implement it. I welcome the fact that NHS England has appointed Jennifer Keane as its first director of rehabilitation. That is good news. The devolved Administrations do not yet have one; I hope that they will soon follow that example, and that this debate will enlighten some of the priorities that I hope the new director will have in drawing up her programme of work. We ought to have strategies for rehabilitation in local areas, as well as at a national level, to ensure that things are delivered on the ground. We have part of it but, although we have the director, we do not as yet have the strategy for her to work to and implement. That is the bit that I hope the Minister will assure me is coming next.
I referred to strokes, but I will touch briefly on some other conditions. I mentioned MS, which affects about 130,000 people in the UK. If we look at neurology overall, about one in six people in the UK is living with a neurological condition of one kind or another. Again, management throughout the pathway can really improve outcomes for people with those conditions. I mentioned the number of MS appointments that were cancelled. One in four people surveyed by the MS Society had not seen an MS nurse or neurologist in the past 12 months but needed to, so there is a glaring gap in provision.
I talked about a workforce strategy. Here is another area of the workforce. Adjusting for population, France and Germany have over seven neurologists for every two in the UK. We need to up recruitment into those specialist skills. That is a significant difference from our two largest and nearest comparative western European advanced economies. There should not be that level of divergence between us and France and Germany.
An audit of 51 UK MS services in 2020—while the pandemic was going on, but before the whole consequences had worked their way through—found that, on average, neurologists had caseloads of 1,815 patients with MS. The recommended caseload is 615, but the average caseload is nearly three times that recommendation, demonstrating the need to redouble our efforts on workforce. Some 64% of professionals said that it was not only recruitment that was an issue, but also staff leaving the neurology workforce. We need a strategy for recruitment and a strategy for retention.
For stroke services, when my wife was in the rehab unit, we could see quite a marked turnover of staff. They were good people, but we were unable to keep them, unfortunately, even in a trust with a specialist unit and rewarding work, very close to London. The situation is probably even harder in other parts of the country.
For many people with cystic fibrosis, the isolation has been particularly acute, because of their particular vulnerabilities. They had to shield as they were at acute risk. That has made it harder to bring forward their return into society. The Cystic Fibrosis Trust awarded 713 covid-related grants between April and September 2020, including 101 due to loss of work, and 96 due to financial difficulties, because people were unable, due to the need to shield and the lack of support, to carry on as they were otherwise doing. We cannot condemn people to that twilight situation for very much longer.
Finally, I turn to cardiovascular conditions. I am plucking out only four conditions, but there are others. We could talk about Alzheimer’s and dementia, and many other things—perhaps other hon. Members will.
The British Heart Foundation suggests that in the first year of the pandemic England saw around 5,800 excess heart and circulatory disease deaths—some because of medical factors, but some because of the difficulty in getting acute treatment. Beyond that, there are 61,000 people in England who had been waiting more than six weeks for an echocardiogram—a heart ultrasound—at the end of November 2021, which is 20 times than before the pandemic. The Minister may have more up-to-date figures, and I hope she will be able to tell us that they are coming down, but, if not, we need a strategy to make that happen.
Analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research found 470,000 fewer new prescriptions of preventive cardiovascular drugs were issued between March and October 2020 compared with the previous year. That potentially translates into 12,000-odd extra heart attacks over the next five years or so that might otherwise be preventable. If people are not diagnosed and given the preventive drugs, the risk of acute attack becomes that much higher.
NHS England’s statistics show that the number of people in England waiting more than six weeks for a diagnostic echocardiogram had climbed to 64,962—very specific—at the end of September. The key point is that that is 44% of those waiting. The number fell slightly by November, to 61,000, and I wait to see how much more it has fallen by now. At the end of February 2020, there were 3,238 people waiting. That is a massive jump, demonstrating the scale of the mountain we have to climb to get back to where we are before the pandemic. At the end of December 2021, in all, some 300,000 heart patients were waiting for care of one kind or another, be that emergency, urgent, elective or routine, in so far as anything is routine in such treatment, and some 29% had been waiting for more than 18 weeks.
I know the Government do not want that to be the case. They have real ambitions to reduce such waiting times, as I think all parties in this House do, but the point of this debate is to highlight how significant the issue is to make sure it is no longer the bit of the health service that gets forgotten about because it does not grab the headlines in the same way that waiting lists for acute care, operations and other things do. It is just as profoundly important for people’s lives, the lives of their families and for the community as a whole. That is why I am grateful for the chance to raise these issues.
I hope the Minister will respond and set out what the Government intend to do by way of a specific strategy and set out a timeframe, its objectives, how it will be implemented, how its success will be measured, how it will deal with the workforce, and how funding will be made available. I hope that we will have a useful debate going forward, Mrs Cummins, and I am grateful for the time to put these matters before the House.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) for opening the debate and for putting a lot of material as well as a lot of data before us to consider, which is incredibly useful. I am also indebted to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing today’s debate to go ahead.
Even pre-pandemic, there were many challenges for people with long-term health conditions and their management. There was a really good focus on the acute phase, but as people moved into the more chronic phase of their illness, the amount of rehabilitation and support individuals received waned. It was dependent on geography, where someone lived, and on how many in-person interventions they had. Through that time people’s baselines lowered as their function decreased, but it did not need to decrease. That is why it is so important to look at the issue today.
I echo the remarks of the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst on prevention. Of course, prevention is always better than cure, and having a strong public health strategy is crucial. In the acute and early intervention phases, many people missed out during the pandemic. We think about delays in diagnosis, the scale of treatment that people had because clinicians were placed elsewhere, and the value of input. We have talked about strokes today, and people having fewer rehabilitation sessions and less intervention from some of the leading clinicians, which meant they did not leave hospital at the same level that perhaps they did pre-pandemic. We need to pick that up now.
Early discharge has put more pressure on achieving a good baseline for somebody to move into the more chronic phase, the longer phase, of their rehabilitation. We know that once somebody goes home they do not have the physio nagging them every day and telling them to do certain things, so their function deteriorates unless there is good community intervention, which is what I want to focus my remarks on today.
We are talking about a broad range of conditions—neurodegenerative and other neurological conditions. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst set out some of those, but we can think about motor neurone disease, where time is simply not on your side, or Parkinson’s, where intervention is really important to ensure people maintain function.
We have learnt a lot about respiratory conditions over the last two years with covid, and suddenly lungs have come into central view. Cystic fibrosis has been mentioned. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is a condition that really does need good management in the community. There are cardiovascular, psychological and other conditions. We must remember that comorbidity is an issue that impacts on and intersects with many conditions. Somebody who has a combination of COPD and Alzheimer’s will often not remember or be able to steer the management of their condition. As a result, they are perhaps more susceptible to getting an infection and then finding it difficult to clear their lungs or to follow whatever treatment is prescribed, so they are more at risk and early morbidity is a serious risk factor. Therefore, we need to consider these issues in that context.
As I said, intervention at the acute phase of a disease can be intense, but it is about what happens next. We know that often there are not enough rehabilitation beds available to continue someone’s treatment. I have always argued that the convalescent stage is also really important for people to build their confidence, which is often what is needed after the acute stage. That is where the biggest challenge lies.
As the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst outlined, some services have been able to be delivered through new mechanisms, such as Zoom, that simply were not there before. However, as a physiotherapist myself who spent 20 years working in this area, I must say that I would find stroke rehabilitation very difficult on Zoom, and anything involving respiratory medicine as well, because it is all about diagnosing and treating people through the physiotherapist’s hands. Body-to-body contact is absolutely crucial in the development of interventions. Clearly, the lack of it has impeded people’s rehabilitation and had an impact on it. It is not just physiotherapy or occupational therapy that are affected; other services, from dietetics right through to psychological therapies, are also affected. For somebody who is already impaired, face-to-face contact is vital, particularly if they are neurologically impaired and have just had a new diagnosis. Therefore, the risks of a patient regressing and not reaching their baseline, and then regressing further from that, are even greater.
The NHS is in some ways now coming under greater pressure than it did during the covid period. My concern is that the focus, politically and clinically, will be on the elective list and those numbers—we will drive up those numbers for sure and the Government will look at them—and will move on to dealing with acute care as it appears and to dealing with the elective backlog. GPs will of course make the same call, saying, “Look at our waiting lists, look at what is happening here.” Consequently, people with long-term conditions will be squeezed out of the system. That is why I am really grateful to the hon. Member for securing this debate. People absolutely need intervention. Without it, their progress and even their functions will decrease, and that will put even more pressure on both social care and the health system. The debate today is therefore really timely, allowing us to consider the new pathways that need to be created in order to support people with long-term conditions. They have been the poor relation for some time and we cannot let that situation continue.
In the last decade or so, Labour in particular has been looking at pathways that could be developed, such as the expert patient, which enabled people to have control and management of their own disease. Enabling the patient to lead wherever possible is really important. New technology has come on board. Under this Government there has been a particular focus on how new technology can help to provide support, measure things and move medicine forward. All those interventions are absolutely welcome, but they should not detract from the importance of the physical interventions that are necessary. We must ensure we maintain that baseline, so that if somebody does regress, we can give them an injection of rehabilitation to get them back up again to their normal functioning. It is really important to do that in a timely way.
I very much look at this issue from a physical perspective because of my professional background, but I recognise that people with other clinical expertise and competencies will look at their particular field and the need that particular types of intervention. As the hon. Member said, it is right that people have the correct balance between physical and psychological health, and they have to be brought into one space. Sadly, if someone has a physical diagnosis, the psychological aspect is often left behind, because doctors are looking at the primary root of someone’s condition. We must look at people far more holistically than we do currently.
I therefore want to set out a four-stage rehabilitation service to support the physical and psychological needs of people living with chronic ill health. Taking that approach forward will need funding and a workforce plan, which the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt), has been incredibly powerful in calling for. I see a concept in which the first phase looks at assessment and measurement, the second at self-management, the third at therapeutic interventions, and the fourth at the psychosocial support, which is also needed.
First, interventions clearly need to be individualised. Everybody is unique in their presentation. We need to recognise that there is an opportunity to develop the service not only in domiciliary settings, but in rehab settings and, for some, in group settings. We have lost some of the collective healthcare that is important for not only the socialisation of health, but the encouragement from one patient to another. We have to capture that again. Often, a patient will be encouraged by seeing somebody else doing what they want to do and that will spur them on to go that little bit further.
Secondly, we have to look at patient management and how people enter services. It should be a given that patients will continue with their interventions once they leave formal healthcare settings. We need to make sure there is a continuum of regular assessment and monitoring. For some individuals, some of that assessment and monitoring can be done at home, but some of it will need external intervention.
Thirdly, regular support may not always require an intensive burst of intervention—sometimes it will—but if it can enhance function, it does need to be examined. I looked at some statistics provided by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. Only 15% of people with lung disease deemed eligible for pulmonary rehab are able to access it, which is quite shocking and we really need to address that. Some 50% of people eligible for cardiac rehab cannot access it. From running cardiac rehab classes, I know how people gain confidence from rehab to do things they never thought they would be able to do. They no longer live in fear, but live a confident life.
One in five people receive post-hip fracture rehab on discharge. I know of many cases where all the money is spent on repairing somebody’s hip or getting them a new hip, then getting them up, standing and walking in hospital, only for them to go home and just sit in a chair. Those patients then become fearful, which means social care has to come in, costing the NHS and the care system. It also means that somebody loses their independence, which is the biggest cost of all. This issue needs to be addressed.
Some 44% of people with a neurological condition do not access the services they need. We have a big amount of catching up to do. The biggest thing is that if somebody loses their confidence there is a rapid decline. We must remember that many of these people are elderly and live on their own. They do not have the interventions and the injection of hope that they need. We are talking about life-changing events—people’s whole world is reoriented. We need to make sure that patients maintain social connection, where possible, and are able to access that support.
Waiting lists for elective treatment have become so long. I cannot remember if we are at 6.2 million people or more, but with those kinds of figures many people will need additional support—for example with their diet, or they may be less mobile—so as not to trigger other thresholds that further delay their surgery. It is important that people do not become sedentary and that they have the support they need. If people have a lung disease, it is important that they do not increase the damage to their lungs, lose function or become psychologically impaired, because it is then harder to regain function. We do not want to see people spiralling, which can happen very quickly. Once people get into that place—which is not a great place to be—it is much harder to get people back, so let us really focus on that area.
Fourthly, I want to talk about people living with chronic conditions. Often, people get locked into a space where their life has changed so much that they become more isolated. They lose those social connections, and they also lose their ability to move forward. That might be because, for instance, they have lost their speech, or they might not have the same ability to communicate with people in all sorts of ways. We need to look at how we bring social prescribing into this agenda, as well as the voluntary sector and community support, which is necessary. I want the Minister to look at different pathways to bring that whole family of measures together. Often, we have isolated that into the various parts of someone’s body or mind, as opposed to looking at the person holistically.
Of course, if someone is more isolated, they may experience more loneliness and that impacts on anxiety, depression, motivation and function. People’s skills and confidence then decline even further. We need to ensure the programme has the resources it needs. People are whole beings, and we need to recognise that in our health systems. For too long, we have talked about arms and legs or lungs and brains, but we do not talk about people, and it is people who need that support. If we can look at such a model, we need to think carefully about how we socialise our health system.
I have been looking, in a completely different context, at fostering. There is a programme called the Mockingbird programme. I do not know if the Minister has heard of it, but groups and different people come and support the family. It may be an individual, a partner and their carer, or a family unit. They get that more community- based support. In the context of fostering, it is different families, so there is that concept of a community raising a child. Why do we not look at that for later in life for people with chronic conditions and for how we can provide support? Carers are often with their partners for weeks at a time with hardly any social interaction, and that can be quite telling if someone has an acute psychological condition as well.
Much more can be done for carers, as well as patients, as we move forward. We need a strategy, a workforce plan and funding. In this new world of integrated care partnerships, we have an opportunity to deliver that. July is day one. That is the moment to break out of the past which has let down people with long-term health conditions and move into a new era. I very much hope the Minister will be able to bring that forward.
Judith Cummins (in the Chair)
I aim to start the Front- Bench speeches no later than 2.28 pm.
Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) on securing the debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it. I join colleagues in thanking a coalition of charities and organisations that have come forward to support us with research and briefings in advance of the debate, particularly the “Moving forward stronger” policy paper.
Prior to being elected in 2019, I also had a background working in the national health service. Never in my wildest nightmares could I have imagined so early on in the job, after leaving the NHS, that we would be dealing with a global health pandemic on the scale of covid-19. It has permanently changed the way we look at and plan health and care services in the UK. In the London Borough of Sutton, where my constituency of Carshalton and Wallington is situated, 600 lives were tragically cut short due to covid-19. I am sure that that number would have been higher had it not been for the dedication, bravery and care of our local health and social care services.
I know that hon. Members across the House have the deepest gratitude and thanks for the unsung heroes. They were not just our doctors and nurses, but associated health professionals, pharmacists, volunteers and all those who stepped up to do their part. Part of the reason why I launched the Carshalton and Wallington unsung heroes scheme was to recognise their dedication. Unsurprisingly, our local health and care volunteers and staff featured heavily among the hundreds of nominations that I received. I cannot possibly name them all, but I would like to thank the St Helier Hospital eye treatment team; Reena, Sanja, Ravi and other local pharmacists; the head of occupational health at Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust; and of course the staff at vaccination centres across Carshalton and Wallington.
At the time of the outbreak of the pandemic, there was very little public discourse—understandably, as we were grappling with something that was unprecedented—about the long-term indirect impacts of the pandemic on our health and social care system. I know that I am not alone in receiving thousands and thousands of cases from constituents during the opening weeks of the pandemic and at its peak, when there were way too many incidences of people with long-term and pre-existing conditions experiencing disruption to their care. Many of them experienced much faster deterioration than would be usual or expected, and I hasten to add that it was through no fault of health and social care staff; it was simply because of the situation that we faced.
Some of the constituency cases that I heard of involved people with long-term cardiovascular problems who were unable to get treatment, spinal cord patients who were not able to be housed appropriately, and people with dementia and Alzheimer’s who were cut off from the social interactions that were crucial to keeping their cognitive and communication skills alive. As an officer of the all-party parliamentary group on dementia and someone who has had personal experience of dementia in my family, I would like to focus on this area.
In the London Borough of Sutton there are over 2,400 people living with dementia. Based on recent trends, it is estimated that well over 3,000 residents over the age of 65 will be living with dementia by 2030—an increase of approximately 25% in a very short space of time. There are almost 1 million cases of dementia nationwide. People with dementia were badly hit by the pandemic, as indeed were many people with long-term conditions. Dementia was the most common pre-existing condition for people who died from covid-19: people with dementia accounted for more than a quarter of all covid-19 deaths in England and Wales during the first wave of the pandemic.
However, the effect of the pandemic on people living with dementia goes far beyond the statistics. Tragically, they have also seen accelerated progression of their conditions, for a number of reasons. We know that social contact is very important for people living with dementia, but it was of course restricted—again, for a very understandable reason. That has exacerbated the issues for people living with dementia. For people living in care homes, where more than 70% of residents have a form of dementia, the restrictions were particularly serious, given that the Office for National Statistics estimates that 97% of care homes were closed to visitors at one point.
People with many long-term conditions, including dementia, rely on rehabilitation services to maintain their skills and abilities. When provided with the right support, rehabilitation services can help people living with dementia to maintain their cognitive, social and emotional skills, as well as meeting their physical needs and any other related conditions. As mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst and the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), those services were not able to meet everyone’s needs at the height of the pandemic. That was particularly true for people living with dementia, whose condition often makes it difficult for them to engage digitally, even if the service could be provided that way, which means that many people living with dementia have not been able to preserve their skills in the way that they could have done. That is exactly what happened to my constituent’s mother who is living with dementia and saw a dramatic deterioration during the first wave of the pandemic, suffering severe memory loss by the time she could meet her family again.
For those living with dementia, interaction with family is not just a nicety. It actually forms an integral and formal part of their care and treatment plan, as there is a causal link between lack of social interaction and the worsening of the condition. As we now emerge from restrictions and come out the other end of the pandemic, the long-term impact on the NHS, the care sector and people living with dementia will continue. I welcome the determination shown by the Department of Health and Social Care in dealing with the elective backlog. It is a mammoth task.
I also want to congratulate my own local NHS trust—Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust— for the work it has done. Previously, I welcomed the announcement of £500 million both to upgrade Epsom and St Helier hospitals and build another hospital in the London Borough of Sutton. I particularly want to applaud the trust’s ingenuity. As soon as it realised the scale of the pandemic, it had the foresight to amend its plans for the development of the new hospital to ensure that it can future-proof itself against future pandemics.
I believe we need to see determination from the Department to deal with the backlog of deterioration that we have seen among those with long-term conditions. I join colleagues and the coalition of charities and organisations in support of that national rehabilitation strategy for everyone who has seen their long-term condition progress throughout the pandemic. If planned properly, the rehabilitation strategy is an opportunity to reduce pressure on other services in our health and social care system.
Colleagues will have heard plenty of examples of people in their constituencies ending up in hospital needing round-the-clock care for entirely avoidable reasons, such as a fall. If we help people maintain the skills they have, they will be less likely to require support from acute care. The Alzheimer’s Society estimates that up to 65% of emergency admissions for people living with dementia could be avoided. Both rehabilitative and memory services are under significant pressure, and the waiting lists are still getting longer. That means that we need strategies to deal with the backlogs. With the right planning, we can not only overcome these issues but deliver better, more personalised support, because people living with dementia deserve nothing less.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins, and I seem to be doing so regularly. I am pleased to participate in this debate. I want to thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) for bringing it forward and for setting the scene with the detail and information to help us participate. I am pleased to see the shadow spokesperson, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), and the Minister in their place.
We often parley in this Chamber. Indeed, the Minister, the two shadow spokespersons, myself and others here, including the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), are always willing to come to these debates. I am my party’s spokesperson for health, so I am always pleased to speak in health debates. People may say that I speak in every other debate, but that is by the way. If I am spared another hour, I will speak in the next debate as well. Members of Parliament in a small party find that they have more portfolios than most. I have got a lot of issues, and that is why my participation in debates is so frequent.
During the pandemic I repeatedly spoke about the impact on schoolchildren and those who were ill. My fears have unfortunately been realised. We have children with issues catching up on basic education. We have a raft of people who are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and treatable conditions have escalated. As the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) has done, I want to thank all health workers—doctors, GPs, pharmacists, nurses, care workers. I also want to thank family members, who gave up a lot of time to look after family members who were unwell. Pharmacists have also been mentioned, and it is important to place on the record our thanks to them. It is because of their industrious efforts that we have all been able to get to the other side of this pandemic.
I would also like to thank the Minister and the Government for what they have done. Covid and the vaccine roll-out enabled us to move toward what I always hoped we would see, and which the Prime Minister has been keen on—a normal life, where we do not react to covid but learn to live with it. That is where I want to be, and I believe it is where the people want to be as well.
There are those who suffer from long-term deteriorating health conditions who have not received the necessary treatment and care. In some areas, people will have had a poorer quality of life because of covid.
I am always reminded of one gentleman in particular, who is a minister of the church in Newtownards—we call him Pastor Mark. He took covid early on and is very fortunate to be in this world. He was ill for a long period of time. He is a young man with a wife and a young family. He suffers from long covid, the deteriorating effects of which are very clear to him. Today he does not have the stamina and energy that he once had. He tires easily. He refers to brain fog. I am not sure what that means, but I understand when he tells me. These are some of the repercussions of the pandemic. The sad fact is that covid has robbed us of so many, and we must rebuild where we can.
Some of those with severe health problems were in a queue to receive treatment. For some, delays were part of the reason for the numbers of those who passed away. I recall with sadness people I knew who were on a list to get an operation or a treatment. They were put to the back of the queue because of covid, and they are no longer here today. That operation is lost and the opportunity for treatment was not given. I cannot say that it would have prolonged those lives, but it would have given a better quality of life and would maybe have added a few years. We must think of all those people who were not able to get the help they needed.
The hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington spoke about dementia. We had a debate on dementia in Westminster Hall some time ago. He is right. Probably because of my length of time as an elected representative, I know lots and lots of folk who, over the last period of time, have developed dementia and Alzheimer’s. I see the detrimental effect on their wellbeing and on their families—how dementia and Alzheimer’s robs people of their quality of life and their knowledge of their family members.
A wee lady passed away just this week. Her daughter phoned me on Sunday and let me know. I have known her all my life—she was 94 or 95 when she passed away. She took dementia and she came home. Some things people do remember. One thing her daughter told me on Sunday was, “Jim, she bought the Chronicle every week”—that is our local paper—“and when she saw your picture, she knew it was you, though she might not have known that I was her daughter.” Some things rob people of the very core of their life, and that concerns me.
More than 150,000 had their lives cut short by the virus. As the Alzheimer’s Society, Macmillan, Stroke Association, Age UK and many others have highlighted, across the UK, many people with pre-existing long-term health conditions have deteriorated faster than usual since the pandemic began. The increased rate of deterioration is due to the effects of having covid-19, as well as the measures taken to contain the virus, such as lockdown to reduce social contact and the suspension of rehabilitative services.
During the first wave of the pandemic, maybe professionals who provide rehabilitation were deployed to acute services for covid-19 patients. We understand the logic behind that, but there is an impact and there are side effects, which we are pointing to. Community rehabilitative services moved to primarily offer virtual support. As a result, rehabilitation services were unable to provide the same level of support that they did pre-covid. Community services are vital in helping to support people with long-term conditions. The mental wellbeing of those undergoing treatment for cancer, MS and heart conditions, and of disabled people, was greatly impacted, which gives us some cause for anxiety and concern.
The question for the Minister today, and for my Government, is where to go next. I support the aims of the organisations that produced “Moving forward stronger” and its specific recommendations, three of which I will cover in the timescale that you have indicated, Mrs Cummins. First,
“fully fund a national two-year rehabilitation strategy that ensures people with significantly deteriorated long-term conditions get the therapeutic support they need”.
That is really important. The second is to
“appoint a national clinical lead to implement this rehabilitation strategy”
and thirdly, to
“ensure local partners—such as local authorities and Integrated Care Systems…develop and deliver their own localised rehabilitation strategy, and that each ICS has a regional rehabilitation lead.”
When the Minister responds, I have every confidence that she will be able to reassure us that the things we are asking for today—collectively, but from different parts of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—will be addressed.
I know that the Minister has regular contact with the Minister back home—Robin Swann of the Northern Ireland Assembly. I think that is important. I am a great believer in the Union, not because I come from Northern Ireland and am a Unionist, but because I believe in the Union for England, for Wales, and—with great respect—for Scotland, with equal passion and concern. I would therefore ask the Minister what talks she has had with the Minister back at the Assembly.
I will give a quick plug for those who are waiting for cataract operations, and those who had glaucoma. Do you know what really annoys me, Mrs Cummins? It annoys me that some people have lost their eyesight because they have not had the care within the time when they should have had it. Maybe the Minister can give some reassurance on that.
I finish with this: these are things that I absolutely stand behind. I ask the Minister, to address the possible reasons why Government will not stand behind and implement the “Moving forward stronger” recommendations —although I hope that she will reassure me otherwise. We have people with a quality of life that can be improved with the right strategy, and the document lays a foundation to build on as we seek to repair that which has been decimated—through no fault of Government; it was covid-19 that did it. We are taking the approach that we must live with covid; those people have lived with the side effects it has had on their illnesses, and that cannot be allowed to continue. With that in mind, I very much look forward to the Minister’s response.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Cummins. I, too, am grateful to the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) for leading this important debate for us today.
I will start with a quote from a doctor in my constituency of Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, who was working throughout the pandemic in University Hospital Monklands’ accident and emergency department. He told me:
“People are presenting with conditions that are unfortunately too severe for us to treat. Covid has caused appointments to be missed and regular health checks to be postponed. The simple loss in social contact with healthcare professionals has created a lasting impact that we are only just beginning to realise.”
Sadly, due to the pressures on our hard-working healthcare professionals and the measures required to prioritise resources towards those contracting covid-19, many of our regular NHS services have been paused or delayed. That disruption and continued backlog will indeed take time to be addressed fully—we know that—but our foremost thoughts must be on how we support our constituents whose long-term conditions continue to deteriorate.
Undoubtedly, the reality is that the greatest support package that any Government can give the sector is direct investment. I am proud to say that, once again, Scotland is showing the way, with the Scottish Government in Holyrood making the Scottish NHS the best-funded health service in the United Kingdom.
In February 2021, the former Health Secretary in Scotland, Jeane Freeman, announced a new community living change fund of £20 million to deliver and redesign a service for people living with long-term illness and complex needs, including intellectual disabilities and autism, and those enduring mental health problems. We know that there are many conditions that we could highlight, as the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) did in his opening remarks, and that there will be a legacy of mental health implications for us all to tackle in the wake of the pandemic.
That £20 million funding is the beginning of the Scottish Government’s implementation of the Feeley review—the independent review into social care in Scotland, which delivered many recommendations for the reform of social care in Scotland. The Scottish Government understands that we need not only to make up for what has been lost over the pandemic but to make healthcare provision even better than it ever has been before. We must ensure that nobody who is ill or suffering feels it best that they do not ever go to a hospital; we can never have a repeat of that.
The new Scottish Budget 2022-23 delivers record funding of £18 billion for the health and social care portfolio, which will be used to support the remobilisation of services, as well as delivery on the priorities relating to prevention and early intervention. This is a 20% increase in NHS frontline spending, which equates to £183 per person in Scotland and is 12% higher than the £163 of investment per person planned for England in the coming year. On top of that, the Scottish Government will of course abolish all dentistry charges, eye examination costs and non-residential social care charges for those in need of our support.
My question to the Minister is this: these are simple changes being made through targeted investment decisions, so where is the difficulty in applying such a scheme in England and Wales? The only answer that I can determine is that there is no such difficulty, and that there is simply a complete lack in prioritisation of the NHS and a lack of political will to safeguard the most precious resource that these four nations have to offer.
I had the privilege recently of witnessing another of the Scottish Government’s new schemes and strategies to achieve early diagnosis when I visited Mackie Pharmacy in my constituency. They are one of many pharmacies across Scotland that are taking part in a campaign to promote local pharmacies as the heart of first-contact healthcare services and provision. The development of this “pharmacy first” scheme will relieve the pressures on GP practices and on our accident and emergency departments, by allowing for the diagnosis and treatment of common ailments on a more localised basis.
In addition, the constant contact that our pharmacies have with our communities allows them to identify issues even before people themselves are aware of them. During my visit to Mackie Pharmacy, one assistant told me how she noticed that an elderly lady who regularly comes into the store was not her usual self. After a few exploratory questions about how the woman was feeling and then noticing some changes in her over the course of a few days, the pharmacist recommended an admission to hospital and it was found that she had a serious heart condition. That visit to the pharmacy that day saved that lady’s life. That is how prevention post-pandemic can and should happen. Schemes such as “pharmacy first” will play a vital role in helping us to better support those with long-term conditions.
The Scottish Government are caring for our elderly population in other ways as well, by delivering a new deal for our care sector. The independent Feeley review into social care in Scotland delivered many recommendations for reform. The review estimated that implementing its recommendations, including a national care service, would cost £660 million. The Scottish Government are going further, increasing social care investment by over 25% during this Parliament, which is equivalent to over £840 million.
Among the recommendations of the Feeley review are the creation of a national care service and the scrapping of non-residential social care charges, and we are going to deliver those things. While the UK Government delay, the SNP are taking action right now in Scotland to deliver a modern social care service that is fit for the 21st century. Why not match our ambition or our approach?
I believe that the crux of the matter is that the Government here in Westminster cannot be trusted with the protection of the NHS. How do we protect those who are deteriorating with long-term health conditions after the severest pandemic that this country has witnessed in recent history, when the Tories are geared towards creeping privatisation in England while forcing hard-working families to pay more in national insurance and income tax to access what healthcare remains public?
It must also be noted that even when England’s healthcare provision is so reliant on immigrant workers, the Tories create a “hostile environment” in attempting to drive away the workers they rely on so much. Some workers in England have even left the NHS to work for multinational companies such as Amazon that pay their staff better than the NHS does and have better conditions. These facts speak for themselves.
While Scotland pushes forward with new ideas to deliver a health and social care service fit for the 21st century, the UK Government continue merely to paper over the cracks of their own mismanagement and continue to pursue policies in other areas that actively harm healthcare provision in these countries.
The pandemic is an opportunity for Governments all over the world to look again at the way that things have always been done. I sincerely hope that this UK Government will regard the pandemic as an opportunity finally to look after our NHS and all those in desperate need of its support.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins.
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill), both on securing this debate through the Backbench Business Committee and on the powerful and detailed way he opened the debate today. I particularly thank him for sharing his and his wife’s experiences of rehabilitation and recovery from a stroke.
The last two years have placed extraordinary pressures on our healthcare systems, social lives and livelihoods. To protect the NHS, we were forced to make unprecedented decisions and put in place measures to stem the tide of covid-19 infections. We are now in a far better position, and the vaccine roll-out has allowed us to reclaim the freedoms and liberties that we were forced to forgo. However, in the wake of the pandemic, we now face a new challenge—one that will impact the public health of the country for generations to come.
As Members from both sides of the Chamber have passionately conveyed, we face a crisis with long-term healthcare and deteriorating conditions. As health leaders have noted, during the pandemic many professionals who provide rehabilitation services were deployed to other acute services for covid-19 patients. That resulted in reduced support for those with long-term pre-existing health conditions, and worse prognoses as a result. Examples of long-term conditions that have been particularly hard hit are included in the excellent “Moving forward stronger” report, which has been referenced by several Members.
The report, co-authored by charities and organisations including the Alzheimer’s Society, the Stroke Association, Macmillan Cancer Support and Age UK, paints an incredibly stark picture of the current situation in long-term care and rehabilitation. The Alzheimer’s Society outlines an almost 6% fall in dementia diagnosis rates. That puts individuals at risk of further deterioration, as reduced diagnosis ultimately results in reduced access to care. Diagnosis rates are also highlighted by Macmillan Cancer Support, which notes in the report that, as a direct result of the pandemic,
“there are more people being diagnosed at a later stage with more complex rehabilitation needs.”
Diagnosis is just one part of the problem. Cancer waiting times have been in freefall since 2010 and have now reached record levels. When Labour left office, 80% of patients who received an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer were seen for their first treatment within 62 days, which is above the target. Under successive Conservative Governments since 2010, that figure has plummeted. The NHS performance standard of 85% has not been hit since 2014. Right now, almost 30% of patients are having to wait anxiously for longer than two months to be seen for suspected cancer that may or may not be spreading.
That trend is also made clear by the Stroke Association, which highlighted that in 2019-20 only 34% of stroke survivors received guideline levels of physiotherapy and that only 19% received the right amount of speech and language therapy. Is the Minister aware of these statistics, and what is her Department planning to do to address them? Make no mistake: ignoring rehabilitation and long-term care has a massive impact on patients and the NHS more broadly. If we do not provide people with the proper treatment as soon as they need it, they will rely on the health system more and more. Put simply, rehabilitation is preventative.
The “Moving forward stronger” report makes several clear recommendations to the Government. I would be grateful if the Minister gave an assessment of these in her response. In particular, I would be interested—as I am sure other Members would—to hear her thoughts on the recommendation to ensure that each integrated care system has a regional rehabilitation lead and that a national clinical lead is appointed to implement a national rehabilitation strategy.
I think there is a consensus across the Chamber that we need to get a grip on long-term health conditions and that these issues have probably been neglected for far too long. They had not been brought into such public view before covid-19 hit, but it is important that we work across parties to ensure that they are dealt with.
I want to touch on something that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned: long covid, which is something that I suffer with. Recent statistics show that there are now 1.5 million long covid sufferers in the UK, with over 685,000 people living with symptoms for more than a year. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that brain fog is not fun for a politician. Seeing the words, but not being confident that you have grabbed them and put them in the right order, is really quite debilitating and hits your confidence hard. I have struggled with it, and I know many other people struggling with brain fog and other symptoms. I say to the Minister that the number of people with long covid is growing. Unless we urgently tackle the condition, I fear that we will face extraordinary pressures on our workforce and, indeed, on the healthcare system. Will she reassure long covid sufferers that her Department takes the condition seriously and will do everything it can to provide the requisite support and research to tackle it?
Finally, I want to focus on the mental health crisis, which is one of the issues to come out of the pandemic. There is no doubt that the lockdowns affected people’s mental health. In England, an estimated 10 million people have additional mental health support needs as a direct consequence of the pandemic. Two thirds of them had pre-existing mental health conditions that have been worsened by the pandemic, so perhaps the Minister could tell us what action the Government are planning to take to help those people.
Mental health care in this country needs a real injection of both political vigour and resources. It needs urgent attention, and those who access treatment at the moment experience, on average, a three-and-a-half-year gap between the recognised onset of illness and the start of treatment. In order to provide some solutions, the next Labour Government will guarantee mental health treatment within a month for all who need it, as well as recruit 8,500 new staff so that 1 million extra people can access treatment every year by the end of our first term in office. This is an ambitious but wholly necessary plan, which will not only revolutionise care, but meaningfully address the impact of the pandemic on our nation’s mental health.
I thank again the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst for the way that he introduced the debate, and I thank other Members for contributing to it. The one thing that comes out of this—it was a compelling case put by Member after Member—is that we need a proper strategy to reform long-term care in this country. We will support the Government in doing that, but we need action now.
The Minister for Care and Mental Health (Gillian Keegan)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins, and to follow the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne), who showed no symptoms of brain fog in his eloquent speech. He has my personal assurance that we will definitely focus on both research into long covid and its treatment.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Sir Robert Neill) for raising this very important issue, and for his proud advocacy for patients with many different long-term conditions who rely on NHS services, particularly those who have had a stroke. I extend my best wishes to my hon. Friend’s wife, Ann-Louise, who I am sure informed much of his powerful speech. Many of the experiences we have heard about will resonate with many of us. My father had a stroke a couple of years ago, and rehabilitation has been vital to his recovery, which is a long road that he is still on.
I was deeply moved to hear of the difficulties that the pandemic has caused people with deteriorating long-term conditions, many of which have been outlined. I want to reassure all hon. Members that we remain committed to making sure that everyone has access to the care and support that they need and deserve. We know we have to catch up after the impact of the pandemic.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst mentioned spinal cord injury. I attended the all-party parliamentary group on spinal cord injury yesterday to hear about the concerns and the impact that the pandemic has had on people with the condition, and what more we need to do to respond to it.
We know that covid has had a significant impact on the health and care system, including on rehabilitation services. It has had a real and profound impact on people with rehabilitation needs and their treatment. I am very sorry for any undue suffering that that has caused. We remain committed to making sure that everyone has access to the care and support that they need and deserve. Throughout the pandemic, we have worked to maintain access to health services in what has been an extremely challenging environment, but we recognise that getting that support at the right time is vital for people’s health. That is why we protected priority services across England during the pandemic, which included rehabilitation and post-acute services, for people who had survived a stroke, and their families and carers.
Continued service delivery was in part supported by innovative methods of care—we have talked about a few of them—throughout the pandemic. NHS England and Improvement supported people with long-term conditions by providing safe and person-centred assessments and diagnosis via remote methods, or in face-to-face consultations when appropriate. Providers innovated and rolled out remote consultations using video, telephone, email and text message services, and health services implemented new models of care with effective triage processes to make sure that patients received the care appropriate to them and in outpatient settings closer to home.
Clinical teams used and will continue to use virtual rehabilitation services alongside face-to-face contact to ensure that every patient gets the treatment and support that they need. Almost half of stroke survivors have received virtual care since the pandemic began, transforming their experience of the health system. Over 80% reported positive or very positive experiences, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst outlined, but we know that remote consultations are not suitable for everyone or for every situation, as eloquently outlined by the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who has experience in this matter. We will continue working to make sure services are suitably tailored to meet patients’ often complex needs.
For example, NHSE&I has worked with memory assessment clinics to capture best practice on remote consultation and virtual diagnosis of dementia, which is vital, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn), to promote its use. It has published guidance to help enhance best practice in dementia assessment and diagnosis, and to support a personalised approach with choice over the delivery of remote consultation and diagnosis.
There has been further guidance for a range of conditions to help health systems adapt to the challenges of the pandemic, including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidance on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and the Association of British Neurologists guidance to help healthcare professionals prioritise neurological services.
People with different long-term conditions may also need emotional and psychological support, as has been mentioned by many hon. Members, and that is why NHS mental health services stayed open throughout the pandemic, and why local areas continued to offer talking therapies—remotely in many cases—with a face-to-face option if appropriate. We are investing in a mental health recovery action plan, which will help us to provide more appointments, which, sadly, were missed during the pandemic. That will help us catch up.
We are committed to ensuring that those who need it are given outstanding and tailored care with choice, control and the support that they need to enable them to live independent lives, and we are committed to ensuring that people find adult social care fair and accessible. A lot of reforms are coming forward in this area. We recently introduced our strategy for the social care workforce in our “People at the Heart of Care” White Paper, which is supported by at least £500 million to develop and support the workforce over the next three years.
As highlighted by the “Moving forward stronger” report, rehabilitation services were particularly affected by the pandemic. The health system has long recognised the importance of rehabilitation. Many hon. Members mentioned how important that is to lifelong conditions and how important it is to enable people to avoid more acute illness later on, requiring more services from the health service. Specific commitments are set out in the long-term plan, which include the expansion of pulmonary rehabilitation services over 10 years from 2019, new and higher-intensity care models in respect of stroke rehabilitation, and the scaling up of cardiac rehabilitation to prevent up to 23,000 premature deaths.
Following the publication of the national stroke service model in May 2021, NHS England and NHS Improvement have committed to creating integrated stroke delivery networks across England, bringing together health and care services across the whole stroke pathway, from prevention to rehabilitation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst mentioned, linking those services is vital. More than 20 integrated stroke delivery networks are now operational, bringing together health and care services across the whole stroke pathway. Over £3.3 million has been dedicated to the establishment and ongoing delivery of those networks, which have already brought about some improvements to the co-ordination and direction of how the stroke care pathways across England are delivered.
The NHS is committed to delivering personalised, needs- based stroke rehabilitation to every stroke survivor who needs it, and we recognise the vital role of multidisciplinary teams, comprising occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and physiotherapists, in assessing, diagnosing and treating issues concerning different daily activities, speech and cognitive communication. Community rehabilitation services continue to benefit from extra investment, with £4.5 billion of investment in primary medical care and community health services by 2023-24 and productivity reforms set out in the long-term plan. The long-term plan committed to the rolling out by 2024 of new two-hour urgent community response and two-day reablement ambitions, which will improve the responsiveness of community health services to people’s needs across the country. We anticipate that the wider package of investment in community and intermediate healthcare will eventually free more than 1 million hospital beds, allowing health systems to better support those in need.
Underlining our commitment to improving rehabilitation services, the NHS has created the new role of national director for hospital discharge and rehabilitation, which was rightly called for. Jenny Keane, who was appointed to the post in December 2021 and started recently, will lead a team of 60 people responsible for hospital discharge and rehabilitation. Her team within NHSE is already taking forward important work in this area, including a programme to identify the optimum bed-to-home model of care for non-acute rehabilitation services. That will support the implementation of the discharge-to-assess policy, and improve the delivery of timely and high-quality care in home settings. Ultimately, that will empower more people to recover and maintain their independence following an unplanned event or a period of acute care.
The programme will estimate the capacity for bedded non-acute rehabilitation care that integrated care systems will require for their populations. Systems will be supported to shift towards new rehabilitation models through a range of guidance, frameworks and tools. I anticipate that rehabilitation will also benefit from the wider reforms set out in the Health and Care Bill, reorienting systems towards co-operation and strengthening NHS action to reduce health inequalities. Rehabilitation will also benefit from the plans that we have set out in the integration White Paper, under which patients will receive better, more joined-up care.
Looking ahead, the NHS published its delivery plan for tackling the covid-19 backlog of elective care last month. The plan sets out a clear vision for how the NHS will recover and expand elective services over the next three years, including how it will support patients. We plan to spend more than £8 billion between the next financial year and 2024-25. That is in addition to the £2 billion elective recovery fund and £700 million targeted investment fund already made available to systems this year to help to drive up and protect elective activity. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst is right that we must ensure that the voice of rehabilitation services does not get lost in that considerable investment.
That funding could deliver the equivalent of around 9 million more checks, scans and procedures, and it will mean that the NHS in England can aim to deliver around 30% more elective activity by 2024-25 than it was delivering before the pandemic. A significant part of that funding will be invested in staff, in terms of both capacity and skills. The delivery plan also contains some targets to ensure that by March 2025 people will not wait longer than a year for elective care.
Jim Shannon
I am finding the Minister’s response very helpful and supportive of what we are trying to do, but I asked a specific question in relation to those who are waiting for eyesight-saving operations. We need to ensure that they do not lose their eyesight because of the delays. If the Minister is able to give me a response today, that will be great, but if she cannot, I am happy for all of us to receive a response by letter.
Gillian Keegan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I am very happy to respond by letter. However, I do know—I have had conversations about it—that these prioritised electives will be prioritised. Somebody whose sight can be saved through an operation would, I imagine, be a key priority for our NHS colleagues.
At the October 2021 spending review, the Government announced a further £5.9 billion of capital funding to support elective recovery, diagnostics and technology. That funding will drive investment in technology to improve patient experiences of care and help patients manage their experience.
The NHS has been working on rolling out 44 community diagnostic centres, which will massively increase diagnostic activity. As we take the road to recovery, we are also reforming and transforming how care and health services are delivered for patients, including through dedicated surgical hubs and more convenient and efficient community diagnostic centres.
Finally, I want to thank hon. Members for the points that they have made in the debate.
Sir Robert Neill
I am very grateful for the Minister’s detailed response and for her commitment to trying to improve these matters. She referred to a delivery plan for recovery of elective services, but is not the logical thing to ensure that the voice of those with long-term needs and of rehabilitation is not lost, and that we also have a specific delivery plan for rehabilitation and for catching up on the backlog? I did not hear mention of that. Are we going to have that?
Gillian Keegan
I mentioned the work that Jenny Keane will be doing following her recent appointment. She will be responsible for work on rehabilitation and discharges, as well as other areas covered by NHS continuing healthcare and the better care fund. That work is ongoing but does not include a specific commitment at this point to a strategy, as outlined.
Gillian Keegan
I think it is only fair to say that, obviously, Jenny Keane has just started her work in this area—it is very new—but I know that she will be dedicated to ensuring that we make progress on the plans that I have set out. I hope that they reassure hon. Members that we will continue to support people who are living with long-term conditions and, by learning the lessons from the pandemic, ensure that they have access to the right services, at the right time, to enable them to live the fullest and happiest life they can. A lot of work is ongoing. We need to get behind that work and, obviously, support the team who are looking to deliver it. I thank everybody very much for their contributions.
Sir Robert Neill
I am very grateful to all those who participated in this debate, from both the Front and Back Benches, for the tone of the debate and their contributions. I particularly appreciated hearing about the personal experience of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne). All of us bring our experiences to bear on these matters, and that is hugely important.
I welcome the Minister’s commitment—I do not doubt it—politically and personally. I am glad that we have a director in place. May I just gently say that perhaps the first task that the director should be given is actually to produce a strategy? A number of excellent initiatives have been referred to, but we need something to pull them all together and join them up. The Minister knows as well as I do that the way government works is that if we do not have something that gives us a proper framework and a proper set of measures to deliver on and something to hold people’s feet to the fire with—even for those with the best of intentions—things do get lost, so I urge her to take away that message. With the director, one part of the solution has been put in place, but we need a framework and a strategy for that director to work to. I am sure that many of us here today will happily work with the Minister, her officials and the NHS to help to deliver that. But I hope that she will not think that that is enough—there is still more to do.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered people with deteriorating long-term health conditions during the covid-19 pandemic.
Covid-19: NHS Support for Prostate Cancer Patients
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Elliot Colburn (Carshalton and Wallington) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered NHS support for prostate cancer patients after the covid-19 pandemic.
Ms McDonagh, as your constituency neighbour, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time in Westminster Hall. I extend my thanks to the Backbench Business Committee for granting time for such an important debate. I also thank the many Carshalton and Wallington residents who came forward to share their experiences of prostate cancer, either having had it themselves or having supported a loved one or friend through it.
Many people in this room and many of those watching will know a male relative or have a friend in their life who has had prostate cancer. I hope this important debate will raise awareness of the need to get yourself checked. There will be many striking statistics mentioned in the debate that will concern Members present, but I am keen to begin with a positive. Cancer survival rates in the United Kingdom have never been higher. Survival rates have improved each year since 2010. Prostate cancer survival has tripled in the past 40 years, with 85% of men surviving for five years or longer. However, the covid-19 pandemic threatens to derail this progress through a decrease in diagnostics, especially for men over the age of 50.
There are over 47,000 new prostate cancer cases every single year, with a man dying every 45 minutes from the condition. Early diagnosis is the key to fighting this disease. The pandemic has resulted in fewer men coming to their GP to get tested for prostate cancer, with the “stay at home” messaging particularly deterring older men, who are most at risk from prostate cancer, from coming forward. While the referral rate for prostate cancer has recovered to 80% of pre-pandemic levels, it still lags behind those for other forms of cancer, such as breast cancer, which is operating at 120% of pre-pandemic levels.
Stark figures from the charity Prostate Cancer UK reveal that there have been 50,000 fewer referrals for suspected prostate cancer patients than the usual trends would predict. The impact of that is incredibly worrying. Some 14,000 fewer men in the UK started treatment for prostate cancer between April 2020 and December 2021 compared with the equivalent months prior to the pandemic. That means that 14,000 men are living without the knowledge that they have the condition, and it means that 14,000 men have not yet started that all-important treatment plan.
Prostate Cancer UK has warned that, because of that, 3,500 men risk being diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer. I cannot stress enough the importance of people getting themselves checked if they have symptoms or if they fall into the high-risk categories. Those include men over the age of 50, black African and black Caribbean men, and men with a father or brother who have had prostate cancer.
Sadly, the statistics and anecdotes that many of us will have heard point to the fact that men are far less willing to get themselves checked. Whether that is out of embarrassment or fear, getting diagnosed early can make an enormous difference to survival rates; five-year survival rates for men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer between stages 1 and 3 are over 95%. There are fantastic NHS campaigns, such as the “Help Us Help You” campaign, which has urged people with potential cancer symptoms to come forward for life-saving checks. The second stage of that campaign addresses the fear that often comes with booking the first appointment. Despite the fantastic work that is already being carried out, I hope that the Minister will be able to enlighten us about what more the Government are doing to destigmatise men coming forward to check their symptoms.
While being checked for prostate cancer is important for all men, it is especially important for men of black African or black Caribbean origin. I was taken aback to learn that, while one in eight of all men will get the disease, one in four black men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime; black men are also far more likely to be diagnosed with a more aggressive type. People from black and ethnic minority groups are also 4% less likely to receive radical treatment than people from white ethnic groups.
Through covid-19, we have seen what we can achieve when we work together. Last year, I was proud to host a roundtable in Carshalton and Wallington in collaboration with the NHS, the third sector and community groups to encourage ethnic minority communities to come forward and get the jab. The roundtable was well attended and demonstrated what we could achieve in prostate cancer diagnostics if the Government worked closely with the third sector and community groups to spread awareness.
However, improving awareness requires a corresponding increase in imaging capacity. Imaging services such as multiparametric MRI are critical to achieving earlier diagnoses, which, as I stated earlier, is key to survival. MpMRI scans can confirm or rule out prostate cancer in an accurate and timely manner, reducing the stressful wait for patients and their families. From speaking with cancer charities, I know that the significant variation in access to mpMRI provision is concerning. If we are to bring prostate cancer diagnoses back to pre-pandemic levels—and, indeed, increase them—we must address that postcode lottery. MpMRI provision must, as a minimum, be expanded in line with growth rates prior to the pandemic if we are to get diagnoses back to pre-pandemic levels. The 10-year cancer plan provides a golden opportunity to address this issue.
I have already mentioned the negative impact the pandemic has had on the prostate cancer community, but I am keen to highlight some positives that could be considered in a post-pandemic setting. Prostate Cancer UK has noted that the policy change during the pandemic to grant special access to certain covid-friendly novel hormone therapies for patients was very warmly welcomed by the community. This policy change has been wanted for some time, and it not only kept patients safe at home during the pandemic but improved their care experience, as they spent less time in hospital. Along with the increased interaction between patients and clinicians using technology, the change has made for higher levels of patient satisfaction and experience.
I look forward to seeing greater access to diagnosis and treatment and increased use of technology in my constituency at the London cancer hub, an exceptionally exciting project in the London Borough of Sutton. As a former employee, the Minister will know the Royal Marsden Hospital very well. I will not go over ground that she already knows, as cancer nurse who, I believe, is still practising.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
indicated assent.
Elliot Colburn
The Minister is nodding. The Royal Marsden and the Institute of Cancer Research already form one of the leading cancer research and treatment centres in the world. The development plans for the London cancer hub will double the capacity for cancer research on the site, making the United Kingdom second only to the United States. It will be a game changer and will take our cancer research to the next level. It is a prime opportunity to ensure that the reduction in prostate cancer diagnoses remains a temporary blip in the overall effort to achieve early diagnosis for everyone with the condition.
This effort must include the cancer workforce. The Government have already invested money to address the cancer backlog, but the workforce issue must also be addressed. Patients with prostate cancer and their families go through one of the most difficult things in life to navigate. They are desperate for more clinical nurse specialists, who provide holistic, patient-centred care, with the empathy needed in these very dark times. Having access to clinical nurse specialists means that prostate cancer patients are far more likely to be positive about their care and treatment and to receive more individualised treatment plans.
One suggestion to be considered for the post-pandemic NHS is non-medical practitioner-led prostate cancer clinics. Such clinics would not only enhance the clinical pathways in prostate cancer, but relieve time burdens on oncologists and help to reduce costs that can be cycled back into the system. With one in four consultant clinical oncologists reporting risk of burnout, and with covid-19 exacerbating those issues over the past two years, investing in non-medical practitioners or increasing the number of clinical nurse specialists—or both—could be solutions to workforce concerns. I urge the Government to work with NHS England, Health Education England and the devolved Administrations to ensure that professional working groups in the prostate cancer workforce are addressing the workforce backlogs, including with clear training routes for healthcare professionals wishing to upskill.
I appreciate that there is strong interest in the debate, so I am keen to conclude my remarks. If the Minister takes anything away, I hope it is the need to find those 14,000 men missing from the prostate cancer treatment pathway, and to ensure that workforce issues are looked at by the Government. The pandemic has provided the NHS with a unique opportunity to rethink how we provide care not just to prostate cancer patients but to all cancer patients, with greater use of technology and the benefits of covid-friendly treatments that patients have had access to throughout the pandemic.
Finally, the one message that I hope those watching the debate—especially those in high-risk categories—will take away from it is: “Please get yourself checked”. The support available for patients and their families is fantastic, and it is out there. I say to people watching: “You are never alone”. I urge them to book that vital first appointment. I look forward to hearing the contributions from other hon. Members on this incredibly important issue.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh, and to make a contribution on this issue as my party’s health spokesperson. I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for setting the scene so well, as he always does, and for being so relatable.
I did a quick head count earlier. There are nine men in this room and the fact is that one in six of us—possibly two of us—will succumb to prostate cancer. That being the case, the effect of prostate cancer really hits home. I am also pleased to see the Minister in her place and recognise her contribution not just as a Minister but in the NHS, as the hon. Gentleman referred to. I am pleased to be alongside my colleague and friend, the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar), who is the shadow health spokesperson for the Scottish National party. It is also nice to see the hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark) in her place, and I look forward to her contribution.
As I have mentioned many times, the pandemic has had a significant impact on all aspects of life, but undoubtedly on our health service. As my party’s health spokesperson, it is great to be here to talk about what further steps we can take to support those who suffer with prostate cancer.
I want to quickly tell a story, because nothing illustrates the case better than a story. I have a very good friend. I am not going to give his name or say where he works, but we would work closely every week of my life. I always phone him and seven or eight weeks ago, I asked him how he was and he said to me, “I just went to get a wee health check to see how I was. They tell me I’ve got prostate cancer.” I said, “I hope it all works out.” He waited for the tests to come back, and the test was positive. They did not hang about. Within two weeks he had the operation. The NHS in Northern Ireland, where it is a devolved matter, paid for his operation and he went to Dublin to get it done. He did not realise that that check to see if everything was all right would lead to a prostate cancer operation, but that early diagnosis means that he is able to have same normality of life as everybody in this Chamber.
That illustrates the issue raised by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington said. We have to put in place a prostate cancer strategy or plan for, as the hon. Gentleman said, men of a certain age—and I am one of them, by the way. It is not for me to comment on people’s age, but a few others present may also qualify.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer for men, with over 47,000 new cases every year. Even prior to the pandemic, challenges in delivering the highest quality of care for patients had increased. It was exacerbated by staff shortages, inadequate care pathways and limited access to effective diagnosis. That is what we have to address. I know the Minister recognises the need for early diagnosis on any condition, but today’s debate is about prostate cancer. One in six men in the UK will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. It accounts for 27% of all new male cancer patients in the UK. That gives Members an idea of the size of the subject matter and why it is so important to debate it.
I always want to give a Northern Ireland perspective in debates, because we are part of this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and what happens in Northern Ireland is replicated here. Our population is only 1.8 million, but we can none the less illustrate the issue. In Northern Ireland, 1,100 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year, with sadly 276 of those on average losing their lives to the disease. That is a large number—26% or 27% of those with prostate cancer unfortunately do not make it. Whether this is due to late diagnosis owing to the pandemic or to men downplaying their symptoms as they feel that there are more important things to deal with, we must encourage and raise awareness of the importance of checking for prostate cancer.
Speaking as a man, I know that those watching and present in the Chamber will know that there is no cold as bad as a man’s cold. But when somebody tells us to go to the doctor, we say, “No, I won’t.” If we are asked to go to the doctor, we put it off because we do not want to bother them. We say, “It’s not that bad really. I was exaggerating a wee bit. I think I’ll be alright.” That is our attitude. How do we change that attitude? We cannot do it by raising awareness alone. Perhaps one way of addressing it is by highlighting the brutal facts of how prostate cancer is taking people out of society. Perhaps we need to shock men into responding.
I have been in contact with Prostate Cancer UK, which has highlighted the troubles faced during the pandemic. First, reduced access to MRIs as a result of covid impacted on the ability of the NHS to diagnose prostate cancer, and there has been significant variation in the provision of services. How are the Government addressing the issue of early diagnosis and of access to MRI scans and biopsies to check it out? Crucially, what impact did the “Stay at Home” message have on people in need of diagnosis?
The pandemic has had many detrimental effects on society, one of which is people getting used to not seeing others. They are not going out in the way that they did in the past. We have to address that. In particular, older men, who are in a higher risk group for covid, were less likely to visit their GP and more likely to downplay their symptoms. Could the Minister give an indication of how we can address that?
Workforce issues and staff shortages were already significant before covid, with a growing shortage of oncologists and workforce burnout exacerbating the challenges faced by healthcare professionals in providing high-quality care. NHS England has been working with cancer alliances to ensure that improvements made during the pandemic are retained and improved further. I urge the Minister to have conversations—I know that he already does this—with our counterparts in the devolved nations to ensure that no man, nobody, is left behind by health provisions across the United Kingdom.
Education also plays a crucial role in health improvement. It should provide clear and simple messaging to educate men who are at risk of prostate cancer about the potential impact of diagnosis. Do we advertise that on TV, or are there more adverts in the press? It is advertised in my surgery in Kircubbin; I suspect that the same is true of everybody’s surgery. I do not go to the doctor very often, except for my diabetes check-ups. Perhaps the messaging is not getting to the people it needs to get to. How do we do that better?
Prostate Cancer UK has shared an online 30-second risk checker, which is very helpful for men across the United Kingdom. They can enter basic details and assess the risk that they face. That involves men taking a minute out of their day, and the online tool will direct them in the right way.
I will draw to a finish, as I am conscious that others wish to speak. The pandemic has had a significant impact on all aspects of life and disrupted the provision of routine care, forcing providers and patients to postpone many services and to adopt virtual consultations. I can almost feel my blood drain when I hear the term “virtual consultations”, because people need to see their doctor face to face. This has highlighted the need for face-to-face appointments in order to embrace and enhance the services that our NHS provides.
For too long, cancer patients have felt let down by the prioritisation of covid. Today’s debate gives us a chance to address the issue. I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington for securing the debate, and I look forward to the Minister’s response. I am never disappointed with her responses. I know that she understands the issues and we look forward to her answers.
Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under you, Ms McDonagh. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) on securing the debate, and I thank Prostate Cancer UK for our wonderful badges and for all the work it does. It is an honour to speak in the debate, and I note that March is both Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month and Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.
I would like to start by stating that we have no men’s health strategy in this country, but we should do. I refer to the great work done by the all-party parliamentary group on issues affecting men and boys, which I have the honour of chairing. To date, we have issued two reports that show the need for a men’s health strategy, which would provide an overarching and joined-up plan to end the gender age gap. That is desperately needed in the UK, where one in five men will die before their retirement. One man commits suicide every 2 hours, and 86% of homeless people are men. Some 95% of prisoners are men, and 97% of fatal accidents at work happen to men. These are appalling statistics.
Far worse than the awful numbers is the sobering fact that 30 men die every day from prostate cancer, which amounts to 11,900 deaths a year. Let me explain what those numbers mean. There are 430 male MPs in this House, out of a total of 650 Members. Some 16.7% of all men will get prostate cancer, which means that 71 male Members of the House will get it. That is more than 11% of all Members—more than one in 10 of us.
Many deaths could be avoided if we had a prostate screening programme. The UK has a policy that we do not need to have a national screening policy for men to check whether they have prostate cancer. Until now, the NHS has taken the view that screening for prostate cancer would not meet the national and international criteria laid down for a viable and valuable screening programme. Instead, the NHS adopts a wait-and-see policy. However, medical science has progressed, and the historical objections are no longer valid.
The data shows that the age of 50 onwards is the danger zone for men. Only four cases of prostate cancer per 100,000 happen in men aged 40 to 44, but the figure rises to 6,285 for men aged 60 to 64. Men between 50 and 80 are most at risk. The data shows beyond doubt that a man of African heritage is twice as likely as a Caucasian male to contract prostate cancer. Research from 1995 showed a drop of 44% in mortality over 14 years when screening takes place, and another trial showed a reduction of 21%. Whichever figure we take, it is a staggering number of lives that could have been saved—2,000 lives or more every year.
The issue has been the effectiveness of screening and the cost, but medical science has moved on. A simple prostate-specific antigen blood test is inexpensive, costing literally pennies, and it will help to identify high antigen counts so that we know who is most at risk. These men can then be monitored and retested after a further three months. The relatively few men who still have a high number of antigens can then be given an MRI scan to confirm beyond doubt whether they have prostate cancer or not. Those who are diagnosed can then be treated, thousands of lives will be saved, and thousands of lives will be longer and will be quality lives.
Does screening work? The current breast cancer screening programme is believed to save 1,300 lives a year. Around 2,600 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year and 690 women die of it each year. It is estimated that 83% of cervical cancer cases would be avoided if all women used the cervical cancer screening programme. Screening works well for breast cancer and cervical cancer. It is proven to work. So why do we not have a screening programme for prostate cancer?
Implementation of a prostate cancer screening programme would obviously be beneficial for the men involved, but it would also be beneficial for their family, their friends and the country at large. Early diagnosis will save the economy money, as it will enable those affected to continue working rather than being dependent on the welfare state. It saves the NHS money in avoiding the expensive treatments that would be needed for advanced cancer. Wives will not lose their husbands, children will not lose their fathers, and friends and other loved ones will not be emotionally scarred by grief.
What can be said against introducing a national screening programme for all men between the ages of 50 and 80? The criteria for a screening programme have been met: it would extend many thousands of lives; it would save the NHS money; prevention is better than cure; and it causes no harm, instead providing a real benefit at a reasonable cost.
I have two asks today: can we seriously consider putting in place both a national prostate screening programme and a men’s health strategy? These initiatives will save money, but much more importantly they will save lives.
Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Ms McDonagh. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing this vital debate on a subject that unfortunately does not receive the attention that it deserves.
For a long time, prostate cancer has been wrongly labelled an old man’s disease. In fact, all men are at risk of developing prostate cancer at any age, with one in six of us facing a diagnosis in our lifetimes, and we have also heard that it has a disproportionate effect on black African and Caribbean men. Yet there is still a lack of awareness of this disease—awareness that is needed to support affected men. That was particularly true during the pandemic, which has seen our healthcare provision being put under great and unprecedented pressure.
The earlier prostate cancer is found, the better the chance of a good outcome. Analysis by Prostate Cancer UK suggests that between April 2020 and September 2021, 600 fewer prostate cancer diagnoses were confirmed in Scotland. Prostate Cancer UK estimates that, because of the pandemic, 14,000 men across Scotland and the rest of the UK have not yet started treatment for prostate cancer.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Prostate Cancer UK launched a UK-wide campaign alongside the NHS to find those 14,000 missing men, and we in the Scottish National party welcome this initiative. Throughout the covid-19 pandemic, cancer has remained a Scottish Government priority, and the Scottish Government are focused on ensuring that patients are diagnosed and treated as quickly as possible. Scotland has 76 general practitioners per 100,000 citizens, compared with a UK average of 60 GPs per 100,000 citizens. That has undoubtedly helped to improve early detection of cancer in Scotland, and I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will agree that GP provision—or a lack of it, in many respects—is hugely impactful in the wider healthcare arena.
Throughout the ongoing health crisis, the First Minister of Scotland has persistently stressed that the NHS remains available for those who need it. Advice has been sent to all cancer services in Scotland, including the key message that boards are expected to maintain full urgent cancer services. Indeed, most cancer treatment continued throughout lockdown; even at the height of the pandemic, patients in Scotland waited on average just two days before starting treatment. Regrettably, I understand that that was not the case in England or Wales.
The impact of this decision in Scotland undoubtedly saved the life of one of my constituents in Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill. After feeling unwell and explaining their symptoms to the NHS 24 helpline, they were quickly admitted to hospital, with specialist cancer treatment and support to hand. However, the only available treatment option that could be offered was invasive surgery, bringing with it, of course, a longer recovery time and more risk compared with a keyhole surgery procedure. None the less, that early diagnosis proved to be critical.
In order to ensure that this does not spiral into a secondary health crisis, a large amount of investment will be needed to clear the backlog of screening and treatments, to get cancer services back operating at the level that they were before the pandemic. We should actually be aiming to make them even better. The Scottish Government continue to engage with the cancer community to ensure that all key partners involved in the delivery of the national cancer recovery plan, which will support cancer patients to have equitable access to care regardless of where they live, improve patients’ experience of care and roll out innovative treatments to improve cancer services.
To improve cancer performance over the next five years, the Scottish Government are taking a range of actions, including ensuring that everyone across Scotland who meets referral criteria has access to an early cancer diagnostic centre, and investing £40 million to support cancer services and improve cancer waiting times, with a focus on the most challenged cancer pathways, including neurology, colorectal and breast cancer. Of that, £20 million will support the Detect Cancer Early programme, providing greater public awareness of signs and symptoms of cancer and supporting the development of optimal cancer pathways to improve earlier diagnosis routes. We are also supporting a rehabilitation programme for cancer patients, to ensure the best possible preparation for treatment and improve both the experience of treatment and its clinical outcomes. That is what a Government with their priorities in the right place look like.
The UK Government must begin to invest properly in the NHS in England. That, of course, will ensure that adequate consequentials are delivered to Scotland to enable us to recover from the pandemic. Those improvements should be funded through efficient decision-making, strategy and budgeting, not by raising national insurance, which threatens to hit those on the lowest incomes in the midst of the cost of living crisis. They are the very people who are most likely to rely on the services of our NHS, so they are facing quite the double-edged sword. I urge the Minister and the Government to take a leaf out of our book in Scotland and take the necessary steps to safeguard the prospects of prostate cancer patients in the light of the pandemic, and for generations to come.
I reiterate the comments of the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington, and I urge all men to go and get that check. That moment of discomfort and embarrassment may just be the moment that saves your life.
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. I thank the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) for securing this important debate, and the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar) for their excellent contributions.
The pandemic has had an impact on every aspect of our lives—the people we see, the services we use, and the support that we seek in times of need. While that is the case for all of us, it is particularly true for prostate cancer patients. On a number of occasions in recent months, we have heard Members on both sides of the House speak about the impact of the pandemic on cancer care and the continually growing backlog. However, this situation was not inevitable. It is right that we acknowledge the serious impact of the pandemic across our NHS and the challenges that it has presented; however, we entered the pandemic in a very vulnerable position. After a decade of the Government’s mismanagement, the NHS went into the covid crisis with a record waiting list and a staff shortage of 100,000. It is not just that the Tories did not fix the roof when the sun was shining; they dismantled the roof and removed the floorboards.
The Government blame covid, but the reality is that performance was declining for years before the virus hit. Access to treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral for urological cancer was at 70.6% in March 2020, down from 84% in 2010 when Labour left office. Now, despite the tireless work of NHS staff, performance against targets has hit a record low. More people than ever before are facing unacceptably long waits for vital cancer tests and treatment. I hope that the Minister agrees that the situation is simply unacceptable. Will she tell me exactly what is being done to address that?
We have heard the Secretary of State launch a call for evidence, but does he really think that after 12 years in power, more talk is good enough? Speed of treatment is critical to cancer patients. When every day, hour and minute counts, prostate cancer patients cannot afford to wait for the Government to consult and consider, looking to the sector for answers, because they have none themselves. Prostate cancer patients need firm action now, not another kick of the can down the road—that is rapidly becoming this Government’s trademark.
As other Members have done throughout the debate, I pay tribute to the brilliant work of Prostate Cancer UK. I am proud to support its campaign to identify 14,000 men who are absent from the prostate cancer treatment pathway because of the pandemic. Such campaigns are vital in raising awareness, and the 400,000 men who subsequently checked their risk of prostate cancer is testament to that. I welcome the investment that the Government made in the campaign, and I am keen to hear from the Minister what plans they have to continue that.
Those campaigns make a real difference, so it is important that the Government recognise the need for further development in the relationship between the NHS and the relevant charities. Awareness is just one part of the action that we need to take on prostate cancer, and much more needs to be done to improve the patient journey beyond the initial stage.
A clear and accessible diagnosis process is vital to ensure that patients can access the treatment they need in a timely manner. Diagnosis rates have continued to fluctuate for a number of years and, despite peaking in 2018, they made a noticeable drop in 2019, before the start of the pandemic. Given the problems that the pandemic has caused in accessing primary care services, I am keen to hear from the Minister what understanding the Government have of where we are now on diagnosis rates.
I have spoken to several stakeholders across the cancer sector, and they are concerned that many post-pandemic diagnoses will, sadly, be of later stage cancers. I therefore look forward to the Minister outlining the steps that the Government will take to ensure that awareness campaigns are not stunted by inaccessible diagnosis pathways, putting patients’ outcomes at risk.
As other Members and I have mentioned, referrals are one area in which prostate cancer lags behind other cancers. The Secretary of State acknowledged that himself when launching his elective recovery plan, reaffirming his commitment to get back on track with referral targets, and yet there is absolutely nothing of merit in that plan to reassure prostate cancer patients.
The Secretary of State masks his complete lack of action with grand and frankly unhelpful language when he talks about launching a “war on cancer”. Such words, far from making the Secretary of State look strong, show a gross disrespect for patients and set a dangerous precedent. I urge him and all Ministers to think about the implications of their language for people living with prostate cancer—with all cancers—and the impact that such language can have on them.
One element underpinning all the issues outlined in the debate is workforce, which other Members have mentioned. The existing prostate cancer workforce is overstretched, with prostate cancer specialist nurses having a caseload more than three times higher than that of nurses covering breast cancer. Without a robust workforce strategy, our NHS will simply not be in a place to provide the support that prostate cancer patients need as we emerge from the pandemic, and beyond, but Ministers continue to bury their heads in the sand. They have failed to bring forward a long-term workforce strategy, and with weeks to go until the end of the financial year, there is still no clarity on Health Education England’s budget. In fact, all the Secretary of State can say is that the NHS has to find money from existing budgets to address the workforce shortage. That is really unhelpful. Does the Minister really think that is good enough?
I want to take this opportunity to praise the work of colleagues in the other place in championing workforce issues in their consideration of the Health and Care Bill. I welcome Baroness Cumberlege’s amendment to the Bill to require the regular publication of health and care workforce projections. Will the Minister take this opportunity to reassure us that the amendment will not be overturned when the Bill comes to the Floor of the House? I look forward to working with Members across the House to keep the workforce issue at the forefront, ensuring that prostate cancer patients and others have the support that they need.
I am keen to hear from the Minister what plans the Government have to ensure that staff are trained and retained in a sustainable way so that prostate cancer patients can always access care. People living with prostate cancer need an NHS that has the time and resources to support them as we emerge from the pandemic. It is about time the Government delivered on that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maria Caulfield)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. May I start by declaring an interest? I still work, as my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Elliot Colburn) said, as a cancer nurse. I was slightly disappointed by the tone of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark). I did not want to be political but, for the record, I got into politics because, as a cancer nurse, I was so frustrated with the previous Labour Government’s target-driven approach, which looked good on paper, but in reality did not make a huge difference to patients.
I welcome this debate that was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington. Prostate cancer absolutely deserves a debate that focuses on the key issues that he described so well. I want to reassure colleagues that cancer treatments and diagnosis have remained a top priority throughout the pandemic—one of the few areas of healthcare where much of it stayed open—with over 330,000 urgent referrals and more than 170,000 treatments for urological cancers between March 2020 and December last year.
I want to thank the amazing work of NHS staff up and down the country who maintained cancer treatment levels at 94%, which is an astonishing record when they had to deal with covid in the workforce and patients undergoing prostate treatment also coming through covid, too. Although treatment levels remained very high during the pandemic, there is no doubt that referrals suffered. We asked men and women to stay away from the NHS to protect it during that time and we saw a huge drop-off in referrals. It is estimated that up to 32,000 fewer people than expected have started cancer treatment because of that, but we are seeing a change with record levels of referrals coming through the system right now. Last month’s figure was around 11,000 cancer referrals a day.
Although people stayed away during the pandemic, they are coming back in their droves now, and the ambition is to try to get as many of those diagnosed as quickly as possible and into treatment. We are trying to get prostate cancer in particular diagnosed as quickly as possible by implementing best practice timed pathways for prostate cancer, including the use of mpMRI, which my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington mentioned. It captures images of the prostate in a much better way than the standard MRI does, so that is a focus and we have seen a major uptake in that. Back in 2016, only 335 people were going through that system, but by 2020 that had gone up to 11,000 people. We are seeing a real shift in the use of that technology, which better diagnoses men with prostate cancer.
Partnering with Prostate Cancer UK, we are delivering a cancer risk-awareness campaign, which started in February and will continue to run until the end of this month. As a number of colleagues have said, we must raise awareness about the symptoms of prostate cancer and encourage men to come forward.
Although I do not wish to generalise, I take the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) and by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) about the differences in how men and women face health issues. When women have an issue, they will come forward, although they often feel as if they are not being heard and that there is a delay in accessing healthcare. Men are slightly different in that often they will not come forward in the first place, so the campaigns let them know about the symptoms, encourage them come forward and reassure them that diagnosis and treatment will happen relatively quickly.
The outcome is good for many men with prostate cancer, but we encourage people to come forward quickly because the prognosis is improved the earlier they can get involved in treatment, and the treatment is often less invasive. There are good reasons to encourage men to come forward.
The purpose of our campaign is to educate people about their risk of prostate cancer. As we have heard, some people are more at risk than others. As a cancer that does not present with many symptoms, particularly at an early stage, it is vital to encourage those at risk to discuss that with their GP and have a prostate-specific antigen test. To address the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley, gentlemen over the age of 50 can request a PSA from their GP.
There is no national screening programme at the moment because the PSA test on its own is not foolproof. It is a simple blood test that measures the PSA level in the blood which, if raised, can be indication that prostate cancer could be present. However, many men with prostate cancer do not have a raised PSA, and many men who have a raised PSA that does not change over time do not have prostate cancer. We do not have a national screening programme because it is not a foolproof test in the way that a mammogram is for breast cancer.
A huge amount of research is going on about that right now. The team at University College London is working on PSA and integrating it with another test, to combine them to see if accuracy can be improved. If there were a more accurate screening test, there would be a strong case to bring that forward, but at the moment the accuracy of the test is holding us back.
Prostate Cancer UK has reported that over 310,000 people have completed their risk checker, so obviously a lot of good work is happening that is getting the voice out there. This debate today also helps raise awareness. As many hon. Members have said, we are encouraging men to come forward if they have concerns.
We also have the “Help Us Help You” NHS campaign, which is looking at a number of cancers, including prostate cancer. It has raised awareness of non-specific symptoms, which are often experienced by the patients who we have the hardest time diagnosing. This month, we are launching a campaign specifically about prostate cancer and the barriers to seeking treatment. The phases of the campaign that have run to date have contributed to the high levels of urgent cancer referrals the NHS has seen—around 11,000 referrals per day—as I mentioned earlier. The campaigns are working and people are coming forward, but there is a huge amount more that we can do.
In addition to these national initiatives, we also fund more local awareness raising through cancer alliances, where we specifically target communities who may be more at risk or less likely to come forward if they have symptoms. As part of that plan, every system will need to take ongoing action to support general practice capacity, so that if people come forward they are able to be seen as soon as possible.
We are also working on long-term prostate cancer improvements. Clearly, the covid pandemic had an impact on referrals, but there were long-term issues before the pandemic, as outlined by the shadow Minister, that we are now trying to address. Research is one of those issues. There is a wide range of treatments for prostate cancer. My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley talked about the watch and wait policy, and it has been quite successful. There are many older men with prostate cancer that may have a less aggressive form, and this is where techniques such as watch and wait and seeing whether PSA is showing in their blood are very helpful. Many of those men will die of things other than prostate cancer. Watch and wait is a useful and robust treatment.
Treatments for prostate cancer are not without their side effects, despite our best efforts. We are working hard to improve treatments, both in terms of their success rate and the impact they have on a man’s quality of life. The use of stereotactic radiotherapy, for example, to target prostate cancer and reduce side effects is making a huge difference to outcomes for men. Better surgical techniques, and state-of-the-art surgery, are also improving outcomes and the side effects from surgery. Hormone treatments are also available; research is pushing the barriers there. However, hormone treatments are not without their side effects. I reassure men that there is a wide range of treatments, depending on the type of prostate cancer that they have, that will not only treat their cancer but reduce the side effects.
In the spending review we announced an extra £5.9 billion of capital to support our recovery programme, particularly in diagnostics. That includes £2.3 billion to increase the volume of diagnostic activity in our community diagnostic centres. What we are trying to create in local communities is a situation where if someone presents with non-specific symptoms to their GP, we can use the community diagnostic centres to refer people so that they can have the tests—whether it is an ultrasound, an MRI, or blood tests—and can get a more rapid diagnosis than has historically been the case. We are rolling out 44 community diagnostic centres to increase our capacity, which could deliver up to 2.8 million scans in the first full year of operation. By 2024-25, the aim is to deliver at least another 56 of those centres. That will allow the NHS to carry out 4.5 million additional scans. The diagnostic centres will make a big difference, diagnosing people as quickly as possible and at as early a stage of their cancer as possible.
There are some pilot works going on that look at self-referral; that is particularly the case with breast and skin cancers. I do not want to speak for cancer alliances, but there could be an argument for prostate cancer to be included too, if people have specific symptoms. Watch this space with regards to self-referral and its ability to get people into the system as quickly as possible.
We also talked about workforce. As someone who has worked as a nurse specialist, I take it on board that a urology nurse specialist will often cover all urology cancers. There is a difference between treating someone for testicular cancer; they often tend to be younger men who need very different treatment. Prostate cancer is a very different type of cancer, but it is often lumped in under urology. I recognise that nurses there have a greater volume of patients to see than nurses treating other types of cancer. There is huge progress being made on that. There is investment going into workforce planning, and we are supporting the training and development of nurses, in particular, to become specialists and practitioners in both screening and diagnostics. It is not just about increasing numbers in our workforce; it is about giving them the skills and training to expand the roles and services that they can go into. That is at the forefront of our mind.
My hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley talked about a men’s health strategy. I will say to him that just by having a women’s health strategy does not mean we are ignoring men at all. We are producing our health disparities White Paper very soon. Some of the issues that he talks about around life expectancy and differences in suicide rates will feature quite heavily in that. However, if he does not feel that that goes far enough, I am very happy to have a further conversation. There are differences, in some areas, for men and, on prostate cancer particularly, we can do more to support them with their diagnoses and treatment.
For many men, prostate cancer will be a chronic illness. We will be able to treat and cure many, but some will need to learn to live with their disease—people can live with quite advanced prostate cancer for many years—and it is about providing them with support. Living with prostate cancer often causes psychological challenges, where people are just getting on and dealing with it but are not getting the support that they need with many of the issues that they face. We fully recognise that that is something that we need to focus on.
I reassure colleagues that prostate cancer is very much top of our agenda in the cancer sphere. We are improving the facility to try to diagnose it much more easily. Treatments for prostate cancer are changing and improving all the time. We must focus on supporting men with prostate cancer through their cancer journey. We must encourage men to come forward and reassure them that they will be diagnosed quickly and receive the treatment that they need for their prostate cancer.
Elliot Colburn
I thank all hon. Members for their contributions throughout this debate. I think that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) highlighted very well the danger in men often downplaying their symptoms. I was struck by the statistic, given by my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher), that one in five men will die before retirement. That is not a statistic that I had heard before; it is shocking, and shows the importance of taking these issues seriously.
I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), and the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar), for their contributions and, indeed, the Minister for her reply. I know, as someone who has worked in the NHS, as she has, that she obviously brings a great deal of expertise to the role. I know how seriously she takes it, as she was a cancer nurse in my borough.
We are lucky in the London Borough of Sutton; we have the Royal Marsden base, the Institute of Cancer Research and the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust, all of which are working together to really drive improvements in cancer patient outcomes. Indeed, the £500 million investment that the Department has given to the two hospitals will do just that, so I really welcome it.
However, if there is one message for us all to take away from this debate, it is to encourage men to check their level of risk and to get themselves tested. If we have learned anything from the pandemic, it is the importance of getting tested, so I say to people, please, get out there and encourage people to, “Check your symptoms” and, “Get yourself tested”.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered NHS support for prostate cancer patients after the covid-19 pandemic.
Written Statements
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Income Tax Exemptions
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Frazer)
New social security payment in Scotland
The Government will legislate in spring 2022 to ensure that the new adult disability payment made by the Scottish Government will be exempt from income tax (as agreed in the 2016 fiscal framework agreement). The legislation will be retrospective from 1 March 2022.
HM Revenue and Customs will not collect any tax that may have been due on payments made from 1 March 2022 to the date the legislation takes effect.
This is being announced outside of the normal fiscal event process in order to ensure that those making the payments and the recipients know that they do not have to pay any tax on the payments.
Discretionary fund payments
The Government will legislate in spring 2022 to clarify that payments made through the discretionary fund (and the equivalent in the devolved Administrations) will be exempt from income tax. The discretionary fund is a £144 million fund that forms part of the package of support to help households with rising energy bills. Local authorities will use the fund to help households who are not eligible for a council tax rebate. Council tax rebates are not subject to income tax.
HM Revenue and Customs will not collect any tax that may have been due on payments made from 1 April 2022 to the date the legislation takes effect.
This is being announced outside of the normal fiscal event process in order to ensure that those making the payments and the recipients understand income tax is not due on the payments.
[HCWS669]
National Shipbuilding Strategy
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Ben Wallace)
Today the Prime Minister will announce the publication of the refresh to the national shipbuilding strategy, unveiling a comprehensive package of Government support to further a shipbuilding renaissance for the whole of the UK and bringing together over £4 billion of investment over the next three years. Following my appointment as shipbuilding tsar in 2019, we have been working across Government and our refreshed strategy encompasses the entire shipbuilding sector, both naval and civil, and its supporting supply chain. This will ensure that opportunities, best practice and benefits are shared across the enterprise.
This strategy refresh sets out a vision, endorsed by both Government and industry, to create a globally successful, innovative and sustainable shipbuilding enterprise that works for all parts of the UK.
A Command Paper has been laid before Parliament.
[HCWS670]
Digital Identity and Attributes
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure (Julia Lopez)
I wish to inform the House that the Government have today published their response to the digital identity and attributes consultation.
In our increasingly digital world, and as technology devices become ever more integral to everyday life, being able to prove identities digitally is a tool which will give people more convenience, choice and security in how they access products and services. From making purchases, starting a new job, or moving house, it is important now more than ever that people and organisations can trust who they are dealing with as easily when transacting online as they do when dealing with others in the physical world.
Published in July 2021, the digital identity and attributes consultation sought views on three main proposals that could achieve a safe and secure digital identity system for the whole UK. Extensive engagement informed these proposals and the contents of the consultation response. We are determined to put the needs of individuals first with a strong focus on privacy, security and inclusion.
Based on the views received from respondents to the consultation, our response details the Government’s intent to legislate, when parliamentary time allows, to enable the development of a secure and trusted marketplace for digital identities and attributes across the UK economy.
First, the Government will seek to introduce legislation that will establish a digital identity and attributes governance function. This will help to build a trusted ecosystem in which digital identities and attributes can be used safely and securely across the economy. The governance function will have oversight of the UK digital identity and attributes trust framework and will be responsible for the issuance of a trust mark to organisations certified against it. This will give confidence to individual users of digital identities and attributes that they can trust certified organisations to offer safe and secure digital products because they have a trust mark to show they are adhering to the standards of the UK trust framework.
The Government will also seek to introduce legislation to enable public bodies to allow secure digital checks by trust-marked organisations against personal data they hold for the purposes of identity and eligibility verification. This will allow people and businesses to have confidence that digital identities in the UK can be built on trusted datasets in a way which upholds UK standards of privacy and data minimisation.
Finally, the Government will seek to introduce legislation which will establish that data held by public bodies which are then shared digitally through the legal gateway, are equivalent to the same data shared through traditionally accepted forms of identification, such as physical passports. This will provide all parties that rely on these data with the clarity and confidence that digital identities and attributes can be trusted.
Further details can be found in the consultation response, available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/digital-identity-and-attributes-consultation/outcome/government-response-to-the-digital-identity-and-attributes-consultation.
A copy of the consultation response will also be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS668]
Inquiry into the Death of Dawn Sturgess
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
I announced on 18 November 2021 the Government decision to establish an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, to investigate the death of Dawn Sturgess in Amesbury on 8 July 2018, after she was exposed to the nerve agent Novichok.
The inquiry will now be chaired by the Lord Hughes of Ombersley.
Lord Hughes is a retired judge who was a former judge of the Supreme Court, as well as a Lord Justice of Appeal and vice-president of the criminal division. Lord Hughes is also a judicial commissioner to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner’s Office (IPCO).
In accordance with section 3(1) of the Act, this inquiry will be undertaken by Lord Hughes alone as chair.
The Government are establishing this inquiry after careful consideration of advice from Baroness Hallett, who led the inquest, that this is necessary to permit all relevant evidence to be heard.
This is an important step in ensuring that the family of Dawn Sturgess get the answers they need.
The current inquest will be suspended after the establishment of the inquiry. The inquiry will formally start on 17 March.
I will today place a copy of the terms of reference, which remain unchanged, for the inquiry in the Libraries of both Houses.
The inquiry’s investigations will be a matter for the chair. As the sponsoring Department, the Home Office will provide support and ensure that the inquiry has the resources that it needs.
[HCWS671]
The European Union (Withdrawal) Act and Common Frameworks Report
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Neil O'Brien)
I am today laying before Parliament a report, “The European Union (Withdrawal) Act and Common Frameworks: 26 September to 25 December 2021” in line with the requirement under the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 for quarterly reports to be made to Parliament on the progress of the work to develop common frameworks. The report is available on gov.uk and details the progress made between the UK Government and devolved Governments regarding the development of common frameworks. This report details progress made during the 14th three-month reporting period, and sets out that no “freezing” regulations have been brought forward under section 12 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act. A copy of “The European Union (Withdrawal) Act and Common Frameworks: 26 September to 25 December 2021” report has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses. The publication of the report reflects the Government’s continued commitment to transparency.
[HCWS672]
Covid-19 Inquiry: Draft Terms of Reference
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
On 15 December I announced the appointment of the right hon. Baroness Heather Hallett DBE as chair of the forthcoming public inquiry into the covid-19 pandemic. In doing so, I made a commitment to consult Baroness Hallett and Ministers in the devolved Administrations on the terms of reference for the inquiry before publishing them in draft. This process is now complete, and I have today placed a copy of the draft terms of reference in the Library of the House and published them on gov.uk.
The terms of reference cover: preparedness; the public health response; the response in the health and care sector; and our economic response. Rightly, the terms of reference allow for an inquiry which is genuinely UK-wide, but which respects and does not duplicate any inquiry established on a devolved basis. Finally, the draft reflects the importance of the inquiry working to understand the experiences of those most affected by the pandemic—including bereaved families—as well as looking at any disparities evident in the impact of the pandemic and our response.
The inquiry will play a key role in learning the lessons from this terrible pandemic and in informing our preparations for the future. It is therefore vital that we get its terms of reference right and that people can have their say. To deliver this, Baroness Hallett will now lead a period of public engagement and consultation, which will last for four weeks. This process will inform further refinements to the terms of reference before they are finalised and the inquiry begins its important work.
[HCWS673]
Supporting People Nearing the End of their Lives
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Chloe Smith)
The Government are committed to improving the level of support provided to people who are nearing the end of their lives. The special rules process allows simple and fast access to financial support through the benefits system. Last July, the Government announced their intention to expand eligibility for the special rules, which is currently aimed at those with six months or less to live, with a new 12-month end of life approach. Today, the Department for Work and Pensions is introducing an amendment to the Universal Credit (UC) Regulations 2013, the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) Regulations 2008 and 2013 and the Decisions and Appeals Regulations 2013.
The regulations will apply in Great Britain and will come into force on 4 April 2022. They will mean that people who are thought to be in their final year of life will be able to receive vital support through the special rules six months earlier than they are able to at present, thereby increasing the number of people who are eligible and the length of time that they are able to receive this support for. This means that more people will be able to make a claim under the special rules, and as a result, they will not be subject to face-to-face assessments, waiting periods and, in the majority of cases, they will receive the highest rate of benefit. The 12-month approach supports clinicians by providing a realistic and straight-forward definition, consistent with the current end of life definition used across the NHS.
The Government have amended UC and ESA, where the definition is in secondary legislation, and when parliamentary time allows they will also amend the special rules for personal independence payment, disability living allowance and attendance allowance, where the definition is contained in primary legislation.
Having a life limiting illness can cause unimaginable suffering for the patient and for their loved ones and we are committed to ensuring the benefits system supports people nearing the end of their lives. To support the implementation of the changes to the special rules criteria we are making today, we will provide clear and helpful communications for claimants, clinicians, and organisations that support people nearing the end of their lives so that they are clear about what they should do in light of these changes.
[HCWS674]
Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)
My Lords, Members are encouraged to leave some distance between themselves and others and to wear a face covering when not speaking. If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Scotland Act 2016 (Social Security) (Adult Disability Payment and Child Disability Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Stedman-Scott
That the Grand Committee do consider the Scotland Act 2016 (Social Security) (Adult Disability Payment and Child Disability Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that the draft Scotland Act 2016 (Social Security) (Adult Disability Payment and Child Disability Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2022, laid before the House on 24 January 2022, be approved. I am pleased to introduce this instrument. Subject to approval, it will make some necessary legislative changes to prevent overlapping entitlements of the soon-to-be-introduced Scottish adult disability payment, with UK disability benefits.
In consequence of the Scottish Government’s child disability payment, very similar regulations were made in July 2021. As these regulations mirror, in relation to adult disability payment, much of the policy intent and technical application of the previous instrument, I hope that noble Lords will forgive me if I repeat much of what was said during the debate on those previous regulations. My honourable colleague the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work brought this instrument before the other place on Monday, so there is little new to outline in my opening remarks. I am satisfied that the Scotland Act 2016 (Social Security) (Adult Disability Payment and Child Disability Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 are compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
The UK Government are committed to making devolution work and to ensuring the transition of powers to the Scottish Government under the Scotland Act 2016. This is a long-standing commitment. As a result of the devolution of social security powers to the Scottish Parliament under this Act, the Department for Work and Pensions will need to update its legislation from time to time to reflect the introduction of the Scottish Government’s replacement benefits. Section 71 of this Act allows for the necessary legislative amendments, in this case as a result of benefits introduced under the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018.
I am grateful for the opportunity to debate these regulations today. They will effect some purely technical, administrative changes. They will prevent overlapping payment of the Scottish adult disability payment and UK disability benefits such as the personal independence payment and Armed Forces independence payment. The instrument also includes some time-limited overlapping provisions for Northern Ireland.
Noble Lords will be aware that the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 established the legislative framework for the Scottish Government to introduce new forms of assistance using the social security powers devolved under Section 22 of the Scotland Act 2016. Specifically, Section 31 of the 2018 Act allows the Scottish Government to introduce legislation to provide financial support through its disability assistance for people in Scotland with long-term additional health needs.
The Scottish Government recently legislated to provide for its disability assistance for working-age people, which will be introduced from the 21st of this month. They are calling this “adult disability payment” and I will refer to this as ADP from now on. If the regulations are passed today, they will ensure that there are clear boundaries between entitlement to ADP and entitlement to a relevant UK Government benefit to ensure that there is no overlapping provision of payments. It will do that by making it clear that a Scottish resident cannot be entitled to a relevant UK Government benefit and that in the case of those who move cross-border, a DWP payment will not start until the day after payment of ADP has ended. This will not only protect the public purse by avoiding double payment to the same claimant for the same need but help prevent the need for complicated overpayment calculations and recovery. Furthermore, it is also in the best interests of the claimant, who will have clear expectations of which Government are responsible for paying their benefits at which point in their claim or award.
As just noted, as part of the offer, although ADP has residency-based conditions attached, the Scottish Government will continue to pay ADP for a period of 13 weeks after a claimant has left Scotland and moved to another part of the UK. This will allow claimants time to sort out new benefit arrangements, should they wish to, and the instrument sets out that a successful claim to a UK Government benefit will start the day after the end of that 13-week period.
Our intention is to offer later this year a similar facility for those moving to Scotland, and this is not the subject of these regulations brought before this Committee today. What are needed now are modest but necessary legislative amendments to avoid overlapping payments in order to both support the devolution agenda and strengthen a union that works together in the best interests of our shared citizens. The instrument also includes provisions on behalf of the Ministry of Defence to ensure that Armed Forces independence payments will similarly not overlap with ADP.
Finally, provisions have been included to prevent overlapping entitlement when a claimant moves to Northern Ireland and is in receipt of the 13-week run-on payment from the Scottish Government. I commend this instrument to the Committee.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing these regulations. As we have heard, following devolution of responsibility for certain social security benefits, the Scottish Government are introducing ADP for applicants ordinarily resident in Scotland. It will start to replace personal independence payment, PIP, in Scotland from this month.
The primary purpose of these regulations, as the Minister has explained, is to prevent overlapping payments of attendance allowance, DLA, PIP or Armed Forces independence payment when a claimant is getting ADP. We support the instrument and are pleased to see the Scottish Government using the powers transferred to them under the 2016 Act and subsequent legislation—although I express a bit of disappointment that it has taken such a long time for this to happen. It is critical that the rollout of ADP goes well, and that the transition from the current regime is smooth. Since these regulations are part of that process, we want to see them succeed and are pleased to support them.
The Minister mentioned that ADP will carry on being paid for a period of 13 weeks following a move from Scotland to England or Wales or Northern Ireland, to allow the claimant time to make a claim for the relevant benefit. When the Social Security (Scotland) Act (Disability Assistance and Information-Sharing) (Consequential Provision and Modifications) Order 2022 was discussed in the other place on 2 March, the Minister Iain Stewart said:
“At its introduction, adult disability payment will operate in broadly the same way and for broadly the same group of people as personal independence payment.”—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 2/3/22; col. 3.]
So can the Minister tell the Committee whether the conditions for eligibility for ADP are the same as they are for PIP, or will someone moving from Scotland to another part of the UK have to undergo a fresh assessment to get PIP? If they do have to be assessed, is that classed as an assessment or a reassessment? There is a distinction in terms of time, as the Minister will know, and priority for processing a claim.
The Minister Iain Stewart also said:
“The 13 weeks is a safety net, and applications can be made in advance. It is there to ensure that payments can continue if there is some delay, so that no one is disadvantaged.”—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 2/3/22; col. 8.]
The intention clearly is that there should not be a gap in payment between somebody moving from Scotland on ADP and coming to England, say, and claiming PIP. So can the Minister tell the Committee how long it takes to process a claim for PIP? Is she confident that 13 weeks will be long enough to ensure that there is no break in payment?
I dug out what I think are the latest official statistics, which were for last October, and which showed that clearance times for normal-rules new claims were 24 weeks from registration to a decision being made—and that is assuming the claimant was not one of the millions who end up having to go for mandatory reconsideration to get their benefit established in the first place. That adds another 11 weeks to the process. So can the Minister tell the Committee whether this means that, if someone moves from Scotland to England—just across the border, say, to Berwick—then makes a claim, and it takes either 24 or potentially 35 weeks, they will still get only 13 weeks’ run-on? What happens to them during those remaining weeks when they are still waiting for their claim to be processed? Also, does the comment by Iain Stewart about applications being made in advance mean that someone preparing to move from Scotland to England or Wales could make a claim for PIP while they were still living in Scotland in advance, as they prepared for their move to England—again, to avoid any gap in payments? That might deal with the problem that it takes longer than 13 weeks to process a claim.
I understand that applications for ADP will open at different times in different parts of Scotland. I think it will be piloted in some parts. Does the Minister know when it will be fully rolled out? If somebody were to move now from England and they happened to land in the bit of Scotland where it is being piloted, presumably they would have to make a fresh application for ADP. The Minister mentioned that the intention of the Government was to arrange this so that the run-on is a two-way street—so that, in due course, if you move from England to Scotland, you will get a 13-week run-on of PIP while you make an application for ADP. In fact, Iain Stewart said in the Commons that
“the situation does apply both ways. If a person in England claims PIP or one of the other benefits and moves to Scotland, the DWP would look to ensure they had an equivalent transition period.”—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 2/3/22; cols. 7-8.]
But if somebody on 1 April were to move to Scotland and happened to be in an area where they had started doing ADP, would they get a run-on or no run-on? Would they suddenly find that their PIP stopped immediately and they had no benefits at all until their ADP was processed?
Finally, the Minister said something about the regulations also introducing some time-limited overlapping provisions for Northern Ireland. Can she tell us what they are, because I could not figure it out? I apologise for that and look forward to her reply.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for the points she has made. I shall try to deal with them.
I turn first to what happens to a person if they move now. While DWP is administering the existing disability benefits on behalf of the Scottish Government under agency agreements, any customer moving to Scotland will be handled as a routine change of circumstances. This means that these cases will continue in payment on the same benefits as now and form part of the Scottish caseload administered on behalf of the Scottish Government. DWP will continue to manage their claim until they are transferred to Social Security Scotland. The case transfer process has been agreed with the Scottish Government and claimants will not see any disruption to their payments.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I am grateful for the considerable information that the Minister has given me. In fact, I was not asking or generally complaining about PIP being slow, which is what she said. I do think that it is too slow, but that was not my point; my point is that everything about the description of ADP suggests that the intention is that there will not be a break in payment. The Minister in reply to me has just said that the 13-week run-on will reduce the risk of a break in payment, but it is the claimants’ responsibility to apply quickly. As she seems to be suggesting that a claim cannot be made until the claimant has actually moved to England, and if there is only a 13-week run-on, and even if she applies on day one, it takes 24 weeks to process the claim, even if she discharges her responsibility with impressive speed, it seems impossible to avoid there being a break. That is what I am interested in. What are the Government going to do about that?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I think that I was trying to make the point, although I accept that I made it badly, that on the specific point that the noble Baroness has just raised I want to go back to the officials to get more detail, because this must have crossed their desks as a risk. If the noble Baroness will allow me, I shall write to confirm.
As I have said, the UK Government are working collaboratively with the Scottish Government to ensure that the two systems of social security will operate effectively alongside each other, and the required legislation that underpins them is delivered successfully for the people of Scotland and, where relevant, claimants in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The order highlights the importance that the UK Government place on the effective functioning of devolution. I commend the order to the House.
Early Legal Advice Pilot Scheme Order 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar
That the Grand Committee do consider the Early Legal Advice Pilot Scheme Order 2022.
Relevant document: 29th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Wolfson of Tredegar) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move this statutory instrument, which establishes the early legal advice pilot scheme that will be conducted in Middlesbrough and Manchester for a time-limited period. The instrument amends part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, colloquially known as LASPO, to bring civil legal services for certain housing debt and welfare benefit matters in scope of legal aid for the purposes of the pilot scheme. It makes consequential amendments to secondary legislation for the purposes of that pilot scheme. The draft order is made using the powers conferred by LASPO itself.
The instrument lays the necessary foundations to put the pilot scheme into operation and signifies a crucial step in delivering a key commitment made in the Ministry of Justice’s legal support action plan, which we published in 2019. Through the pilot scheme, we will test the impact of early legal advice on the resolution of legal problems. We will also seek to quantify the benefits to individuals, their support networks, the Government and, ultimately, the taxpayer.
Civil legal aid is available to an individual if their issue is listed in Part 1 of Schedule 1 to LASPO. Legal aid may also be available on an exceptional basis where there would be a breach, or the risk of a breach, of the individual’s rights under the European Convention on Human Rights or any retained enforceable EU rights. This is known as exceptional case funding, or ECF.
Eligibility for legal aid, for both in-scope matters and ECF, is subject to a statutory means and merits assessment. The means test sets out that, if an individual’s capital or disposable income is above a certain threshold, they are generally not eligible for legal aid. There are different merits tests depending on the type of case but, generally, the merits test provides for a cost-benefit test and a “prospects of success” test. If those tests are not met, again, funding would not be granted. Under the current arrangements, legal aid for social welfare law matters such as debt, housing and welfare benefits is limited to the most urgent and important circumstances, for example if an individual is at risk of losing their home through eviction or repossession. This is so that legal aid is targeted at those who need it most.
However, during the post-implementation review of LASPO, we heard from respondents that the reforms in that Act, which came into effect in 2013, might have caused increased financial costs to individuals, their support networks and the Government. Those respondents explained that individuals experiencing social welfare legal problems, especially related to housing, were now unable to resolve their problems at an early opportunity. This meant that they were now likely to experience problem-clustering and problem escalation, each of which can lead to costly intervention. Frequently cited examples included increased use of court services for possession proceedings; greater reliance on welfare benefit and on temporary and permanent accommodation services; and increased use of health services for stress and anxiety.
Although we have some anecdotal evidence to support the view that early legal advice could produce benefits to individuals and to local and central government, there is limited empirical evidence. In particular, there is limited evidence in relation to the financial impact of early intervention through the legal aid scheme. I am sure we can all agree that the argument that early intervention can result in cost savings feels intuitively correct. However, in order to make robust arguments for funding for early legal advice and ensure that we provide value for money for the taxpayers who will fund it, we need an argument based on actual evidence. We are therefore bringing these matters into scope and using the pilot scheme as an opportunity to gather robust, quantitative evidence that can demonstrate whether early legal advice can lead to early problem resolution, thus bringing savings to the public purse.
The pilot will be in two specific areas—Manchester and Middlesbrough—and will be time limited, from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2024. Individuals will be eligible if they live, or habitually reside, in the area of Manchester City Council or Middlesbrough City Council. They must be selected to participate by a person appointed by the Lord Chancellor, who will publish guidance explaining who the person will be—they might be an independent evaluator—and how they must select participants. Participants will receive a maximum of three hours of advice and assistance for housing, debt and welfare benefit matters.
We have worked closely with legal aid providers and other government departments to devise the pilot scheme and finalise the terms of this amendment. The amendment to Part 1 of Schedule 1 to LASPO in this instrument brings these matters into scope for legal aid, subject to some exclusions outlined in the order; for example, participants cannot receive advocacy or representation services. This reflects the intentions of the pilot because it is all about advice before court proceedings are initiated.
It covers, therefore, civil legal services relating to advice and assistance in relation to housing, debt and welfare benefits for a maximum of three hours. Participants can receive advice and assistance irrespective of whether their matters fall into one or all of those categories. They will receive holistic advice on all those categories as far as needed. The maximum time for advice is fixed at three hours, but there is no means or merits test. The only criteria are the geographical requirements and that they are included in the pilot scheme by the person appointed by the Lord Chancellor.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
An evidence base? The clue to these proceedings was in the Minister saying that they are looking for savings to the public purse. I think the Treasury is definitely behind this.
When I was a humble solicitor in the 1960s, I used to fill in a green form for people to give them advice. In 1973, a simple green form scheme was introduced and in 1994 the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, then Lord Chancellor, described it as
“an important means of access to legal advice for people on low incomes. In 1993/94, over 1,600,000 people received help from the … scheme.”—[Official Report, 3/11/1994; col. WA 73.]
I fail to see why we now need a highly expensive two-year study to find out whether there is a need for such advice. It is obvious. It was in 2013 that the coalition Government, I am afraid, reformed the scope of civil legal aid in the LASPO Act, including, as the memorandum tells us,
“the removal of funding for early legal advice and support for most social welfare law.”
Some reform that was.
As for research, the Explanatory Memorandum states in paragraph 7.3:
“While research by organisations such as Citizens Advice, Shelter, the Law Society and the Equality and Human Rights Commission was persuasive in suggesting a link between early legal advice and downstream benefits, officials in the department concluded that their findings did not robustly quantify the financial savings for government, nor did they account for the costs of individuals whose problems would not be resolved with early legal advice”.
So there has been considerable research by NGOs, all pointing the same way.
The Government produced their review in 2019, and it has been knocking about for three years before anything was done under it. There will now be a two-year pilot scheme, very limited to 1,600 individuals in Manchester and Middlesbrough. Some five years will elapse from the review that the Government themselves carried out.
The Government describe the pilot scheme in this way:
“the Ministry of Justice is commissioning a process, impact, and value for money evaluation to support the effective delivery of the project, and the generation of robust impact evidence. An initial phase ahead of pilot delivery will be an in-depth feasibility study to fully assess and recommend a robust, practical research pilot and evaluation design”.
It is
“the gold-standard approach to assessing impact, highly novel in the Access to Justice policy area.”
These very helpful answers were provided to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, whose questioning of the Ministry of Justice was admirable and full and produced a lot of information that I need not go into. But there we are: gold-plated research, which means that people whose needs were seen in 2019 will have a five-year wait before anything happens, and we do not even know whether it will happen then because it will depend on the evaluation of the gold-plated people of the project.
We currently face a great rise in deprivation that will happen to people in this country. The situation as we know it is dire and will get worse, with price rises and additional taxes. Now is the time for the people in this category—the people I used to advise in those far-off days when we did not live in a very rich area—to be given support, not in 2024 and thereafter. This is a disgrace.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, has given us an historical context for what we are receiving through this statutory instrument. We of course support it, because it goes some way to ameliorating the position we have had since the massive cuts in 2013 with LASPO. The noble Lord has made the broader points, with which I agree.
I want to focus on two particular questions, one of which was asked by my honourable friend Afzal Khan when this matter was debated in the House of Commons. He contacted the Greater Manchester Law Centre and the Law Society there, the only two welfare benefit and legal aid providers in Manchester city and the only two debt legal aid providers in Middlesbrough, one of which also advises on welfare benefit law. He made the point in the House of Commons that the scheme will undoubtedly create an increase in demand. There was scepticism, from that limited number of providers, whether the three-hour limit is enough in itself and whether the pay is enough for those three hours. How, given that there is very likely to be an increase in demand, will the ministry respond?
The Minister used a couple of phrases that I thought were appropriate when he talked about the problem of the clustering of cases around a multitude of different contexts—housing, welfare and the like—and about the problem of escalation. From different parts of our working lives outside this House, we all know that both of those things are right and true, both in the housing context and the criminal justice context as a whole—something I know from my work in magistrates’ courts.
The Minister said that there was limited evidence of financial benefit from early intervention. The noble Lord, Lord Thomas, expressed extreme scepticism, and I agree with him: there is a multitude of reports about the benefits of early intervention, and I have lost track of the number of early-intervention pilots that I have seen on the criminal justice side that have fallen by the wayside for various reasons.
I will raise another question, which comes from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee report’s appendix 2:
“Further information from the Ministry of Justice on the draft Early Legal Advice Pilot Scheme Order 2022”.
Question 1c is as follows:
“The wording of the SI indicates that those who are selected but receive no advice will also be informed that they are part of the pilot—will that control group also be required to fill in any evaluation or description of their experience? Otherwise, they will be just like any other Housing benefit claimant—what marks them out?”
That is to say, what marks them out as different in the data collected? The answer is:
“The pilot is seeking to develop robust quantitative impact evidence, and so how to best collect control or comparison group evidence is a priority issue to be examined. The specific criteria and process for identifying and engaging the control or comparison group is to be determined based on feasibility work to be undertaken by the independent evaluator.”
I did not read that out very well, but I understand what it means. My experience on the family court side is that a large number of people drop out of the system. Advice is made available and people start accessing it, but then the process becomes difficult and tiresome and people just stop engaging.
So, arising out of that question and answer, my question to the Minister is: will there be an evaluation of people who start the process but do not finish it? That is part of the overall cost, and it is also a demonstration of the impact or otherwise of these schemes. As I say, from my experience in a different context—family law—a very big part of the overall picture is the people who do not pursue the advice and support that are available to them because doing so is just too burdensome.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful for the contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede. I will pick up a few points in response. On the Treasury being behind it, I say that this is not a Treasury-driven measure, in the sense that the sole focus is not the public purse. But we have to recognise that the Treasury is ultimately behind the legal aid system: it is funded by the public purse, and we have to make sure that we get value for money.
One of the things that we are doing here is trying to answer this question—we all feel this instinctively, perhaps, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, said, there are lots of people in the market, so to speak, who say, “Spend some money now; you’ll save more money later on”. But we want to have some robust evidence to see to what extent that is actually the case—and also to see to which particular groups it applies more and to which it applies less. We have a very diverse population, and one of the things that we will be able to do in the pilot is look at people with different backgrounds and needs and see the extent to which the early legal advice actually helps. Although I am well aware of the research by the various NGOs that the noble Lord mentioned, that is not empirical evidence. We do not have the robust, quantitative evidence that we will get from the pilot.
I will pick up the points made the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, who asked a few questions around time limits and associated points. First, on the appropriateness of the fee, I explained the 25% uplift. To obtain the figure for the underlying fee, we used the existing non-London hourly rates for housing and family matters; that generated the baseline fee for the work. We added the 25% uplift to increase the extra costs. We are confident that that will mean that we get proper take-up from providers.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Barker) (LD)
My Lords, the Committee will adjourn for a few moments until the people involved in the next business are in place.
Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) Regulations 2022
Viscount Younger of Leckie
That the Grand Committee do consider the Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) Regulations 2022.
Relevant document: 29th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that the regulations be considered.
Slots are a means of managing scarce capacity at the busiest airports. Ordinarily, airlines must operate slots 80% of the time to retain rights to them the following year. This is known as the 80:20 rule or the “use it or lose it” rule. In normal times, this rule helps ensure capacity is used efficiently and prevents airlines from hoarding valuable slots without using them.
The Committee will be aware that Covid-19 has caused exceptional challenges for the travel industry. One way in which the Government have supported the sector over the past four seasons has been with generous alleviation of these rules. On 11 February this year, we lifted most remaining travel restrictions, which means that people can now travel abroad and visitors can come to the UK more easily, whether for a holiday, for work or to visit loved ones. We have reopened the country, and our slot alleviation plans for the summer season are designed to support this process.
This package was developed following consultation with industry. We received 48 responses from air carriers, airports and industry bodies, which supported a wide range of different measures. Views ranged from calls for a full waiver to support for full reinstatement of the 80:20 rule, with most responses somewhere in between. We have carefully considered these views, alongside the available data, to develop this package of measures.
I shall give some brief background to this. When the pandemic initially struck, the 80:20 rule was fully waived to avoid expensive and environmentally damaging flights with few or even no passengers on board. Following the UK’s departure from the EU, the UK Government chose to extend the European Commission’s waiver of the 80:20 rule to cover the summer 2021 season, which lasted until 30 October 2021, through the Airports Slot Allocation (Alleviation of Usage Requirements) Regulations 2021. Taking the opportunity of our departure from the European Union, we then used the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021,or ATMUA, to create a more flexible set of powers that could adapt to the specific circumstances of the sector. That legislation was recognised as an essential tool to help to manage the impacts of the pandemic, and received cross-party support.
For the winter 2021 season, we used these powers for the first time. As recovery remained uncertain, our focus was on supporting the sector. Our measures were generous and exceeded the alleviation package provided by the EU. By allowing airlines to hand back full series of slots, we gave them certainty that they could retain their slots, even if not operated, which helped to mitigate some of the commercial impacts of the pandemic. This is because otherwise airlines might have chosen to incur the cost of operating near-empty flights merely to retain slots. This also reduced the likelihood of needless emissions from near-empty aircraft. We are proud that, thanks to these measures, we are not aware of any flights that have taken place solely to retain an airline’s slots.
As required by the ATMUA Act, we have determined that there is a continued reduction in demand, which is likely to persist. We consider that further alleviation measures are justified for the summer 2022 season, which runs from the 27 March to 29 October 2022. On 24 January, we therefore published this statutory instrument, setting out the package of alleviation measures that we propose to put in place for this coming summer. The draft instrument applies to England, Scotland and Wales. Aerodromes are a devolved matter in relation to Northern Ireland and, as there are currently no slot co-ordinated airports in Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Executive agreed that it was not necessary for the powers in the Act to extend to, or apply in relation to, Northern Ireland.
In the draft instrument we are considering, our measures aim to encourage recovery, while protecting carriers where severe international travel restrictions remain. This includes changing the minimum usage ratio to 70:30. This means that airlines are required to use their slots at least 70% of the time to retain the right to operate them the following year. This is lower than the 80% in normal times but higher than the 50% ratio adopted for the winter season, thereby reflecting progress towards recovery.
The draft regulations include stronger provisions to avoid low-volume flying, by expanding the reasons which airlines may use to justify not using slots to include existing Covid-19-related restrictions. This will apply where measures, including flight bans and quarantine or self-isolation requirements, are applied at either end of a route and have a severe impact on demand for the route or on the viability of the route. Unlike during the winter season, this will also apply when restrictions could reasonably have been foreseen, so as to protect carriers in markets with long-term restrictions in place. There will be a three-week recovery period during which the provisions may still apply following the end of the Covid restrictions.
In addition, we will allow earlier applications for justified non-utilisation of slots. By this I mean that, where there is an official government announcement, either domestic or overseas, about the duration of the Covid restrictions, at that point the carrier will be able to ask the slot co-ordinator for justified non-use to cover the whole period. This can be done in advance and will mean that the carrier will not have to reapply every three weeks, as at present. This will allow earlier hand-back of slots, so that other carriers will have an opportunity to use them, and it will remove some of the administrative burden on airlines.
In the winter 2021 season we made provision for “full-series hand-back”—in other words, allowing an airline to retain rights to a series of slots for the following year if it returned the complete series to the slot co-ordinator for reallocation prior to the season’s start. We have decided not to continue full-series hand-back this season. It was a generous measure that reflected the uncertainty around the winter season.
Given the success of the vaccine rollout, the relaxation of travel restrictions and the more positive demand outlook for the coming summer, I believe that it is now time to move towards a normal usage ratio, but with a strengthened justified non-utilisation provision to provide protection in case of severe restrictions or the emergence of new variants of concern. These measures will cover the summer 2022 scheduling period. and we are currently considering alleviation for winter 2022. I reassure the Committee that we will consult on this later in the year.
I will say a final word about so-called “ghost flights”. Carriers in restricted markets will still be protected by our justified non-utilisation provision. For open markets, the decision to operate flights is ultimately a commercial one for airlines, but carriers will be subject to a lower than normal usage ratio of 70%. The alternative of providing unlimited relief would allow incumbent airlines to retain unused slots at airports while preventing other carriers from using them, restricting competition and ultimately harming consumers.
Through this package of measures, we aim to strike a balance between supporting the sector and encouraging recovery and the efficient use of slots. The regulations that we are considering today make use of time-limited powers designed specifically to respond to the impact of Covid. However, the Government are focused on supporting the industry not just in the short term. As the UK’s aviation sector grows, we will review the slot allocation process as a whole to ensure that it is well equipped to encourage competition, consumer choice and efficiency. I commend the instrument to the Committee.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his comprehensive update on the adjustment from 80:20 to 70:30. It is a reasonable and practical way forward. Could he also take into account that, although there are fewer long-haul flights to east Asia due to the impact of Covid, the closure of Russian and Siberian airspace will also have serious long-term repercussions, as the traffic from the UK naturally increases for our long-haul carriers?
Although a side issue, the knock-on effects of these airspace closures on the reduced frequency of operations will include increased fuel burn, which in turn will affect ticket prices on what are normally extremely lucrative routes. As of Sunday, carriers such as China Eastern, Air China, Cathay Pacific, Korean Air and some others with bilateral air service agreements with the UK were still flying over Russian and Siberian airspace to the UK. Some of those countries actually abstained in the vote on the invasion of Ukraine at the Security Council meeting, and will no doubt continue to fly when possible. That brings in a competition issue. I would be grateful if the Minister could take on board these points for further consideration.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this SI and thank the Minister for his explanation. It provides stability for the aviation sector and, importantly, removes much of the incentive for airlines to operate environmentally damaging ghost flights or flights with very few passengers just to keep their slots.
The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee questioned the Government’s decision to opt for 70%, which was the preferred option of airports, over 60%, the preferred option of airlines. This is a finely balanced decision based on data that is not available to me but which I hope the Government have analysed. I tend to side with the airports and hence endorse the Government’s decision, because airports have a much less flexible business model than airlines. You cannot just park up an airport; you have to keep it functioning, for certain safety reasons, even if you no longer have any commercial income.
I also welcome the Government’s additional reasons for non-utilisation of slots. The Explanatory Memorandum refers in paragraph 12.2 to what I call the game of slots played by certain airlines. It explains how attempts to consolidate valuable Heathrow slots have an impact way down the line on smaller airports—and, it is worth pointing out, on the availability and choice of flights and their price for passengers. This emphasises to me that the airlines have the upper hand here. That is another reason to endorse the Government’s decision.
However, I have one important question for the Minister, which echoes the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, with whom I fully agree. All these decisions were made prior to the recent awful war in Ukraine and its impact on many long-distance routes. There is likely to be a deterrent effect on travel to eastern Europe, which is generally regarded as being potentially affected by political instability. A vast range of frequent short-distance flights for leisure travel, as well as for business travel, to eastern Europe may be affected by this.
The noble Baroness pointed out an important loophole in the rules on overflying Russia and accepting flights in this country that have in practice flown over Russia. It is important that the Government clarify their position and amend their decisions in that regard. Can the Minister tell us what discussions the Government have had with the aviation industry about the impact of the war in Ukraine on it and what trends are emerging from what they can see so far? This is already being described as a second major challenge to our assumption that we can rely on easy international travel.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
We are in agreement with the statutory instrument so I do not intend to speak at any great length. However, I have one or two questions and queries, which may display the fact that I have not fully understood the SI rather than anything else.
The reality is, as the Minister said, that we have slots because of lack of runway capacity and, indeed, airports. Presumably, if we had sufficient runway capacity and airports, we would not need slots. Do the Government accept that that is the case? If so, is that issue of runway capacity and airports, or lack of runway capacity and airports, one that the Government intend to address, since it appears that slots are related to that situation?
There is also a reference in paragraph 6.1 of the Explanatory Memorandum to the
“allocation of slots to air carriers at congested airports”.
I almost certainly ought to know the answer to this but I cannot think of it offhand. Which UK airports are deemed congested and therefore have the slots? Is it just the obvious ones that we can probably think of, or is it rather more extensive?
I believe the Minister said in his comments that, as a result of the measures that had been taken, the Government were not aware of any flights that had taken place just to retain the slot—that is, ghost flights. I may not have understood correctly what the Minister said but, if I did, how have the Government got this information and how would they define a flight that has taken place just to retain slots? As I understand it, during the waiver period, there were a substantial number of flights at very low capacity. I know that there may be an argument that they were carrying cargo, or they may have been repatriation flights, but does that mean that the Government really have kept tabs on all those flights and have satisfied themselves that none of them was flying purely to retain a slot? Admittedly, with a waiver rule, one wonders why they would have been doing that in any case, but it would be helpful if the Minister could comment on what I believe he said about the Government not being aware of any flights just to retain the slot.
Before the pandemic, can I take it that we were in a situation whereby no flights took place just to retain slots? In other words, in the summer of 2019, how many empty or near-empty ghost flights were operated? Perhaps the answer is none at all, in order to retain an airline’s historic rights to its slots. Is it anticipated that, with the 70:30 ratio, on which there has been a lot of consultation, as the Minister said, there will be no need for any airlines to start to operate ghost flights to retain that ratio? Is that how the figure has been determined as the appropriate one for this summer?
Finally, I come back to a point to which the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred, on the response of the airlines. As I understand it from the Explanatory Memorandum, there were rather more airlines in favour of the 60% usage ratio, and most airports preferred 70%. The Government have decided on 70%. I am certainly in no position to say that they have got that wrong, but the noble Baroness referred to the data on which that assessment was made. I know that I am repeating a question she has already asked, but what data led the Government to decide that the 70:30 ratio was appropriate, bearing in mind that they apparently had airlines more likely to go for 60% and airports more likely to go for 70%? Was it a case for the Government of tossing a coin, or is there some hard data and evidence that led them to go down the road of 70%?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I start by thanking noble Lords for their consideration of these draft regulations. I appreciate the comments that have been made and the questions that have been asked. Before I respond, I shall say a few words about the challenges that our aviation industry has been tackling and take this opportunity to pay tribute to its efforts.
At the height of the pandemic, in April 2020, passenger numbers fell by 99% compared with the same month in 2019. Only 330,000 passengers passed through airport terminals. During the summer of 2020, passenger numbers increased as travel corridors were introduced but remained 80% below the equivalent 2019 levels. Following the introduction of the traffic light system on 17 May 2021, flight and passenger numbers rose at a steady pace between May and October 2021. In December 2021, 9.1 million passengers used UK airports but that was still 57% down on the same month in 2019.
I move on to answering the questions that were asked, if I can, in no particular order. I will start with the basic but important question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about which UK airports we consider to be congested and which ones fall within the remit of these draft regulations. There are eight of them in the UK, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham, Bristol, London City, Stansted and Manchester. Of course, there are a lot of other airports around the UK, but they are not considered part of this.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, also asked about engagement; that ties in with some of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. I have a bit to say about this. In November and December, we held a targeted, four-week consultation in which we asked airports, airlines and industry bodies for their views on alleviation measures and invited supporting evidence. This takes account of the noble Lord’s point about the 70:30 or 80:20 split. We received 48 responses from 36 carriers, seven airports and five industry bodies, which we carefully considered alongside the available data. I say “the available data” but, as I said in my opening speech, we took account of them all and decided to take a middle line. As ever, in a consultation, you have to take account of all views.
On the impact of these measures, I want to go a little further in answering a question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. The impacts were carefully considered—the noble Baroness mentioned the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which is a fair point—as they were developed. We sought feedback and evidence from across the aviation sector and an impacts note was prepared to inform the advice to Ministers following the consultation. A formal impact assessment has not been prepared for this instrument because it makes provisions that are to have effect for a period of less than 12 months. That is my understanding of how the process works, which the noble Baroness may know more about than me.
I want to say some more about ghost flights in response to a question from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser. There have been reports, particularly in the press, of up to 15,000 ghost flights; I think that is what the noble Lord was alluding to. The figures reported in one newspaper—it happened to be the Guardian—covered departing flights from 32 airports between March 2020 and September 2021. During this period, there was full alleviation of the slot usage rules in place. One of the purposes of this was to prevent airlines needing to operate environmentally damaging ghost flights during the Covid-19 pandemic. We do not hold data on why flights may have taken place but, given the financial pressure that the Covid pandemic has put on the aviation sector, I know that airlines will not have wanted to operate flights unless they had to. As well as maintenance and training, we believe that many of these passenger flights will have been for reasons such as carrying cargo, as the noble Lord alluded to, or returning UK citizens home when Covid restrictions were introduced or changed at short notice. I am not sure that the data one can get is an exact science but I hope that that goes some way to offering a response; it is certainly as far as I can go.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
Just before my noble friend’s final comments, can he address another point of concern that I made? Notwithstanding that some airlines such as those I outlined are still coming into the UK—China Airlines and so on, which are obviously using Russian airspace to come here—I emphasised that if that continues we will end up with predominantly a competition issue, apart from other issues, whereby we are building our traffic flying to east Asia but it has to go the long way round, which obviously adds cost, while the airlines I mentioned may continue to use Russian airspace, thereby using a shorter route and burning less fuel. It therefore becomes a competition issue. Will the Minister take that away, too, for his colleagues to look at?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My noble friend makes a good point on incoming flights being cheaper to operate than other flights. I have got that message. All that I can do is take that back to the department; I am sure that the officials will do so.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
I ask this more as a matter of interest than anything else. Was it the case in the summer of 2019—that is, before Covid—that the 80:20 ratio meant that there were no ghost flights and there was no need for them? Is it the Government’s view that with the 70:30 ratio in operation this summer there ought to be no need for ghost flights?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
On the first point, yes, my understanding is that there were no ghost flights during the operation of the 80:20 rule. I wanted to make that clear but I will double-check and write to the noble Lord if I am wrong. I made that clear in my opening statement but just to be sure I will write to him. With the introduction of the 70:30 rule, the idea is that there should be no need for ghost flights. That has come about as a result of the consultation that has taken place.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
Finally and briefly, when the noble Viscount looks at the issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, raised, will he undertake to write to all of us who have taken part in this debate and set out an explanation of the Government’s view on the matter?
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
Indeed. I thank the noble Baroness for that point. Actually, I was saying to myself—this goes much wider than these draft regulations—that I imagine that an enormous amount of work is going on within the airline sector, the Government and particularly within the Department for Transport as regards discussing quickly and on a timely basis how to address these demanding issues. I undertake to write to the Committee on these matters.
Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 (Disability Assistance and Information-Sharing) (Consequential Provision and Modifications) Order 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Offord of Garvel
That the Grand Committee do consider the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 (Disability Assistance and Information-Sharing) (Consequential Provision and Modifications) Order 2022.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that the draft order, which was laid on 31 January 2022, be approved. I am grateful for the opportunity to debate this order. It is the result of collaborative working between the two Governments in Scotland. The order is made under Section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998, which allows for necessary legislative amendments in consequence of an Act of the Scottish Parliament. Scotland Act orders are a demonstration of devolution in action and I am pleased to say that, although this is my first order, my office has taken through more than 250 orders since devolution began.
The draft order amends various pieces of legislation in the United Kingdom as a consequence of the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018, which I shall refer to as the “2018 Act”, and regulations made under the 2018 Act. This order has been brought forward as a result of the close co-operation between the UK and Scottish Governments. Through the 2018 Act, the Scottish Government can introduce new forms of disability assistance using the social security powers devolved under Section 22 of the Scotland Act 2016.
Section 31 of the 2018 Act allows the Scottish Government to introduce a payment to provide financial assistance for disabled people in Scotland, called disability assistance. Disability assistance will replace three existing benefits currently delivered by the Department for Work and Pensions: disability living allowance, personal independence payment and attendance allowance. Through these powers the Scottish Government have legislated that adult disability payment will replace personal independence payment, beginning with a pilot on 21 March 2022.
From introduction, adult disability payment will operate in broadly the same way for broadly similar people as personal independence payment. Applications will be accepted from individuals between 16 years old and state pension age. It is the UK and Scottish Governments’ intention that there will be equitable treatment for those individuals receiving personal independence payment and adult disability payment. If this order is passed, it will ensure the equitable treatment of individuals in receipt of adult disability payment and personal independence payment with regard to tax treatments, benefits, entitlements and voting rights.
I will next outline the details of what the order does to ensure that people receiving adult disability payment receive equitable treatment with those on personal independence payment. In terms of changes to taxation legislation, the order will extend the definition of a disabled person to include individuals in receipt of a qualifying rate and component of adult disability payment. This will apply in two cases: first, where the tax treatment of property is held in a trust for the benefit of a disabled person; and, secondly, to the early withdrawal of funds from a child trust fund or junior ISA if the young person is terminally ill.
The order also extends provision to ensure that those on adult disability payment benefit from the following reliefs: a VAT zero rate for the leasing of vehicles to individuals under the Motability scheme; a VAT zero rate for the onward sale of vehicles previously let under the scheme; an exemption from insurance premium tax on the insurance covering vehicles leased under the Motability scheme; eligibility for a driving licence at age 16 rather than 17 when the individual has an award of the enhanced rate of the mobility component of adult disability payment; and an exemption or a 50% reduction in vehicle excise duty if the individual receives either the enhanced rate or the standard rate of the mobility component respectively. The order will also allow the DVLA to request data from Scottish Ministers to confirm whether an individual is eligible for a driving licence at age 16 or eligible for reliefs in vehicle excise duty.
The order also ensures that adult disability payment can act as a qualifying benefit for the annual Christmas bonus, carer’s credit and carer’s allowance in England and Wales. The latter will ensure continued entitlement to the reserved carer’s allowance in the small number of instances where someone in England and Wales is caring for an individual in Scotland. The order also makes changes to election legislation to entitle those receiving the enhanced rate of the mobility component of adult disability payment to a proxy vote at UK parliamentary and local elections. It also allows for this group to provide a proxy signature for a recall petition without attestation of the application.
Lastly, corresponding provisions for entitlement to carer’s allowance and carer’s credit have been included for Northern Ireland. This will ensure that a carer can apply for support in relation to an individual who has moved from Scotland to Northern Ireland while remaining in receipt of adult disability payment for the 13-week run, affording the individual time to apply and be assessed for personal independence payment.
As I highlighted earlier, all these changes simply ensure that the system for disabled people who are receiving adult disability payment operates in an equitable way, as for a disabled person receiving personal independence payment. These changes are not within the competence of the Scottish Parliament, and the UK Government are therefore facilitating them through this order. This ensures that people in Scotland are not disadvantaged by devolution, meeting the principles set out in the Smith commission.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that introduction, and indeed welcome him to the special joys of secondary legislation consideration in the House of Lords. I wish him many more in the future.
We support this order and are pleased to see the Scottish Government using the powers transferred to them under the 2016 Act and subsequent legislation—although I briefly venture that we might wish that they had been a little speedier in so doing. However, to say that is to grumble. As we have heard, the Scottish Government are introducing disability assistance for disabled people, and this new adult disability payment has been created to replace DLA, PIP and attendance allowance, starting with a pilot on 21 March. Indeed, a little earlier in Grand Committee, we were debating an order relating to how the ADP will interact with benefits in the rest of the UK. I will not go back over the other questions, but, as the Minister indicated, the order also extends exemptions in relation to mobility, vehicle exemption, access to early driving licences and the definition of a “disabled person” in some tax and benefit legislation.
I have a couple of questions. The Minister said:
“At its introduction, adult disability payment will operate in broadly the same way and for broadly the same group of people as personal independence payment.”—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 2/3/22; col. 3.]
I take that to mean that the conditions for eligibility for ADP will be the same as for PIP, at least at introduction. Does the Minister know whether it is intended that the benefits will continue to be in alignment, or might they diverge over time? Does he know whether there will be a similar, or indeed the same, assessment process for accessing ADP as for accessing PIP? That could make a difference if someone was in receipt of one benefit and moved to the other jurisdiction.
What discussions have the UK Government had with the Scottish Government about how this transition will work? When this order was debated in the Delegated Legislation Committee in the other place, the Minister, Iain Stewart, said:
“The 13 weeks is a safety net, and applications can be made in advance. It is there to ensure that payments can continue if there is some delay, so that no one is disadvantaged.”—[Official Report, Commons, Delegated Legislation Committee, 2/3/22; col. 8.]
I took that to mean that an application for PIP could made while someone was still living in Scotland—in other words, in advance—in order to avoid any gap in payments. But I raised this with the DWP Minister in relation to the earlier DWP order, and, although I have not had the chance to read Hansard, I got the impression that this was not the case: someone would have to wait until they moved to England to make that application. But, if the Minister knows, I would be grateful to understand that—I may not have heard it correctly.
Either way, the intention of the run-on is clearly to ensure that there is no gap in payment for someone moving from Scotland to England. But is the Minister aware that the latest official statistics show that it takes 24 weeks for a claim for PIP to be processed? So, if there is a 13-week run-on and a 24-week application process, I wonder whether there have been discussions between the two Governments about how to manage that. Again, I raised this with DWP, but it is a matter for both departments to consider.
Could the Minister tell us what discussions have happened between the UK and Scottish Governments to ensure that disabled people in different parts of the UK are informed of the consequences of a move to or from Scotland? What support will be put in place to ensure a seamless transition from previous benefits to the new regime administered in Scotland? Ministers have said that the intention is that there will be a run-on going the other way as well, but we do not know when yet—so obviously that is an issue in the short term.
Finally, I have one brief question. There will need to be effective interaction between these new Scottish systems and the existing UK infrastructure, including in respect of DVLA as well as DWP. So how do we ensure that both those systems work well and that people who are getting benefits are aware of possibly different timescales and application mechanisms—and, as a result, know what to do? These benefits go to some of the most vulnerable people in our society, and it is very important that they work well. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.
Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, for her comments. It is indeed interesting that the first instrument on this afternoon’s Order Paper covered the same piece of legislation from the other end; we are joined up in that respect. The question here is broadly about the same way and the same people. The principles are very much that the two Governments work in lock-step; that the treatment of individuals in the UK should be the same, whichever jurisdiction they happen to be in; and that, at the current moment in time, there is absolutely equal treatment in terms of qualification and payments between the two countries.
However, as part of the Scotland Act and the Smith commission, a transfer is ongoing. This is in fact the 12th such benefit to be moved north of the border. Effectively, it allows the Scottish Government not only to become the payer but to have the machinery to make payments through Social Security Scotland. The customer should see absolutely no difference in this transition but, going forward, we have pilots starting in Perth and Kinross, Dundee and the Western Isles. Initially, new claimants will come on to the new system. The idea is that, from the summer onwards, 300,000 people will be transferred across from the English system to the Scottish system. However, it is absolutely not our place to debate in this place how that will go forward. When we transfer those powers, we do so on an equal basis; it will then be for the Scottish Government to decide how they will legislate for their programme of government. We cannot comment at this point as to whether there will be divergence; that will be a matter for the Scottish Government.
As far as the 13-week timeframe is concerned, that is considered reasonable. I heard the point made in the first debate about 24 weeks, which seems rather long. I know that the Minister in that regard will write; the question of what will happen if there is a gap is one that we will probably come back to. The objective here is to have no gap, so that, as claimants move from one region to the other, they can apply and be assessed within 13 weeks, and continue—and, indeed, be backdated as well. The spirit of this legislation is that there should be no gap, but the specific question about 24 weeks needs to be looked at, so I will combine with the Minister from the first debate, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott, on that one.
Crucially, the notification of customers is dependent on what we now call customer care. It should be done with the customers. The DWP must write to customers who are transferring, and anyone coming south of the border again must be notified by Social Security Scotland. One has to assume that the agencies involved will do that and take care of the process. At the end of the day, the DWP and Social Security Scotland will co-operate closely. Their objective will be to ensure that there is no detriment to disabled people as a result of the introduction of the adult disability payment.
I conclude by saying that this instrument demonstrates the continued commitment of the UK Government to work with the Scottish Government to deliver for Scotland and maintain a functioning settlement for Scotland.
Flood Reinsurance (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park
That the Grand Committee do consider the Flood Reinsurance (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
Relevant document: 29th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)
My Lords, the instrument before us was laid before the House on 27 January. It makes important changes to the Flood Re scheme, a joint government and industry scheme launched in 2016 designed to improve the availability and affordability of UK household flood insurance.
In 2019, the scheme administrator, Flood Re, published its first quinquennial review. This is a statutory requirement. Flood Re made several recommendations to the Government. A number of proposals have since been assessed and consulted on, leading to the changes set out in this instrument.
To date, Flood Re has helped more than 350,000 households at high risk of flooding across the UK to access affordable insurance. Before Flood Re, just 9% of policyholders with a prior flood claim could obtain flood insurance quotes from two or more insurers, and none could get quotes from five or more. Following the scheme’s launch in 2016, the availability of flood insurance policies for those with prior flood claims has increased. Around 96% of customers can now get five or more quotes, and four out of five householders with a prior flood claim have seen price reductions of more than 50% since the scheme’s launch.
Building on this success, the statutory instrument makes technical changes to the scheme to improve its efficiency and effectiveness and changes to drive the uptake of property flood resilience measures, helping the UK to become more resilient to the changing climate. I will outline these measures in turn.
The statutory instrument designates a revised scheme, as described in the new scheme document dated 19 January 2022. The scheme document provides the framework for Flood Re to administer the scheme. First, the new scheme document will allow Flood Re to propose a revision to levy 1 every three years instead of every five, and reflects the Government’s assurance process. Levy 1 is the scheme’s primary income, raised from UK household insurers based on their market share. The revised levy amount will be subject to parliamentary approval every three years. This change will allow Flood Re to obtain better value for money when purchasing reinsurance and be more dynamic in response to the potentially changing risk profile. The instrument amends the figure for levy 1 from £180 million to £135 million per year for the next three years. This will ensure that the total levy is no higher than it needs to be.
Secondly, the new scheme document will allow Flood Re to set the liability limit— this sets the maximum amount of claims that Flood Re is liable to pay to insurers in any one financial year—every three years instead of every five. This will align it with the levy-setting cycle and afford Flood Re greater flexibility to respond to the scheme’s changing income needs and risk profile.
Thirdly, the new scheme document also makes a technical clarification that levy 1 funds will be returned to the Government when the scheme ends, in line with the established agreement between the Government and Flood Re.
I now turn to the change that will help drive the uptake of property flood resilience in UK households. We have seen only recently the devastation that can be caused by flooding and the impact on the lives and health of those households that are affected. Property flood resilience gives homes and businesses the tools to manage the impact that flooding has on their property and their lives, enabling them to respond and recover more quickly if flooding happens.
The new scheme document will allow Flood Re to pay claims from insurers ceding to the scheme, which include an amount of resilient repair up to a value of £10,000 above the cost of like-for-like reinstatement of actual flood damage. This will allow UK householders to build back better after a flood, making their homes more resilient to possible future flooding by using products such as air brick covers, flood doors, water-resistant kitchens and plasterboard. Resilient repair will enable homeowners to return to their homes quicker and reduce the cost of any future claims.
Build back better is being introduced on a voluntary basis. Insurance companies who cede to the scheme can choose whether to offer build back better to their customers. Participating insurers will be able to start offering build back better soon after the regulations come into force. Flood Re, the scheme administrator, will require insurers choosing to participate in build back better to offer it across their home insurance offerings rather than just on insurance policies ceded to Flood Re, thus ensuring consistency and fairness for all customers.
By providing Flood Re with the power to pay claims to fund resilient repair over and above normal reinstatement, the Government and Flood Re aim to drive a cultural shift across the insurance market, driving positive changes in supply chains, raising awareness and demand for property flood resilience, and helping to capture the evidence on the benefits of property flood resilience to support future changes in the market.
The Government will publish a property flood resilience road map at the end of this year, identifying the action that government and industry need to take to accelerate the take-up of property flood resilience measures and successfully underpin the market. This will ensure that all relevant bodies play their part and that consumers can have assurance about the quality of products and their installation. The road map will consider whether any changes to build back better are required to strengthen and improve it. Any future regulations brought forward making further changes to the Flood Re scheme would receive parliamentary scrutiny through the affirmative procedure, as required by the Water Act 2014.
Flood risk management policy is devolved. However, insurance policy, including the operation and application of the Flood Re scheme, is a reserved policy. Any changes to the scheme, including those in this instrument, take effect across the UK. The Government have engaged extensively with the devolved Administrations throughout the development of these changes; they support their implementation. No impact assessment has been prepared for this instrument because it has no significant impact on business, charities or voluntary bodies. Most impacts on business are anticipated to be either neutral or positive. There is also no impact on the public sector.
I commend these regulations to the Committee.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to this statutory instrument, which seems fairly straightforward. However, I have a number of questions to ask him, if he is able to answer.
The Flood Re scheme was set up as part of the Water Bill in 2014 after the horrific flooding we witnessed during that winter. It was to ensure that, for those properties whose owners would find it almost impossible to gain flood insurance cover on the open market, the owners would not be left with no redress. The fund was to be paid for by a levy on all insurance companies, so spreading the load. The figure at that time was £180 million, as the Minister said; as a result of this statutory instrument, the figure is being reduced to £135 million.
The Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Climate Change Committee, chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, anticipates that flooding is likely to increase rather than decrease. In that case, how can the Government be sure that reducing the Flood Re fund by £45 million will not have a negative impact on those who cannot get insurance on the open market? Surely the fund should be monitored at the very least, or increase in anticipation of future demands on it.
The Explanatory Memorandum is clear that these regulations designate a new FR scheme. Given that the existing flood reinsurance scheme is working well, why is it necessary to have a new one? Apart from the difference in the sum involved, in what way will the new scheme be different from the existing FR scheme?
Paragraph 7.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum states that the liability limit will be reviewed
“every three years instead of every five.”
That is fine. The liability limit was £2.1 billion in 2016, with increases in line with the consumer prices index. Can the Minister say what the liability limit is currently, in 2022? It is important to review the limit but it has to be done in conjunction with the risk profile, as identified by climate change professionals, not just what Defra officials think might happen.
Paragraph 7.5 of the EM states that the surplus funds on the wind-up of the existing scheme will return to the Government. Can the Minister say why this surplus is not being transferred into the new scheme? This seems to me to be a mistake. If the insurance companies are paying a levy towards Flood Re, surely they should be the ones to reap the benefit of any surplus in the existing fund. Paragraph 12.3 refers to the lack of an impact assessment, as there is a negligible impact on businesses. If the surplus in the existing fund were transferred back to the insurers, it would have no impact at all on business. The Government are attempting to have their cake and eat it.
The new scheme will allow insurers on a voluntary basis to make payments of up to £10,000 for resilience repair—build back better—over and above the cost of like-for-like reinstatement of actual flood damage. My recollection is that this resilience repair element was part of the original commitment of Flood Re. Can the Minister say whether this was ever implemented from the start? If not, why not? Resilience is a vital element of this scheme.
I cannot see any reason why a new fund has to be set up if the existing one is operating well and has surplus funds in it. I am sorry to say that I feel something of a sleight of hand is going on here; at best, there is a distinct lack of transparency. Given the view of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the Climate Change Committee that the incidence of flooding is likely to increase in future, I feel the reduction in the levy pot by £45 million is premature. Can the Minister reassure us that, for those who have access to the Flood Re fund, it will be there when they need it?
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful introduction to this SI and the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for drawing it to our attention. I had a strong sense of déjà vu when reading it, as I was present when the first SI was debated back in 2015, which clearly illustrates that I have been in the job too long. I remember our original debates and will come back to some of the issues raised then.
Since then, the UK has suffered more regular and devastating extreme weather events, as the noble Baroness has said, with the result that thousands of properties are being flooded, many on a repeat basis. This has underlined the need for more robust and accessible home insurance. It is good to hear that Flood Re has been judged a success and that it has helped thousands of homeowners in flood risk areas who would otherwise have struggled to insure their homes, as the Minister was saying. It was also reassuring to hear that the scheme has met its initial liquidity and capital requirements and has a high solvency ratio, making it financially secure. On this basis, we accept that it makes sense to reduce the levy on insurance companies from £180 million to £135 million a year.
However, a number of questions arise from the proposals, which I would be grateful if the Minister could address. First, the Explanatory Memorandum referred to the statutory quinquennial review of the FR scheme and the recommendations that arose from it. Have all the recommendations of that review been agreed by government and put forward in this amended proposal today, or are there other recommendations still out there or under consideration or which have been rejected by the Government?
Secondly, as we have heard, one of the recommendations before us today is the build back better proposal to allow claims up to the value of £10,000 to enable homeowners to fund flood-resilient improvements over and above any like-for-like repairs. This is a welcome initiative, but paragraph 12.3 makes it clear that the participation of insurers in the build back better supplement will be voluntary. Why was it not made compulsory for all insurers to offer this payment, given the urgent need to make our properties more resilient to flood risk in future? Do we have any information about the appetite of insurers to pay this extra supplement? The Minister quoted some statistics, but I would be grateful if he could confirm what proportion of insurers are providing the build back better facility.
Thirdly, I return to some of the concerns raised when the original scheme was introduced which still seem relevant today. Are the poorest and most vulnerable—those in tenanted and rented properties—still excluded from the scheme? It really does not seem right that people living in the same or adjoining properties could have access to different standards of flood insurance purely on the basis of the status of those living in the property. Do you still have to be the homeowner to qualify? Since the scheme now appears to be financially secure, what consideration was given to extending access to it to wider categories of claimants, such as tenants?
Can the Minister clarify the current status of farmhouses? I know that this has been a concern for the farming community. Most people would say that they are primarily residential properties, even if they also act as a business address. Can farmhouses join the Flood Re scheme?
Finally, could the Minister clarify whether we are still focusing on properties deemed in high-risk flood areas? Given the recognised threat of extreme weather events arising from climate change—the noble Baroness talked about the issues raised by the Adaptation Sub-Committee on this—how can we be sure that the right areas are now being designated as high-risk flood areas? Has not our experience of flood risk in recent years been that it is increasingly hard to define? Does the Environment Agency have the resources to reassess and redesignate flood risk areas from low to high risk with sufficient speed to ensure that insurers can respond accordingly? What further powers are the Government proposing to give to the Environment Agency to ensure that no further properties are built in high-risk flood areas against its advice, as can happen at the moment?
These are all issues that need to be addressed if Flood Re is to achieve its true potential. I hope the Minister can address them. I look forward to his response.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. I will address the questions put to me.
As has been noted, the levy will reduce from £180 million to £135 million per year for the next three years. That is based on an assessment that £135 million is what is needed. The view is that we do not want to set the levy higher than it needs to be because it is effectively a form of tax.
I note the arguments put forward by the noble Baronesses, Lady Bakewell and Lady Jones, that everything suggests that flood risk is increasing and that volatile weather patterns are likely to become more so, but the scheme is not designed to be the UK’s answer to flood risk; it is a part of the answer. There is a whole bunch of other policies designed to make the UK more resilient in the face of increasingly volatile weather. For example, a major component of the environmental land management subsidy system is about better land management to create more resilience. Our tree strategy, the peat strategy and so on are all different components of it. There is the grey infrastructure component of the work Defra is doing as well. This is just part of the much wider approach the UK is taking.
The scheme is financially secure. Flood Re has met its initial liquidity and capital requirements and has a high solvency ratio. The Government have undertaken the necessary due diligence to assure themselves that Flood Re has enough funds to cover any losses as a result of a major flood event. The Government Actuary’s Department agrees that £135 million is suitable and well within the risk appetite of Flood Re.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked about the liability limit. Flood Re has set the liability limit at £1.9 billion from 1 April 2022 for the following three years. This is a non-statutory change already approved by the Secretary of State for the Environment, aligned with the Government’s assurance process.
Build back better will play a key role in helping to increase the resilience of UK households to flooding. We hope that it will drive a cultural shift across the insurance market, driving positive changes in supply chains, raising awareness and demand for property flood resilience, and helping to capture the evidence on the benefits of property flood resilience to support future changes in the market.
Research by Defra and Flood Re has demonstrated that the additional investment for flood resilience over standard repair can be as high as £35,000, but averages to around £5,200. However, the Government recognise that the cost of making different properties resilient may still exceed the contribution from build back better. Insurers and/or the householders can choose to pay for build back better above the £10,000 cap if that is what they want to do.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
Before the Minister sits down, one question that I do not think he addressed was about high-risk flood areas. At the moment, you can access the scheme only if you live in a high-risk flood area. Obviously, that is a moveable feast these days because of extreme weather events, so it would not necessarily be the traditional areas that get flooded. There could be flash flooding in many parts of the country for all sorts of reasons. How often does the Environment Agency update that information and allow new properties to come onstream to be insured under the scheme? If we are not careful, it could become outdated very quickly and not be available to all those categories of homes that need it.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Baroness makes an important point. I am told that the Environment Agency will reissue a map of flood risk some time in 2024. As she says, even that new map will need to be continuously updated. One hopes that those areas at high risk today will not necessarily be at high risk in the years to come if the measures that we invest in now are carried out appropriately and if our rationale and assumptions are correct.
National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Callanan
That the Grand Committee do consider the National Minimum Wage (Amendment) Regulations 2022.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Callanan) (Con)
My Lords, the purpose of these regulations, which were laid before the House on 31 January 2022, is to raise the national living wage and the national minimum wage rates on 1 April 2022.
We are committed to making the UK the best place in the world to work and build a business. The pandemic has presented extraordinary circumstances. The labour market shows strong signs of recovery but both workers and businesses will be concerned about the rising cost of living. Our approach must always balance the needs of both.
The UK labour market’s recovery from the pandemic is one to be proud of. The current number of payroll employees is over 400,000 more than pre-pandemic levels, and unemployment has fallen to 4.1%. This success is in no small part due to government intervention, most notably the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which supported more than 11 million jobs over the course of the pandemic. The UK’s economic recovery has been no less impressive. GDP at the end of 2021 recovered to the pre-pandemic level and increased by an estimated 7.5% over the year.
However, we are aware that a key issue on people’s minds is the rising cost of living. We have already acted to support households with rising energy bills. We recently announced a package of measures worth £9.1 billion for 2022-23, including a £200 reduction in energy bills and a £150 rebate on council tax bills for all households in bands A to D in England. These are in addition to measures that we have already announced, such as cutting the universal credit taper rate and freezing fuel duty for the 12th year running.
Central to managing the cost of living in the long term is the creation of a high-skill, high-wage economy. We are committed to doing just that. Through policies such as the plan for jobs, we are helping people get into work and gain the skills they need to prosper, progress and succeed. We are also committed to supporting the lowest paid on this issue. Since 2015, we have increased the national living wage significantly faster than average wages and more than twice as fast as inflation, meaning more money for the lowest-paid workers. The increase in the rates this year will continue to protect the lowest paid against the increase in the cost of living.
These regulations will increase the rates of the national minimum wage and the national living wage from 1 April. We estimate that these will provide a pay rise to around 2.5 million workers. I am pleased to say that the Government accepted all the rate recommendations made by the Low Pay Commission in October 2021. The commission is an independent body that brings together the views of business and workers and is informed by expert research and economic analysis. Once again, I express my gratitude for its excellent work and well-informed recommendations.
The Government have a target for the national living wage to equal two-thirds of median earnings by 2024. Commissioners made their recommendations last October, taking into consideration the target and the strong economic and labour market recovery to that point alongside the remaining uncertainty and feedback from a wide range of stakeholders. We are delighted that this increase keeps us on track to reach our target for 2024; we remain committed to it. The Low Pay Commission made its recommendations on the basis of significant stakeholder evidence from business, workers and academic representatives. Businesses spoke of the variety of concerns they faced at that stage of recovery, as well as how they continue to plan for the future based on our target for the national living wage.
These regulations will increase the national living wage for those aged 23 and over by 59p to £9.50—an increase of 6.6%. A full-time worker on the rate will be more than £1,000 better off over the course of the year. The regulations will also increase the rates for younger workers and apprentices. Workers aged 21 and 22 will receive an increase of 82p an hour—a 9.8% increase—to see a minimum hourly rate of £9.18. Workers aged between 18 and 20 will be entitled to an extra 27p an hour, taking their rate to £6.83. Under-18s will have a 4.1% increase of 19p, to an hourly rate of £4.81. Apprentices aged under 19, or those in the first year of their apprenticeship, will receive an increase of 11.9% to an hourly rate of £4.81—51p more. This rate will remain equal to, but separate from, the under-18 rate. The regulations will also increase the amount that employers can charge workers for accommodation without it affecting their pay for national minimum wage purposes. From 1 April, it will be £8.70 per day.
Looking ahead, the Government have pledged to continue raising minimum wage rates. As set out in our manifesto, we have set a target for the national living wage to reach two-thirds of median earnings by 2024. To improve fairness for younger workers, we also have a target to further reduce the age threshold for the national living wage, making it apply to those aged 21 and over by 2024. These targets remain dependent on economic circumstances, and we will monitor the labour market carefully.
In conclusion, these regulations ensure that the lowest paid are fairly rewarded for their contribution to the economy. The Government will continue to monitor the impacts of increasing the minimum wage and will remain abreast of concerns about the cost of living. We will shortly publish the remit to the Low Pay Commission for 2022, asking it to provide recommendations for new minimum wage rates to apply from April 2023. I commend these regulations to the House.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction and welcome the fact that the figures are being increased. The support of the Government for having a minimum wage is to be welcomed. The Bible tells us that reformed sinners are to be welcomed. It does not say that we should not remind them of their previous sins. To be honest, I wasted a bit of time re-reading the Second Reading of the National Minimum Wage Bill in your Lordships’ House in 1998. I have several good quotes. The Conservative Front-Bench spokesperson said:
“If the Government go ahead with this legislation they will have to accept that business closures will lead to extensive unemployment in country areas.”—[Official Report, 23/3/98; col. 1078.]
There are several other statements on a similar theme. So I extend a welcome to a reformed sinner.
The second, brief point I will make is that of course this is not the real national living wage, as I am sure the Minister is aware. There was a national living wage before the Government co-opted the title, and it is somewhat greater than the figure being presented to us today. So I ask the Minister: have the Government considered the continued gap between their version of the national living wage and what I regard as the real living wage?
Finally, my main point, and why I am here today, is on the issue of pensions. I argue, and ask the Minister to accept, that a national living wage has to have built into it sufficient resources so that people can retire on a decent pension. A national living wage should encompass not just the day to day but a reasonable pension when the recipient of the national living wage comes to retirement. The Low Pay Commission reported on a submission from the TUC setting out that point in some detail—it reported on it but did not respond to it. If you dig down through what the Government are doing on pensions, you see that they are simply adding a margin that reflects what a typical employer does. It begs the question: is that sufficient to provide a decent pension when people get to retirement? The answer is that it is not.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to these proposals, and the Low Pay Commission for the thorough and very persuasive way it has drawn up its recommendations. The labour market during the Covid era was undoubtedly worrying, but it is good to see the evidence that, since the economy has started to pick up, pay growth has been the strongest for low-paid workers. As a result, the proportion of the workforce reliant on the national living wage has fallen from 6.5% to 5.4%.
We therefore welcome the decision of the Low Pay Commission to get back on course to meet the national living wage target of reaching two-thirds of median earnings by 2024. We therefore support the increase of 6.6% in the rate, lifting it to £9.50 an hour for those aged over 23, and the subsequent rates that follow on from that.
These recommendations were finalised in December 2021, but since then we have had rising inflation, a rising cost of living and now the reality of huge increases in energy bills. The Minister referred to that. Has any provision been made for the Low Pay Commission to monitor those significant surges in the cost of living, and potentially to make emergency adjustments to the pay rate to ensure that the lowest-paid workers can survive the coming financial crisis without falling into debt? In the first instance, I suggest that the Government could go further and scrap the national insurance increases, and indeed adopt Labour’s policy of a minimum wage of at least £10 an hour, which would go some way to alleviate the pain.
I also support my noble friend Lord Davies’s point about pensions. He made an important point about pension payments needing to be factored into the living costs of the lowest paid. They therefore should be included as part of the statutory scheme.
Moving on from that, I ask the Minister: what happened to the other recommendations in the Low Pay Commission report? Will they come before us separately? I read the report, and it is clear that the commission has, for example, done a great deal of work on the domestic workers exemption, where staff such as au pairs and domestic servants live with a family. As it says in its report, it heard a great deal of distressing evidence from individuals whose hidden voices are rarely heard. As a result, it made a definite recommendation to remove the domestic worker exemption in Regulation 57(3) of the 2015 regulations. What happened to that recommendation?
Secondly, the commission addressed the issue of the pay for individuals involved in sleep-in shifts in social care. This was subject to a Supreme Court ruling this year, leading to calls for more clarity and consistency. The Low Pay Commission identified that there was a variety of practices across the sector, with payments “unregulated” and
“determined by negotiation between commissioning bodies, providers and the workforce.”
It concluded that any further clarification should be “linked to wider plans” for social care funding currently being considered by the Government. Can the Minister confirm that this issue is being considered in the context of the social care reforms, and that adequate money is being set aside to encourage new people into the sector, including those required to sleep over with those for whom they are caring? If we are not careful, this issue, which the Low Pay Commission has flagged up, will fall between all of these stools: it will not be delivered as part of the minimum wage recommendations and it will not be part of the social care reforms either. Once again, those care workers will fall through the crack.
Finally, we welcome the fact that the commission will carry out further work on the impact of low pay on those with protected characteristics, including younger, older, disabled and women workers, and workers from ethnic minorities. We recognise the complexities of untangling the cause and effect of these trends, but given the undoubted pay gaps that we know exist, we believe further measures may be required to rebalance the pay and employment opportunities of these disadvantaged groups.
I hope that the Government’s remit to the Low Pay Commission for next year will ask it to do further work on this issue so that we can be completely satisfied that the pay rates are being sufficiently addressed. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Callanan (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, for their valuable contributions to the debate. The points raised demonstrate the importance of providing a pay rise to workers, and both noble Lords welcomed the increases.
The national minimum wage and national living wage make a real difference to millions of workers in this country, and I am obviously glad that there is cross-party agreement in the House that these increases, which will help to protect workers in all parts of the UK from increased inflation and protect their standards of living, should proceed. It is just a shame that the Liberal Democrats obviously did not consider it important enough to join us for this debate, but I am glad that the other two noble Lords have. The national minimum wage and national living wage have increased every year since their introductions. The regulations mean that, on 1 April, full-time workers on the national living wage will earn over £5,000 more than they did in 2015, when it was introduced.
Everyone will note that, once again, the Government’s impact assessment has received a green fit-for-purpose rating from the Regulatory Policy Committee, which is just as well because I am the Minister responsible for that committee. The impact assessment estimates around 2.5 million low-paid workers will benefit from the minimum wage increase. We estimate there will be a total wage benefit to workers of about £1.3 billion. The total cost to employers for implementing the LPC’s recommended rate is estimated at £1.6 million. This marks a 42% increase in the national living wage since the policy was first announced in 2015. Of course, younger workers will also get more money from the increases to the national minimum wage.
I turn to the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Davies. The Government of course consider the expert and independent advice of the Low Pay Commission when setting these rates. We reward workers with the highest possible minimum wage, while considering the impact on the economy and, of course, the affordability for businesses. The Low Pay Commission draws on economic, labour market and pay analysis, independent research and stakeholder evidence. The key distinction between the Low Pay Commission rates and the other rates, such as the Living Wage Foundation’s voluntary living wage, is that the Low Pay Commission has to consider the impact on businesses and the economy.
I turn to the next point that the noble Lord, Lord Davies, raised on pensions. From April, the full yearly basic state pension will have increased by over £2,300 in cash terms since 2010. The overall trend in the percentage of pensioners living in poverty is a dramatic fall over the recent decade. There are 200,000 fewer pensioners in absolute poverty, both before and after housing costs, than there were in 2009-10. The Low Pay Commission considers all aspect of low pay when making its recommendations for minimum wage rates.
I move on to points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. In response to the points about the Low Pay Commission considering the change in the cost of living, we consider the expert and independent advice of the commission when setting the rates. The LPC’s remit is for the national living wage to reach two-thirds of median earnings by 2024, subject to wider economic conditions. Since its introduction, the national living wage has grown more than twice as fast as consumer prices. This year’s increase will be the largest ever in cash terms and will help to protect the income of 2 million low-paid workers against the cost of living. In April, a full-time worker on the national living wage will see their annual earnings rise, as I said, by over £1,000. I also said in my introduction that we will shortly publish this year’s remit for the Low Pay Commission, which will once again continue to consider a wide range of stakeholder and academic evidence.
On the point made by the noble Baroness about social care, we are incredibly proud of all the work that our health and social care staff do and recognise their extraordinary commitment. The 1.5 million people who make up the paid social care workforce provide an invaluable service to the nation—and did so especially during the pandemic. The noble Baroness will be aware that we recently brought forward our strategy for the adult social care workforce in the People at the Heart of Care: Adult Social Care Reform White Paper. That was backed by at least £500 million to develop and support the adult social care workforce over the next three years. This historic investment will enable a fivefold increase in public spending on the skills and training of our direct care workers and their registered managers. This will include hundreds of thousands of training places, certifications for care workers and the professional development of the regulated workforce. It will help support our commitment to ensure that those who receive care are provided with choice, control and support to live independent lives, that they receive outstanding quality and tailored care, and that people find social care fair and accessible.
Since the introduction of the national living wage in 2016, care worker pay has also increased at a faster rate than ever. So I hope that the noble Baroness will accept that we remain committed to supporting worker protections through this crucial policy and to ensuring clarity for businesses on how the policy will develop over the next few years. We will also run a communications campaign alongside the uprating, thereby helping workers to check their pay and supporting businesses to make the necessary changes. We will also continue to monitor the labour market closely over the coming months. We will continue to prioritise enforcement of the minimum wage through HMRC’s ongoing work and the naming scheme, where we will continue to name employers who have underpaid their staff. We named 208 employers on 9 December 2021, including some of the UK’s biggest household names. To date, we have named more than 2,500 employers.
As the noble Baroness also mentioned, the Minister for Small Business, my colleague Paul Scully, confirmed in the House of Commons that we will bring forward regulations to remove the exemption from minimum wage legislation for so-called live-in domestic workers such as au pairs. This change will newly extend this right to them, ensuring that those workers receive the wages that they deserve and that we thereby do our bit to help tackle exploitation.
I again thank the Low Pay Commission and its staff for gathering the extensive evidence and providing well-reasoned recommendations. It gives me pleasure to commend these regulations to the House.
House of Lords
Royal Assent
Thursday 10th March 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022 View all Public Service Pensions and Judicial Offices Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Amendment Paper: HL Bill 118-I Marshalled List for Consideration of Commons Amendments - (8 Mar 2022)
Women: Cost of Living
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Crawley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to mitigate the impact on women of the rising cost of living; and in particular, the impact on single mothers in poorer households.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are acting to support families with the challenge of rising living costs by providing £12 billion of support for this financial year and next, increasing the national living wage and cutting the universal credit taper. Through our Way to Work programme and a new network of specialist progression champions, we are helping people to get a job, get a better job and build their career, which we believe is the best route to managing living costs. In everything through Way to Work, we are cognisant of single parents’ issues.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, I am glad that the Government see the need for some intervention in response to this tsunami of rising household costs, but I have to say to the Minister, for whom I have a lot of respect, that it does not go nearly far enough, especially for lone parents, 90% of whom are women and 43% of whom live in poverty according to the Women’s Budget Group. Will the Government increase all benefits by 7%, in line with inflation? Will they reintroduce the £20 increase in universal credit and working tax credit equivalent, as well as paying the childcare element of universal credit up front instead of in arrears to make it easier for lone parents to re-enter the workplace? Women should not be shouldering this cost of living catastrophe.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. I say again that we are cognisant of and understand the issues faced by lone parents, not least in respect of childcare and the barriers that stop them getting into work. That is why our work coaches are there. I shall pass to the Treasury the exam question that the noble Baroness has given me; she will forgive me if I cannot answer it.
Baroness Fookes (Con)
My Lords, I hope I am right in assuming there will be some extra benefits for households subject to the benefit cap. If so, can my noble friend say what they are and, just as important, how easy or difficult it will be to access them?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
Claimants can apply to their local authority for a discretionary housing payment if they need help to meet rental costs. We have the flexible support fund to help people as well, and we have given help with energy costs, which are rising exponentially. Of course, I have not tried to claim those benefits myself, but I know from somebody who has that it is reasonably straightforward, and I am not aware of any backlog in dealing with those claims when they have gone in.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, as the main managers and shock absorbers of poverty and inadequate social security benefits, women are bearing the brunt of not just the benefit cap but the two-child limit. When will the Government take the advice of the former Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, and scrap these poverty-creating policies?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I understand the passion with which the noble Baroness makes her points. All I can say, and I have said it time and again, is that I will take the representation back to the department and make it known, but I am not able to give the response.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
Will my noble friend look again at the report of the Economic Affairs Committee on universal credit and in particular reconsider the decision to take away £20 a week from the poorest families in the country? I understand that it is very expensive—it costs £6 billion—but that is because it affects 6 million people: 6 million people who are going to have to cope with these astonishing increases in bills, not just energy bills but bills across the piece. Surely, in the name of humanity if not in the interest of politics, we should look at this again, given that the Chancellor is getting increased revenue from the rising costs of petrol and other energy sources.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
Many noble Lords have made the point about the £20 uplift. To be absolutely straightforward and open, there is nothing I can say about it, other than that for those on universal credit the taper rate compensated for some of the withdrawal. There are moments when I wish I was Chancellor.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, let me spell out what this is going to do. Inflation is running at record rates. The Bank of England forecasts that, next month, it will go up to 7.25%. That forecast was made before the war in Ukraine. Benefits are going to go up by 3%. Next month, the energy price cap will go up to £2,000. People are currently being offered £3,500 fixed-price tariffs. To put that in context, that is £67 a week. We give an adult on universal credit or JSA £75 a week to live on. How are they possibly meant to manage?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
The noble Baroness’s explanation of the metrics is absolutely accurate. Inflation is gathering momentum, mainly because of pressures from rising energy prices and disruptions to global supply chains. We understand about the higher cost of living, but at the risk of repeating myself—I have no desire to annoy noble Lords—there is no comment I can make about what the Government may or may not do about the situation.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, here is a simple action the Government can take that will help the poorest households, many of which are forced on to prepayment meters for their energy bills. The cost they have to pay per unit of energy is hugely more than the average household has to pay. First, does the Minister agree that it is scandalous that we are asking the poor to pay the most? Secondly, will she force change on to the energy companies so that the poorest pay the least—the cheapest rate possible?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
In our debate yesterday the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, raised the issue of the higher energy costs due to the method of payment that many people face. I have agreed to take that back to the department, and I will do so. Again, I can make no promises. As for forcing change, I will have a good go.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, yesterday evening, believe it or not, I hosted a dinner for those in the bailiff industry, as I call it, and they are expecting a veritable explosion in debt, because people on benefits simply cannot pay council tax and all the other things they have to pay. Does the DWP have an estimate of that huge explosion in debt? If not, will it please get that information, because it will need it? This can be resolved only by the Treasury, and the DWP needs its ammunition.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I am not aware that the information the noble Baroness suggests we should have is there. She makes a good point, and again, I shall go back, talk to my colleagues and try to get that information.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, many single women are older—including mothers—and in poorer health, and they are also at greater risk of long-term unemployment. What are the Government doing to address that issue?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
The Government are doing an awful lot in this area. Despite the unacceptable rise in the cost of living and all the impacts on people, we are working morning, noon and night to get people back to work—into a job, a better job and a career, so that they can be self-sufficient. The Restart programme really helps them to do that. It is intensive tailored support, which I am sure will have great benefits for some people.
Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)
My Lords, the Spring Statement is due on 23 March, so will the Minister talk directly to Chancellor of the Exchequer to ensure that there is a one-off windfall tax on energy prices? They have risen exponentially in the last two weeks, therefore disproportionately impacting on women, households and, in particular, single parents.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
Again, we have another question that is very Treasury driven. I have no doubt—indeed, I know it for a fact—that the Chancellor is well aware of the points that the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, has been making on this subject.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the 15 years from 2007 to 2022 are forecast to be the worst on record for household incomes. Is the term “cost of living crisis” really adequate for the situation we are in now? What we are really seeing is a long-term collapse in the financial stability of British lives; this is not just a crisis of the moment. Do we not need to take a different approach to offer people true security, particularly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, single parents—overwhelmingly women—who are bearing the greatest weight? Do we not need a universal basic income?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
We have spoken many times about universal basic income, and I have heard nothing on the airwaves to suggest that it is being considered. I will finish this Question by saying that it is a difficult time, and that we understand the great challenges people face. Please do not think this Government do not care—because they do.
Belarus
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of (1) the detention of political prisoners, (2) the attacks on journalists, and (3) the constitutional referendum, in Belarus; and what representations they have made to the government of that country on these issues.
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)
My Lords, we have been clear in our condemnation of the repressive campaign by the Belarusian authorities against the human rights of the people of Belarus. We have repeatedly urged Belarus to release all political prisoners immediately and unconditionally. These reprehensible actions continue, of course, in the context of the Belarusian regime’s support for Russia’s illegal and unprovoked attack against Ukraine; this support must stop. The constitutional referendum fell well below international standards, and again denied genuine choice to the Belarusian people. The Minister for Europe and North America’s public statement on 28 February made it clear that we firmly support the Belarusian people’s right to determine their own future.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I am really grateful to the Minister for a helpful reply. I have just come from a meeting of the all-party group, and I would like to welcome Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya, the leader of free Belarus, who is sitting in our Gallery today—[Applause.] When I tabled this Question four weeks ago, it was to ask about political prisoners like the one I have adopted—Stepan Latypov. But the Minister has answered that, saying that the Government are putting pressure on for their release. What I now want to ask him, given the complicity of Belarus in the Russian attack on Ukraine, is: will he say unequivocally that the UK Government will impose the same sanctions it is imposing on Russia on the Lukashenko regime in Belarus?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I join the noble Lord in welcoming the leader of Belarus’s opposition, Mrs Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya. The UK absolutely recognises that the current regime does not speak for the majority of its people, and supports the extraordinary bravery of the opposition and civil society. On the question of sanctions, I can confirm that what the noble Lord said is correct. This goes back some way: since August 2020, the UK has introduced more than 100 sanctions designations in response to the fraudulent elections and human rights violations in that country. This includes sanctions against senior ranking officials in the regime, including the President of Belarus and his son, and BNK Ltd, an exporter of Belarusian oil products. More recently—in fact, just a few days ago—the Foreign Secretary launched a package of sanctions on those individuals and organisations who have aided and abetted Russia’s reckless aggression against Ukraine, and we continue to develop that position.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I am a fellow member of the Council of Europe, along with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and I also had the privilege of monitoring the rather farcical parliamentary elections in Belarus in 2019. Having just been at the same meeting and having listened to the leader of the opposition, it is very clear that the Russians are already beginning to use some Belarusian enterprises, state enterprises and banks as a means of avoiding the sanctions stranglehold we are trying to impose on the Russians, so I can only re-emphasise how important it is that we try to block off any opportunity for Russia to use Belarus as a means to try to evade sanctions.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Lord makes an extremely important point. This view is shared by the UK Government, and it is reflected in the approach we are taking in relation to sanctions on individuals and organisations in Belarus.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the leader of free Belarus, and I hope we will not have to wait too long before she is in the position that she should be in. She told us how important those sanctions are and, as the noble Lord, Lord Russell, just referred to, that the Russians are using loopholes. We need comprehensively and urgently to address this. We will put some people from her group in touch with the FCDO with further details. One of the other things that struck me from what she said is how vital it is for unbiased news to reach the citizens of Belarus, which we will come on to later. What action is being taken to support news organisations, particularly the BBC, in relation to Belarus?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for making the introduction. I can tell her that Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly met the leader of the opposition, Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya, only yesterday, but we will certainly continue that dialogue, important as it is.
The noble Baroness is also absolutely right on the question of the media. We condemn the politically motivated crackdown on independent media in that country and remain deeply concerned about the safety of journalists there. Dozens of journalists, bloggers and media workers are under arrest or in jail. Websites of reputable media outlets have been declared extremist by the regime. One of the priorities of our programme funding in Belarus is supporting media freedom. We appeal to the Belarusian authorities to unconditionally and immediately release all political prisoners and to fully restore the free media space in Belarus, online and offline. Finally, we have increased our funding in this area, I believe threefold. If that is wrong, I will get back in touch with the noble Baroness.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his answers today. I think the whole House stands alongside the people of Belarus. As somebody who also sponsors a political prisoner, on behalf of our side of the House, I welcome the leader of the opposition. As a leader of the opposition myself, I think she has to face things that nobody in this country ever has to.
The Minister’s answers today have been welcome. On his response to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, on the role of the BBC and getting information, it is so important for those who stand for freedom in Belarus to have accurate information to support civil society. It is very important that we have a strong civil society in Belarus that can speak out for the people who also support a free Belarus. Will the Minister report back to the House at some point to say what more the Government can do in all areas, not just the media, to support civil society and give strength to those people who are standing up for freedom and democracy?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Baroness is absolutely right. Although she is asking a broader question, at the root of this, without a free press, freedom of speech and guarantors of that sort, it is very hard to imagine a flourishing and free civil society. To confirm what I hinted at earlier, we are, of course, supporting civil society and independent media in Belarus, and we have tripled our programme funding compared with pre-crisis levels, so it is now £4.5 million. We continue to look for opportunities to support civil society and, in particular, a free press in that country.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, do we not need to salute the courage of the leader of the opposition—the rightful democratic leader of Belarus—and all those thousands of people who, week after week, took to the streets last year? I am deeply disturbed about the BBC World Service, which is a wonderful example of soft power. Belarus needs to have free information, unfettered, yet the BBC World Service’s budget has not been guaranteed beyond April of this year.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, that is an important point, but I point out that in two Questions’ time, that will be the subject of a 10-minute question and answer session, where I hope to be able to provide some reassurance at least.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister take the opportunity to criticise and condemn the reprehensible actions of the Lukashenko regime in Belarus for the way in which it uses refugees as cannon fodder—deliberately bringing in refugees from the Middle East, including Syria, and then using them to promote its own interests by pushing them against the Baltic states and Poland? Given the number of refugees now being displaced in Poland—maybe as many as 7 million, according to some estimates—does he not agree that the situation is going to go from bad to worse?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
It absolutely will go from bad to worse if trends continue. The actions the noble Lord described are reprehensible. We have been clear in our condemnation of Lukashenko’s actions in engineering a migrant crisis to try to undermine our partners in the region. We have deployed a small team of UK Armed Forces to Lithuania and Poland to provide support to address the ongoing situation at the Belarusian border. We are also supporting our humanitarian partners to help alleviate the suffering of migrants at the border, including through our contributions to the Disaster Relief Emergency Fund.
Baroness Crawley (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, welcome the leader of free Belarus today. Is the Minister aware that last week I spoke to the mother of young Dzmitry Zherbutovich, who wanted me to raise his prison treatment in our Chamber this morning? He is serving a five-year prison sentence in Belarus for the crime of standing in front of a water cannon. For the first year, he was forced to be in a five square-metre cell with 14 other prisoners, all of whom except Dzmitry smoked, with no ventilation and where they all had to stand during the day. Will the Minister put even more pressure on the Belarusian regime about its inhumane treatment of political prisoners?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for raising the case of young Dzmitry. I am not familiar with his case, but I am familiar with many others which are no less appalling. We are deeply concerned about the conditions in which political detainees are held in that country. Many of them have limited or no access to anything like proper healthcare and are subject to relentless interrogation, intimidation and psychological pressure techniques, all of which amount to a form of torture. This is contrary to Belarus’ international obligations to which the authorities have committed themselves on numerous occasions but continuously fail to uphold. We make our solidarity with political prisoners clear frequently, attend trials and engage with the families of political prisoners at every opportunity.
Care Homes: Evicted Residents
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the annual numbers of care home residents (1) evicted, (2) threatened with eviction, or (3) facing a visiting ban, following complaints against the care home.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
It is unacceptable for a care home to punish a resident for raising concerns. This would be a breach of existing regulations, and the CQC will investigate any such cases. Although the Government do not collect figures on this, the CQC collects data on care home evictions and seeks assurances that visits are allowed by care homes on an ongoing basis. We are exploring ways to improve the complaints system and the quality of care.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, may I urge the Minister to do even more than he suggested today? We know that some care homes are still being very highly restrictive on visits. The Alzheimer’s Society, the Relatives and Residents Association and other organisations report that many relatives are frightened to go through the homes complaints system for fear of reprisals such as visit bans, or even evictions in the most extreme cases. The CQC will not investigate specific complaints. Will he change that policy and give support to relatives who wish to make legitimate complaints?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for raising this issue. I am sure he will recognise, from when we have worked together on a problem, that the first question I ask officials is: what is the problem and what are we doing about it? When I asked this question, I found that my colleague Gillian Keegan, Minister for Care and Mental Health, has met relatives and residents’ associations to hear directly about their experiences and focus on how we could strengthen the CQC role. In addition, in the Living with Covid-19 strategy, we are reviewing a range of measures in place for homes, including visitor restrictions. The updated position will be set out in guidance by 1 April. We are encouraging representatives, patients and patients’ groups to come forward and feed into that.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
My Lords, I declare my role as chair of the National Mental Capacity Forum. There are many people with impaired capacity in care homes, whose mental state is deteriorating through lack of stimulation, inability to be taken outside and lack of general overall mental activities. Does the CQC have any idea of the number of people with impaired capacity still subject to restricted visiting by their relatives?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Baroness has identified a potential issue that we have to address, which is drilling down into detail. One of the things that the CQC does is to look at aggregate numbers of complaints and concerns. Of course, there is a Local Government Ombudsman who looks at this issue as well. We are looking at ways where that works and where it does not work, and at how we could improve the system. This is all part of the ongoing review to build up a better, integrated health and care system.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, on the issue of carers hesitant to make complaints to care providers, the confusion and muddle over the current complaints system and the roles of the care home, the CQC and the ombudsman compound the problem. Does this not underline the urgent need for the review of the current arrangements to ensure that people making complaints about their loved ones feel reassured and protected through the process and comforted that appropriate action will be taken?
Lord Kamall (Con)
Having looked at the different procedures, I am sure that the noble Baroness is absolutely right. One thing that we want to do is to ensure that the guidance is quite clear. The CQC collects certain data and the ombudsman can investigate certain cases, but the CQC cannot investigate individual cases. It clearly is confusing and one thing that we want to do to improve the system is to make sure that we have a better complaints system and, overall, a better quality of care for patients all round.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, will make a virtual contribution.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, the provision of high-quality, personalised care in residential care settings is likely to reduce the chance of complaints being raised in the first place. The Skills for Care workforce review showed that only 44% of care staff have any training on dementia. Will the Government commit to all social care staff receiving tier 2 training in the dementia training standards framework?
Lord Kamall (Con)
The noble Baroness raises a very important point. When we look at the current landscape in the social care sector, it is clear that people do not really understand the overall sector. One thing that we are looking at in regard to the voluntary register is encouraging care staff to come forward to register. Registration includes their standard of education and the qualifications they have received. We will look at how we can improve and have a more consistent qualification system, so that being a care worker is a more rewarding vocation in the future.
Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that restrictive practices about visiting in care homes extend not just to relatives and friends visiting but to the outside people who come in to provide stimulation to residents? These include people who bring in animals, for example, and people who do physiotherapy or all sorts of word games and so on. Those people are also restricted now by some homes, though not all. That results in further deterioration in the mental and emotional health of residents, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay.
Lord Kamall (Con)
One thing that has clearly upset a lot of people is that they are unable to visit. This means not just relatives but, as the noble Baroness rightly said, people who enter care homes to offer healthcare, stimulation and other services to residents. These issues were brought up, I understand, in a meeting with my colleague, the Minister for Care and Mental Health, when she met residents’ associations. It is very important that we recognise all the problems and that we tackle this in a holistic way to make sure that, as we improve the quality of our social care system, and make it more joined-up and integrated with the health system, we are aware of all these problems so that the patient experience is far better all the way through.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend the Minister and noble Lords opposite that it is very important that people can visit their family and their friends in care homes. My husband has had a copy of Wisden from last year for a friend who has been in a care home, and he has not been able to deliver it.
I want to make a wider point about the importance of focusing on social care, despite other preoccupations of the Government. How many care homes do we have now in this country? Is provision going up, or do we have a serious problem?
Lord Kamall (Con)
I am afraid I do not have the detailed answers to my noble friend’s questions, but I will write to her. On the overall sentiment behind that question, it is clear that people now recognise—as we have an ageing population and people are living longer—that we should not see social care as a sort of bolt-on or a Cinderella service. It should be properly integrated, which is why we published the paper on health and social care integration and why we want to make sure that people and patients, all the way through their lives, have access to good-quality care, whether in the current health system or in the care system, at whatever stage of their lives they need it.
Ukraine: BBC World Service
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking, if any, to support the provision of the BBC World Service to the people of Ukraine.
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)
My Lords, we strongly value the work of the BBC World Service and its independent and impartial broadcasting. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine means that BBC World Service channels play an increasingly valuable role in challenging the disinformation emanating from the Kremlin. BBC Ukrainian services are wholly funded by the licence fee, and officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport are working closely with the BBC to consider how best to support BBC services for the people of Ukraine.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. We have had a bit of a warm-up, but there is no harm in that. Among the many incredibly distressing events unfolding in Ukraine is Putin’s manipulation, distortion and, most recently, penalising of free media. I pay tribute to all those courageous journalists who continue to bring us the truth. From the Minister’s response to an earlier Question, he clearly recognises that the BBC World Service is a beacon in this, so can he confirm—I think he has—that the FCDO will provide funding at levels that will allow the World Service to continue to be this beacon?
In response to the same request—from my friend Christine Jardine MP in the other place—the Secretary of State at the DDCMS appeared not to know that the World Service was part of her department, although 75% of its funding comes from the licence fee. Can the Minister assure this House that she now understands that it is, and does he agree that support for the BBC World Service is not compatible with the freezing of the licence fee, from which it gets so much of its funding?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I strongly agree that the BBC World Service provides just that: a world service and a world-class service. It is something that we are, and can continue to be, very proud of, particularly in these dark circumstances of today. It now reaches 364 million people every single week, a 40% increase since the FCDO’s well-funded World2020 programme began in 2016. That is a big jump in a short period. Global audience measure data for last year demonstrates that it is the top-rated international broadcaster for trustworthiness, reliability and depth of coverage. I therefore very strongly agree with the premise of the noble Baroness’s question. I cannot give her financial answers, because that will not be possible until the spending review settlement has been made public, but I can tell her that the final decisions will reflect the importance and respect with which we hold that organisation.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I have never heard such a dissatisfactory Answer. We are in a global crisis. Ukraine has been invaded by a hostile force which is committing war crimes. One of the most important contributions we can make is our soft power through the BBC World Service, which is 75% funded from the licence fee. The Government should now urgently take steps to properly fund the BBC World Service, extend its coverage, particularly through the internet, and find ways to circumvent the Russian Government’s ban on access to the BBC. Will the Minister take that message back to other Ministers? It is important that it receives vital funding now.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, it is worth pointing out that, since the war began, the BBC Ukrainian website has had 7 million page views, with just under 1.5 million for the live page YouTube channels alone—a 100% audience increase. BBC News reaches 5.5 million people in Ukraine, with BBC Ukrainian reaching 3.7 million and 1.5 million accessing English language news content. Demand is increasing and the supply is there. The service is being provided at an absolutely critical time and is providing a service that is second to none. As the noble Lord knows, I am not in a position to make spending commitments on behalf of the department at this point, but I can tell him that no one in the department, or indeed in government, questions the value or importance of the World Service that I have just recognised in my answer. That will be reflected in decisions taken.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, no other broadcasting company could have flexed as quickly as the BBC has in this emergency, particularly in relation to HF shortwave broadcasting. Could the Minister at least give a commitment that the BBC as a public service broadcaster at home and abroad will be adequately supported and resourced and not undermined in the public discourse?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank the right reverend Prelate for his question. I hope that the answers I have already given demonstrate that there is nothing other than respect for the service that the BBC World Service provides and an absolute commitment that that service will continue. For all the reasons we know, it is so important.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has a point: the time has come to use our soft power effectively. The entire Russian murder campaign is conducted behind a cover of a wall of lies and fake news and that has to be countered. Even though there may be separate views about the long-term funding of the BBC’s excellent World Service, now is the time to concentrate reviews, resources and effort on boosting our counter to this battle of lies, which is where the war is being fought. Could my noble friend take back this very strong message to his colleagues? I think we could do a lot more in this area.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I strongly agree with the point made by my noble friend. I do not think there is any question on this; I am certainly not aware of anything that has been said that would in any way suggest that the Government do not recognise the tremendous value that the World Service provides, particularly in circumstances such as today’s, where, as my noble friend said, we are up against a brutal regime which is second to none globally in the art of misinformation. So I strongly agree with my noble friend’s comments and will convey the message from him and other noble Lords to the department.
Baroness Northover (LD)
The integrated review proudly and rightly states that
“The BBC is the most trusted broadcaster worldwide”,
and the Minister has repeated that. When the review was published, with the cut in ODA and the attacks on the BBC, that struck me as extreme irony. The Minister has just said that he cannot comment on funding, but he should be able to, and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, is right that he can certainly make sure that the constant and insidious attacks on the BBC, including the World Service, are silenced.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, the BBC as an organisation is absolutely gigantic. We are talking today about a critical part of that service, but it is just one part. It should be possible to be critical of many different aspects of the BBC as an organisation or its focus, without that being seen to undermine what everyone recognises as the extraordinarily valuable and unique international service it provides. I reiterate what I said earlier: that service will continue.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I was expecting DCMS to answer this Question. Nevertheless, as this is a cultural question, I ask the Minister: what advice and assistance are we giving to help protect Ukraine’s artistic and cultural heritage, which is substantial and threatened? What role can our own cultural institutions play in this?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I am not going to bluff this answer. I am afraid I do not know. I recognise the merit of the noble Earl’s question, but I am not the right person to answer it. I will convey his question and secure a response.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, it is clear that there is support for the BBC World Service across the House, and I welcome the commitment made in the October spending review that the Government will continue to invest in it. I understand what the Minister says about the spending review, but might he be able to say when the BBC World Service will receive its future funding settlement, so that it can continue to plan for its important work in Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I would love to be able to give my noble friend a precise answer. However, I can tell her only that the department making the decision will hear the message from this House loud and clear and that I will do what I can to ensure that we have a resolution as soon as possible.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, in the aftermath of the Cold War, I met a young Ukrainian woman who told me that the proudest moment of her life was when she told her parents that she was going to work for the BBC World Service. They had listened to it clandestinely throughout the whole Soviet era. As the noble Lord told us, last week 5 million Ukrainians listened to the BBC via its digital platform. In addition to that, 17 million Russians—triple the usual number—listened to the BBC last week alone. Can we urgently do as so many noble Lords have urged and come to a decision within the next week? The money runs out at the end of March or beginning of April. In these urgent, desperate times, we need a decision on this.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I do not disagree with what the noble Lord has said and, as I said, I will push for the earliest possible resolution. Finally, I would just reiterate that the value this Government place on the service that is being provided internationally is absolute and there is no question of it being cut back.
Elections Bill
Thursday 10th March 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Elections Act 2022 View all Elections Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 96-I(b) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (10 Mar 2022)
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
I call the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to move Amendment A1.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
I ask the House to forgive me, but I am not aware of having anything to do with Amendment A1.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
I assure the noble Baroness that it is on the Marshalled List.
Amendment A1
Baroness Meacher
Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)
Now we have a debate, which the Minister can answer.
Lord Stunell (LD)
I thank noble Lords and join in the general confusion about where we are up to. I speak in favour of the two amendments in this group tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. They seem to be a ranging shot on one of the most important issues embedded in this Bill.
I hope that noble Lords will excuse me if I take this opportunity to explore what the amendments do and why it is so important that they and other matters relating to Clauses 14 and 15 are given serious consideration. These provisions are at the heart of the matter which I want to speak about. The question is really: is the United Kingdom to retain, as one of its trusted institutions and symbols of democratic legitimacy, the Electoral Commission, or is it to join an increasingly long list of countries that have, step by step and little by little, eroded their democratic base, undermined trust in their electoral processes and cast doubt on the legitimacy of their elected representatives?
The Electoral Commission was set up as a direct result of recommendations by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, on which I serve. The committee is chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale, and its first chairman was Lord Nolan. People refer frequently to the Nolan principles but those are in the guardianship of the Committee on Standards in Public Life; so, we believe, is the Electoral Commission. It is a body which emerged from recommendations presented to the Prime Minister by the CSPL. It has since been overhauled and reviewed by the CSPL and there have been changes made in legislation, again based on recommendations made directly by the CSPL. In a report last year, the Committee made further recommendations to the Prime Minister about changes that needed to be made in response to the inquiry and the evidence that it took. All those recommendations were designed to make the Electoral Commission a more effective body, with clear and specific recommendations on how that should be done in each case.
The Electoral Commission was set up on the advice of the CSPL. It was updated on advice from the CSPL, and the Government have before them clear recommendations from the CSPL on how it could be improved further. Our report strongly emphasised what every piece of evidence showed: that to maintain trust in the electoral integrity of our democratic processes, it was essential that the Electoral Commission retains its independence from political interference—interference from any political party or faction, but particularly from the party in power at any one time. Unfortunately, Clauses 14 and 15 take our country in the wrong direction. The two amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, try hard to pull it back from the brink, so yes, they have our support.
At Second Reading, I asked whether the Minister would be ready to hand over to a future radical-left Government the powers that the Bill, in its present form, would give them. He is far too skilled an operator to answer that question, but it is very hard to believe that he would. It could start off with something as innocuous as a requirement for the Electoral Commission to have regard to the Government’s manifesto policies; levelling up, for instance, or maybe levelling down, as will surely be achieved as a completely accidental by-product of other provisions in the Bill.
In many areas, but particularly Clauses 14 and 15, the Bill seems to have been drawn up by people who have never been in opposition, which is startling because the Minister has plenty of experience of that, having lived as an oppressed political minority in the Liberal Democrat-run London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The Minister may protest that there is to be a comprehensive consultation with various bodies before any strategy statements come into force. Of course, the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, very much bear on the question of the terms and conditions on which such a strategy report might be made.
The Minister might refer me to the elaborate wording of proposed new Section 4C, which is in Clause 14. But when I pointed out to him at Second Reading, as many noble Lords did, that practically every outside body that had expressed an opinion on these changes had strongly advised against them, and that the CSPL itself, which created the commission, had said that our electoral processes must be overseen by an independent regulator protected from political pressures and separate from the Government, and that it must demonstrate its impartiality and effectiveness at all times, the Minister’s reply was that the Government take a different view.
Noble Lords should bear in mind that five bodies must be consulted, according to proposed new Section 4C, before any such strategy document moves forward. It would be interesting to know what they will do when they get their first strategy statement. Actually, we do not have to wonder, as they have already commented on the proposals in front of them. Two opted out in disgust, which is why the Scottish and Welsh amendments flow in the next group. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has strenuously protested and recommended that the Government take these provisions out of the Bill. That is three of them. The Speaker’s Committee is packed with Cabinet Ministers, which is an offence when it is the budget holder for the Electoral Commission—a matter we shall talk about later. It is also worthy of note that all but one of the Electoral Commissioners jointly wrote an open letter of protest, pointing out that this fundamentally undermines their legitimacy and our democratic system. Therefore, of the five consultees in proposed new Section 4C, four have expressed vigorous dissent with the proposal and one is packed with Cabinet Ministers.
Interestingly, neither the CSPL or any local government institution was consulted: the one which created the electoral commission, and the people who will receive the benefit of its administration above anybody else. What we learn from this is that a fig leaf of consultation, even when we have a benign regime such as this, is not a safeguard. Under a less benign regime, as seen from the Minister’s viewpoint, that fig leaf could be gone in the space of a short consultation. I repeat my question: is the Minister completely at ease with the provisions in these two clauses? I and my noble friends are certainly not.
A look at the international stage may help noble Lords to understand our deep unease more clearly and explain why we are so strongly in favour of the Minister giving a fair wind, at the very minimum, to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher.
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, when the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, came into the Chamber, I do not think that she was expecting to have to move any amendments, and when I came into the Chamber, I certainly was not expecting to speak on any of them. But in a few sentences I would like to inject a broader perspective.
At the moment, we see a conflict between democracy and totalitarianism in Ukraine such as we have not experienced since the end of the Cold War. Democracy must win. But at this very perilous moment, the Government are introducing measures to shackle the independent Electoral Commission and put in its place the will of government Ministers. The Minister may say that they have no intention of doing anything naughty, but I would not trust him on that and, even if I did, I certainly would not trust every subsequent Government to go the same way. This is a disgraceful proposal. It undermines the democratic case that we are making to the world, and I hope that the Committee will have none of it.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, this is the most extraordinary debate that I have ever taken part in, with the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, first disowning the amendment in her name on the supplementary list of amendments and then moving it formally but not explaining what we are debating. I hope that the noble Baroness remains to withdraw her amendment at the end. Otherwise, we may be in a little trouble.
I was unable to take part at Second Reading on this Bill because I was not in the country, but I have of course read Hansard on that debate and I hope to take part in the remaining stages. I will not range as widely as the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, because I hope to say more about Clause 14 generally when we get to the stand part debate, where I think it would be most appropriate. But I will say a couple of things about the two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, because neither of them is necessary.
Amendment 4A states that the Electoral Commission only needs to comply with the strategic and policy statement if it conforms with its own objectives. The amendment is unnecessary because the only requirement in new Section 4B in Clause 14 is for the commission to “have regard to” the statement. Nothing compels the commission to do anything specific as a result of the statement being published, and nothing in Clause 14 changes the requirement for the Electoral Commission not to do anything which conflicts with its statutory duties. In short, its regulatory independence is already protected by Clause 14.
I was somewhat mystified by Amendment A1 which removes the role and responsibilities from the strategic and policy statement. These strategic and policy statements merely set out what the Government’s priorities are and what the Government see as the role and responsibilities in relation to those priorities. It does not override the commission’s independence but gives guidance as to the Government’s priorities and of course those priorities will be approved by Parliament. Public bodies do not exist in a vacuum; they exist in a political context. The strategic and policy statements just give that context—nothing more, nothing less. Clause 14 does not impact on the independence of the Electoral Commission.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, this is an astonishing Bill. I understand why there was confusion at the start; I do not blame the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, in any way and I hope no one else will, given what we are facing today.
This is an outrageous Bill in almost every way: a 171-page compendium of political bias. In the case of the Electoral Commission, I can understand why the Government are embarrassed. As I understand it, the commission pointed out the kind of money that the Conservative Party was getting and where it was getting it from. Given that we are now in the middle of a war in which the Russian state—Mr Putin and his cronies—are invading Ukraine, the fact that some of the money was coming from Russian sources must be an acute embarrassment to the noble Lord and his cronies. That is why they do not like the Electoral Commission.
We just have to look at what is in the news today about the Charity Commission. The story is that the Government are about to put in a Tory placeperson—a placeman, as it happens—as the chair of the Charity Commission, as they have done before. This is what they do, and it is happening throughout our public system. A Member of this House, who used to be a Labour MP, has been appointed to post after post because they supported the Government in the last election and supported the Vote Leave campaign. It is cronyism squared—cubed, probably.
The Liberal Democrats mentioned the Westminster Foundation for Democracy in a speech earlier. I used to be a board member of that foundation and am now on the executive of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. We are about to have a seminar, with representatives from all around the Commonwealth, at which we will be talking about good governance. How on earth can we try to put forward the idea that this so-called mother of Parliaments is an example of good governance if this Bill becomes an Act? We must do everything we can, not just to amend it but to scupper it.
Look at today’s amendments: after the two from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, we have over 100 government amendments. What on earth is going on with this legislation? We will soon be moving towards Prorogation and the Queen’s Speech. This Bill should be totally abandoned. In many ways we are wasting our time going through amendment after amendment; I do not think there is any prospect of the Bill moving forward.
I am a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly. We go around monitoring elections in other countries and we see what happens. If there is no effective independent electoral commission in a country then we criticise that and say it is not a proper democracy. How can we properly participate and show face in these countries if this Bill becomes an Act? It is just outrageous.
I know the Minister has an impossible task. Those of us who have been in the House of Commons know the kind of debates that take place there. Regrettably, the House of Commons these days is not taking the time—it does not have the time—to examine 171 pages and all these amendments in detail, let alone their implications for our democracy. We are dealing here just with the Electoral Commission but there is a whole range of other issues, such as identification, which will make the opportunity for ordinary people to vote much more difficult.
As I say, the House of Commons has not given this legislation the kind of scrutiny that its Members ought to have done. They understand elections more than we do; they take part in them year by year, so they understand the implications of the Bill. We have a responsibility to go through the Bill line by line, but there is no way we can do that in the next couple of months. I hope that at some point—even if not now, it is inevitable that this is going to happen—the Minister will throw in the towel and say, “This is just not going to proceed”. If not, I warn him that we on this side of the House—and I think the Liberal Democrats are filled with the same kind of enthusiasm and determination, as are the Greens and, I suspect, a huge number of Cross-Benchers—will do everything we can to undermine and thwart the Bill and make sure that this abortion—no, that is not the right word.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
Thank you; I am grateful that I have some friends around here who are far more literate than I am. We will do everything we can to make sure that this abomination of a Bill never becomes an Act.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I apologise that I cannot be here for the whole of today. When I spoke at Second Reading, I made my reservations about the Bill quite clear. There are certain aspects that I support, such as tidying up postal voting, but all that that needs is a short Bill.
It is grotesque that we have this Bill before us while people are literally dying for democracy. The best, most seemly and most honourable thing that we can do is to delete these clauses completely from the Bill. They have no place in a Bill of this nature in a country that prides itself on being the mother of Parliaments—it is not the institution, by the way; Bright’s quotation was that the country was the mother of Parliaments, and that is what we are. It is a heritage that we should do everything we can to cherish and preserve. We are exceptionally fortunate in the democracy that we have, warts and all. While people are being mown down in Ukraine and while brave people in Russia, in St Petersburg, Moscow and other cities, are going out on to the streets to protest, knowing that if they are arrested then they might face 15 years in jail—we heard earlier in our deliberations today of that poor man or woman who was in jail in Belarus in a tiny cell with 15 others, all of whom were smokers—we have an absolute duty to cherish and preserve our democracy.
A democracy needs to have a monitoring body. I spoke for the Conservative Party from the Front Bench in the other place when the Electoral Commission came into being. As we said at Second Reading—my noble friend Lord Hayward made this point—it is certainly entirely appropriate to review its operations after two decades, but to shackle it in such a way that the Government are in a position to dictate what it does is utterly and completely wrong.
There is no point in my noble friend, for whom I have considerable affection and regard, pretending that this Government do not mean any ill. I am perfectly prepared to accept that they do not mean any ill, but what if Mr Corbyn had had charge of this? Would we on our side of the House have thought it appropriate that a Corbyn Government should have the power to dictate to an Electoral Commission? One only has to state the words to underline their absurdity. I hope my noble friend will not see that we have protracted debate on this but will say that these clauses should go, and that we do not have to debate them further.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
When I listed the people and groups who were going to oppose the Bill, I should have included the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and some of his Back-Bench colleagues. I apologise for leaving him out.
Lord Cormack (Con)
It is a touching gesture. Anybody who considers himself or herself a parliamentarian should be opposed to this particular part of this particular Bill. I hope that message will be received by my noble friend and that he will realise that it should not be his mission to undermine, however indirectly, our parliamentary and electoral democracy because, of course, this applies to elections as well and not just to Parliament.
We are much in the debt of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for tabling these amendments. She introduced them with remarkable brevity. Let us have done with this.
Lord Hayward (Con)
May I ask my noble friend before he sits down just to clarify his comments about the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher? Will there also, as I see it, be an opportunity to comment in more detail when we debate the clause standing part? That may be the occasion when I comment on his generous comments about me, for which I thank him.
Lord Cormack (Con)
Yes, that is fine. I think there is even a case for deleting these clauses in Committee.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I was not intending to speak on this part but I feel very queasy about the way a number of noble Lords are using the situation in Ukraine to have a go at this part of the Bill. People are indeed dying for democracy, but they are not dying to defend an Electoral Commission—an unelected quango in the UK. I think it is rather unbecoming to use that.
The Electoral Commission is relatively new to the UK’s democratic life and democracy thrived when it did not exist. At the very least, we should stop aggrandising the Electoral Commission as though the electorate depend on it. There are problems with it and there are problems with the way the Government are trying to deal with it. I am not necessarily defending the Government’s way of solving the problem of the Electoral Commission—
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
Go on, defend it. The noble Baroness used to be in the Communist Party.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
The noble Baroness said that we had a functioning electoral system before we had the Electoral Commission. The commission was a move to improve it, just as votes for women was a very great step forward. I am sure she would not want to go back to the time before that.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I appreciate that I am surrounded by Labour noble Lords who object to what I am saying. One of the great advantages of votes for women was that occasionally we get to say the odd thing that does not go with the grain.
I am raising the problem that the Electoral Commission is not necessarily all good. I want to say this about it. There was a great deal of dissatisfaction about the Electoral Commission’s lack of independence in its response to the 2016 referendum, which I referred to in my Second Reading speech. Such were the concerns about the bias of the Electoral Commission in that period that it had to apologise for the bias of many of its members. This is not me saying it—I am quoting the Electoral Commission, which we are all told we have to listen to.
The bias led to many voters feeling that the Electoral Commission was not fit for purpose and was in fact biased against their wishes as an electorate in that referendum. Many of those people were not Tory cronies but Labour voters—Labour voters who may no longer be Labour voters because they became disillusioned by the fact that the Labour Party told them they had got it wrong, they were duped and they needed to think again. While the Labour Benches are very keen on democracy, they were less keen on the democratic decisions of many of their voters in 2016 and subsequently.
At the very least, therefore, it is important that we look at the role of the Electoral Commission critically and seriously. I do not think the way the Government have gone about reforming it will clarify or help things. I will make those points another time. But to say, as has just been said by a number of noble Lords, that we have a responsibility to take the Bill and thwart it, scupper it, throw it out and all the rest of it, seems to me rather to fly in the face of democracy. A little humility is maybe needed to remember that the plans for the Elections Bill were in the Conservative Party manifesto—which noble Lords will be delighted to know I did not vote for, before they all start.
Nevertheless, I clocked that they were there. We in this House are unelected legislators and need to take at least a smidgen of note of what the electorate might consider priorities. Not everything is a Conservative Party plot but one reason many people voted for the Conservative Party in 2019 was that they felt abandoned by the opposition parties.
Baroness D’Souza (CB)
My Lords, I wonder whether noble Lords are fully aware that this is Committee and not Second Reading.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, I want to make a Committee point, if I may. Even though I agree with the general statements that have been made about the deep undesirability of Clauses 14 and 15, and the danger they represent to the reputation of this country as a guardian of democracy, my noble friend made quite clear that we would want to see those clauses removed but also indicated his support for the noble Baroness’s amendments, which would ameliorate those clauses slightly if the Bill were to retain them. I am very keen that the Bill does not retain them.
The amelioration has its limits and, in that context, I want to remind the Committee of the report of the Constitution Committee on the Bill in this respect. Paragraph 39 says:
“We are concerned about the desirability of introducing a Government-initiated strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission. The proposal will open up to risk the independence of the Commission … it would be dangerous if the perception were to emerge that the Commission is beholden to the Government for its operation and delivery.”
The weakness of the noble Baroness’s amendment, which I know is well intentioned, is that the statutory status of the statement remains and she creates a rather interesting situation, which I had not seen in legislative form before, in which the commission can carry out what the Government suggest if it already agrees with them, which would be a new kind of statutory position. The fact is that there would still be a statement that had some degree of statutory authority behind it.
Governments and governing parties can always criticise what the Electoral Commission says and does and have shown little hesitation about doing so over the years. There has never been a limit on the ability of the Conservative Party to say what it disagrees with in the Electoral Commission’s work. But to create a statutory process, even with the consultation involved, and produce from that a statement which explicitly or implicitly appears to bind the Electoral Commission is highly dangerous. I see that statement as addressing priorities of the commission. Is the commission spending too much time on political finance and donations? Is it spending too much time trying to register groups of people in this country? Should it spend more time trying to find more overseas voters? Such issues are not things on which we want to see the Electoral Commission steered by a statement that has any authority from statute. Let parties both in government and outside it continue to express their views and, indeed, their criticisms, but do not build into our statutory system that kind of statement.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I put my name to the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, which my noble and learned friend Lord Judge will move this afternoon. As I may not be able—depending on the progress of business—to speak then, it may be for the convenience of the Committee if I make a very short intervention now.
I spent last night reading the illustrative example of a strategy and policy document issued by the Government in September. This document is no doubt designed to reassure but we are left with the question of how much further this clause gives an opportunity to a Government to go in regulating the activities of the commission. That is the subject that should worry us.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the processes of your Lordships’ House are enclosed in layers of impenetrable language, punctuated by archaic ritual and layered in complex paperwork that can confuse even the veterans among us. For International Women’s Day I have been exhorting the young people of Britain, particularly young girls, to watch the House of Lords—with some trepidation because it is not easy to understand if you just switch on Lords TV.
Many noble Lords will have noticed, in the great increase in our piles of letters and emails in our inboxes, that the House of Lords is—this is responding particularly to the comment of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox—a place where democracy is being defended. Several noble Lords have said, “Oh well, we don’t have to worry about this Government having the power of control over the Electoral Commission; it’s some other putative Government we are concerned about.” However, when I look at the police Bill, the judicial review Bill, the Nationality and Borders Bill and many others, and I look at my postbag of people saying they are concerned, I know that the public are asking us to represent them, and we have to worry about this Government as well as any potential future Government.
As a further piece of evidence, noble Lords may have seen, a week or so back, the Democracy Defence Coalition’s giant van and billboard parked—deliberately—outside Millbank House, where many of us have offices. That organisation represents hundreds of thousands of people who are concerned about this Bill. The top line in their list was concern about the independence of the Electoral Commission, which is what these amendments seek to address—particularly Amendment 4A.
Coming to the detail of this, I entirely understand the impulse from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, to try to put some controls and limits in. But the only way forward is to get these clauses out of the Bill. More than that, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and others, that this Bill is an absolute mess. As others have said, the number of government amendments makes that very clear. We must not be proceeding with this Bill as an absolute minimum at the moment.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for tabling these amendments and setting an example for all of us in Committee to present our amendments with such brevity in such a concise nature. I declare my interests in the register which are relevant to this Bill.
The noble Baroness’s amendments do their utmost—if these two clauses are to remain part of the Bill—to keep the Electoral Commission as independent as possible from government interference. It might be worth looking at a dictionary definition of independence. It is: the ability to go about one’s business without being helped, hindered or influenced by others. The Minister may say that this is trying to help the Electoral Commission. Independence means that you stay out of the function of that commission.
In response to the noble Baronesses, Lady Noakes and Lady Fox, we have to be very clear what the amendments are trying to omit. The role of the Electoral Commission is not to carry out the priorities of the Government. Yet we see in new Section 4A(2)(b):
“The statement is a statement prepared by the Secretary of State”—
a Cabinet Minister—
“that sets out … the role and responsibilities of the Commission in enabling Her Majesty’s government to meet those priorities.”
The role of the Electoral Commission is not to meet the priorities of Her Majesty’s Government, it is to ensure free and fair elections for all parties—not at the behest of one political party. That is why these amendments, if the clauses stand part of the Bill, are important.
At Second Reading I said to the Minister that when the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, and I are together, there must be fundamental flaws in the Bill. With what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, has just said, I feel like calling him my noble friend on this particular issue. His powerful words—as upsetting as they are to some noble Lords—are absolutely correct. At this time, when people are fighting for the basics of freedom and democracy, it is wrong that we are having to debate a Bill which tries to put the Electoral Commission’s strategy and priorities in alignment with those of Her Majesty’s Government—a political party. Those are not the free and fair elections which are the basis of a strong, functioning democracy.
It is for those reasons that if at a later stage your Lordships decide to see Clauses 14 and 15 stand part of the Bill, these amendments at least try to bring back a semblance of independence and take away the role of government. That is why these Benches support the noble Baroness’s amendments as drafted.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and we agree with everything he has just said. This is the beginning of our debates on the Elections Bill, so I start by thanking the Minister and his officials for taking the time to meet me and my colleagues to go through some of our concerns.
I turn to the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher—again, it is unusual to find such brevity in an introduction—which draw attention to the link between the Electoral Commission and the Government. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, gave a very clear overview of how the Electoral Commission came into being. He also talked about some of the comments from the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
Our concern is with Part 3 of the Bill, and Clause 14 in particular. We believe it represents a deeply worrying step for our democracy. The Minister and his Government might like to think that it is their party in government today, but legislation is for future Governments. This could be for other parties, including parties not represented in this Chamber. It is not for any Government to dictate the priorities of an independent watchdog, yet these proposals, as we have heard, allow the Government of the day to set the agenda of the Electoral Commission.
The Electoral Commission regulates the elections in which Governments are elected. It is very important that the Electoral Commission has independence from the Government of the day. The existence of an independent regulator is fundamental to maintaining confidence in our electoral systems and, therefore, in our democracy.
That is particularly important when the laws that govern elections are made by a small subset of the parties that stand in elections. Many parties that stand in elections in our country do not have Members of Parliament, and much of the legislation here will be done as secondary legislation, so the commission’s independence needs to be clear for voters and campaigners to see. It must be viewed as fair and impartial. As we have heard, no organisation has given these proposals its full support.
The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, referred to the consultation around the statement, but I have to say that consultation on these proposals so far does not exactly fill me with confidence. If the Committee will bear with me, I will just refer to the Government’s response to PACAC’s fifth report around consultation. In the report, the committee
“urges the Government to provide guidance, as a matter of urgency, on the proposed consultation mechanisms, which should be agreed with the list of statutory consultees in advance of publication.”
The Government’s response says:
“The consultation mechanism for the designation of the Strategy and Policy Statement is already outlined in detail in new sections … Those statutory consultees are: the Electoral Commission, the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, and the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.”
But parliamentary consequences of the recent machinery of government changes, whereby ministerial responsibilities for elections now sit with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, will mean that the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee may need to be replaced with the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee as a statutory consultee on the statement. Considering that PACAC was one of the organisations most critical of the Bill in its response, I find it very concerning that it is being threatened with removal. I would be very interested to hear the Minister’s justifications for that.
Furthermore, in the response:
“The Government notes the Committee’s suggestion to set minimum timeframes for consultation but considers it would be disproportionate and unnecessarily burdensome.”
Again, I ask the Minister why. Consultation used to be my profession; I was an associate at the Consultation Institute. We lay out best practice for consultation and that is not best practice.
The Minister has previously said that it is important that we have independent regulation so that the public can have confidence in our elections. But the implication of this is that we do not currently have independent or impartial regulation of elections. It implies that somehow the Electoral Commission, as currently constituted, is fundamentally flawed and failing in its duty. That is a substantial claim, and I have seen no evidence for it.
My noble friend Lord Foulkes talked about the importance of good governance and how the proposals in this Bill completely undermine that. He also talked about how we monitor elections in other countries and how on earth we will continue to be taken seriously in the future if we have basically kneecapped our own Electoral Commission and are bringing in many of the other measures in this Bill.
The Electoral Commission is already accountable to the House through the Speaker’s Committee. There are regular questions in the Chamber of the other place precisely to provide some of that accountability. The members of that committee scrutinise the operation of the commission, and there are also procedures at Holyrood and at the Senedd in Cymru to ensure the Electoral Commission self-accounts for its operations in those parts of the United Kingdom. These proposals threaten to end the commission’s independence and put control of how elections are run in the hands of those who have won them, which cannot be right. These look like the actions of a Government who fear scrutiny, and I suggest we have seen that in other legislation in recent times. I ask the Minister: under the current proposals in the Bill, will Parliament be able to amend the statement?
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness opposite for her kind remarks at the outset, and make clear that I have been privileged by and welcomed the discussions I have had with her and other noble Lords in the passage of this legislation so far. I give an assurance to the House that I will always be open for those discussions. We may not agree, but I am concerned to hear the opinions and seek to address the concerns of noble Lords on all sides. I may not be able to succeed, the Government may not be able to succeed, but that is the spirit in which we should go forward.
I hope the one thing we might agree on is our revulsion and scorn—and hatred, actually, which is a word I do not use often—for the activities of the Russian Government and army in Ukraine. But I beg that the enormity of what is happening there should not be adduced as an argument in questions of judgment about the degree of our regulation of electoral amendments, which this amendment before the Committee is about. I do not believe it is comparing like with like. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. She seemed a little surprised, but I thank her for putting these amendments before the Committee.
I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, was in his place and rose swiftly to read a 13-minute speech on these amendments to the House. Perhaps, he was not as surprised as the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, by the events which occurred.
I did not intervene in the debate because the glory of this House is that it is a free House; it is the master of its own procedures and its own way of going forward. The group of amendments we have just discussed has nothing to do with excising Clauses 14 and 15. There is no amendment to Clause 14, and the noble Baroness suggests leaving out two lines and adding a couple of points to Clause 14. On the Order Paper, we have a clause stand part on Clauses 14 and 15. The appropriate procedure, I venture to suggest, with the greatest respect to your Lordships’ House—protecting and arguing for your right and freedom of procedure, which I, as a Member of this House, regard as one of its glories—is that we should address in Committee points that are before the House in Committee.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I apologise. Did the Minister just say that the amendments have nothing to do with Clause 14? They are amendments to Clause 14.
Lord True (Con)
No, I said that what was before the House was not a clause stand part debate. I will address the amendment before the House. The proposal to excise Clauses 14 and 15 comes later today, in the sixth group, in your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, actually said—
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, I am doing my best, on the basis of only 20 years’ experience in this House, to follow the Minister. Is he saying that he is going to try to improve a clause in Committee, when later we are going to have an opportunity to choose whether to reject the clause as a whole? Of course, we must do both. I hope that it is rejected eventually but in the meantime, the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, goes some way to mitigating its worst features.
Lord True (Con)
No, I am not saying that in the slightest. I will address the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, because that is the proper thing to do in Committee. All I respectfully submit to your Lordships is that, if there is a clause stand part amendment—the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, made a clause stand part speech because, as he explained, he is not going to be here later—then the appropriate place for it is probably within that debate. The noble Lord—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
Following on from my noble friend, I have only been in this House for 16 years, so I am a relative newcomer compared with some Members, but I have sat through lots of Committee stages. I say this with great respect to the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, as she is a former Speaker: in the first debate in a Committee, I have often seen Members take the opportunity to speak more widely than the specific amendment. I do not think that either Back-Benchers or, particularly, the Front Bench should object to that.
Lord True (Con)
No, and the noble Lord, for whom I have the greatest affection, is never slow in coming forward in such debates. Indeed, he used the amendment to say that the whole Bill should be thrown out, not just these two clauses. I assume that he includes in that tackling postal vote fraud, clarifying law on digital campaigning, protecting voters against intimidation and various other things in this legislation. Do I infer that the noble Lord, as he said in his speech, would like to throw the whole Bill out?
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
I look forward to the evidence being put forward about postal vote fraud. I have certainly not seen a lot of it around where I vote; I have not seen any intimidation at all. Anyway, these things could be dealt with in different ways.
Lord True (Con)
Okay, I take that as a yes: that the noble Lord would like to reject the whole Bill. I will be interested to see in Committee if that is the position of the Labour Party.
As I said, I make no objection to the free procedures of the House—
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I slightly object to that, because the Minister is extending a response to one point to a general point. He was able to read the Second Reading speeches of all noble Lords, including mine and that of my noble friend, which made our position on postal votes and on intimidation absolutely clear. For the record, I hope that he will understand what the Labour Party’s position is.
Lord True (Con)
I am grateful for that, and I do know that that is the Labour Party position. I was pointing out that the noble Lord sat at the back might not actually have the support of the Labour Party on his proposition to throw the whole Bill out.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
I agree completely with what my noble friend has just said. I was saying that there are different ways of dealing with this, rather than in this huge omnibus Bill which deals with so many things and does not allow us to scrutinise matters such as postal votes, fraud and intimidation. These should be dealt with properly, and given the time needed to consider them properly, rather than in this mammoth compendium of a Bill.
Lord True (Con)
I anticipate that we will discuss all those things. I intend, if nature allows, to be present for every hour of Committee on this Bill and every hour on Report, and to give full attention and respect to everything your Lordships say. Perhaps I could get on with the amendments before the House—
Lord Scriven (LD)
I point out to the Minister that he has just spent 10 minutes doing exactly what he has told noble Lords not to do. Now that we are in Committee, will he come to the substance of these amendments?
Lord True (Con)
I would have done so slightly quicker if the noble Lord had not intervened.
The suggestion before the House, which I will deal with later, is that the Government are attempting to interfere with the operational independence of the Electoral Commission. We contend that that is a mischaracterisation, and I will deal with that at the appropriate time. Reference has been made in the debate to the illustrative statement the Government have published for the Election Commission, which we will discuss later. I hope that all noble Lords will have a look at it. It states:
“This Statement does not seek to interfere with the governance of the Commission, nor does it seek to direct specific investigative or enforcement decisions of the Electoral Commission. This Statement does not affect the ability of the Commission to undertake enforcement activity as they see fit”.
The Government are not seeking to direct, as has been submitted, the Electoral Commission. Amendment 4A seeks to amend Clause 14 so that the commission only has to consider following the guidance in the strategy and policy statement if the commission considers that the guidance aligns with its own objectives. As I have set out, the duty on the commission to have regard to the statement on the discharge of its functions contained in Clause 15 is not a directive; it simply asks the commission to consider the guidance. This protects the operational independence of the commission and means that the amendment is unnecessary.
Amendment A1 would remove the provision for the strategy and policy statement to be able to set out the role and responsibilities of the commission in enabling Her Majesty’s Government to meet their priorities in relation to elections, referendums and other matters in respect of which the commission has functions. First, on a technical note, this amendment would not limit the scope of the strategy and policy statement, as intended, as the clause would still provide for the statement to set out guidance relating to particular matters in respect of which the commission has functions. Secondly—and we will debate this later—it is entirely right that the Government should include within the statement the role and responsibilities of the commission in enabling the Government to meet their priorities in relation to elections.
For any Member who has not already seen the illustrative strategy, I say again that I hope noble Lords will review the document, and that many will find it to some degree reassuring—to the use the phrase of the noble Lord, Lord Butler—and hard to disagree with the content. However, I will listen to the comments on that, as on anything else. The statement sets out the Government’s expectation that the commission should tackle voter fraud, improve accessibility of elections and increase participation. I hope we can all agree that these are important aims that it would be wholly appropriate for an electoral regulator to support. For these reasons, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The Minister did not address my concerns around consultation on the document. Will he come back on that, please?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, we will come to that document later. The specific recommendations taken up in these proposals were those of the Pickles committee in 2015.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response to this excellent debate. I did table these amendments but did not ask for them to be degrouped. It never occurred to me that they might be degrouped, hence I was a little ill-prepared this morning: I was expecting to deal with them in about six hours’ time. I am incredibly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, for picking up the pieces of my confusion and making an outstanding contribution. The clerk has said I could make a few comments at this point—a very few—but I have barely recovered from the incredible response of the Committee to my confusion. Noble Lords have been courteous, amusing, gentle and kind, and I am enormously grateful, I really am.
Let me just explain why I tabled these amendments, despite the fact I feel passionately that Clauses 14 and 15 should not stand part of the Bill and be removed. I worked in Russia at the beginning of the 1990s; I watched President Yeltsin trying to create democracy in Russia and have watched it disappearing. We need to treasure our democracy and these clauses, in my view, will drive a wedge between democracy and a bit of reality in our political process. I completely agree that Clauses 14 and 15 should not stand part of the Bill, but I tabled these amendments to make the point that it is crucial that the Electoral Commission is free and independent to do what it believes is right and proper for it to do.
The suggestion was made from the Conservative Benches that, “Oh, no, it’s fine; these amendments are completely unnecessary because all the commission has to do is to ‘have regard to’ the will, the policy and the strategy of the Government.” But I have worked in these public bodies and am very aware of people asking, “Do we have to have regard to the Government or not?” This is vital, because if these clauses go through and these amendments do not pass, then the chair and the CEO of the Electoral Commission will be very anxious—believe me, having been there—to comply with the will, policy and strategy of the Government. That is the whole point: the commission must be independent, feel independent and act independently. These amendments are necessary unless the ideal situation emerges where the clauses are removed from the Bill. With all that said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“(3A) The statement must not include provision in relation to elections, referendums and other matters so far as the provision would relate to the Commission’s devolved Scottish functions or the Commission’s devolved Welsh functions.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides that a statement under the inserted section 4A of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (“PPERA”) must not include provision about matters so far as relating to the Electoral Commission’s devolved Scottish or Welsh functions.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I apologise to the Committee at the outset for the large number of amendments in this group. They are technical amendments, in the main, and the overwhelming number of those I speak to—Amendments 1 and 2, 21 to 24, 26 to 30, 33 and 34, 36 to 38, 40, 43, 46 to 51, 106 to 108, 110 to 118, 124 to 133, 157 to 160, 162 to 167, 169, 173 and 174—are related to the discussions the United Kingdom Government have had with the devolved Administrations in preparing the policy and drafting the legislation. We undertook extensive engagement with them.
For a number of measures that are within devolved competence, the United Kingdom Government considered that a co-ordinated UK-wide approach would have been beneficial, ensuring consistency and operability for electoral administrators and those regulated by electoral law while strengthening protection for electors and relevant political actors. It is therefore regrettable that while the Government sought legislative consent for these measures, the Scottish Parliament has not granted such consent and the Welsh Government have recommended that the Senedd does not so. In respect to those positions, we have therefore tabled these necessary amendments to ensure that measures in the Bill apply to reserved matters only. In addition, an amendment has been tabled to the digital imprint provisions, which already apply UK wide, to ensure they will continue to function correctly once other parts of the Bill concerning devolved matters are amended.
We welcome the indication from the Scottish and Welsh Administrations, however, that they are considering legislating comparably in a number of areas covered by the Bill. The United Kingdom Government remain committed to working closely with the Scottish and Welsh Administrations to support consistency in electoral law and ensure clarity and coherence are achieved across the United Kingdom for voters, the electoral sector and those regulated by electoral law.
Additionally, this group contains technical amendments in my name that are necessary for the measures to be fit for purpose and operate as intended. I will give a brief description of each and the reasoning behind them.
Amendment 82 relates to voter identification and clarifies the information to be displayed on both the poll card and the large notice in polling stations. These will tell electors which forms of identification will be accepted. Amendments 74 to 77 and 123 to 133 are minor clarificatory drafting changes to Schedule 1 and Schedule 6 to reflect that Northern Ireland-registered voters and GB-registered proxies are not mutually exclusive categories, with a further change to make sure that dates of birth for GB-registered temporary proxies can be checked at Northern Ireland Assembly elections, in line with the intended policy. Amendments 157 to 160 are minor amendments to the European Union voting and candidacy rights provisions in Part 2, to remove an unnecessary reference to Northern Irish local councillors in the transitional provisions for officeholders.
In addition, Amendments 5, 6, 10, 11, 15 and 16 are government amendments relating to the Electoral Commission measures in Part 3. This partly answers the noble Baroness’s questions. I was going to answer them later but, since they have come up now, they relate to the change in the committee which is responsible and reflect the parliamentary consequences of the recent machinery of government change, where ministerial responsibility for elections was transferred from the Cabinet Office to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
As a result, the amendments replace PACAC as the statutory consultee on the strategy and policy statement with the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee which will have responsibility henceforth for looking at electoral matters, in line with the machinery of government. This would also align the consultation requirements with the recent change to the membership of the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, where the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee chair has replaced the PACAC chair. The noble Baroness and the Committee will know that the chair of that committee is Mr Clive Betts, who is, I say with all sincerity, a very distinguished and experienced Member of the other place. The amendments are technical in nature, as is the move, and does not result in any other changes to the statutory consultation requirements and process.
Amendments 181 to 196, the final government amendments, are to the digital imprint provisions in Part 6. Once again, these are all technical in nature and aimed at ensuring that the provisions deliver the policy as intended. I urge noble Lords to support these technical and necessary amendments—I apologise if I have missed citing any in my speech—and I beg to move.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, on this occasion, I have a lot of sympathy with the Minister. As I understand it, these amendments have been tabled because of the consultation that has taken place since the original drafting of the Bill. I commend the Government for the process—I will come to substance of it—and I have sympathy with him.
However, in dealing with this, the Minister has the support of an excellent team—I see the Bill Committee officials here—whereas my noble friends on the opposition Front Bench have, in comparison, a very limited group of people helping them; they are limited in number—I had better make that clear—but able in every way. That makes it difficult to deal with such a complex Bill. However, I ask the Minister to think of the problems of Back-Bench Members, who have no help whatsoever. We have a huge volume of legislation to consider at the moment, not only this Bill, which is big enough in itself, but so many others, and this does create problems for us.
I would have liked to have spent more time discussing these amendments, particularly as they relate to Scotland and Wales. I was a great advocate of devolution in Scotland—and subsequently in Wales—and strongly supported giving more power to the Scottish Parliament. I served as a Member of the Scottish Parliament for four years, so I know the kind of work that is done there. Some of it was very effective, although it is less effective now under the SNP—much less effective than it used to be in the joint Labour-Liberal Democrat Administration. I wonder if all the differences that are now demanded by the current Administration in Edinburgh are genuinely sensible or just for the sake of being different in Scotland. I sometimes think that they just want to be different for the sake of it. I would like the Minister to reassure us that this is not the case in any of these amendments, because what difference is there?
In relation to voting at elections in Scotland and England, people move quite a lot from Scotland to England, so in one year they may vote in Edinburgh and the next year they may vote in London. Therefore, some degree of consistency has an advantage. The only difference that I know of at the moment is the voting age in Scotland, which is 16 for Scottish Parliament elections, but apart from that I think that the procedures are fairly similar. Can the Minister assure us that each of these amendments—as I say, I have not had the time, opportunity and support to be able to go through them one by one—is a genuine, excepted difference? Or has the Minister had his arm twisted and, wanting to keep the SNP Administration quiet, has he just agreed to do what they suggest?
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, I wish to speak to those amendments in this group which deal with the consequences of the Welsh Government’s refusal to grant legislative consent to this Bill—primarily, Amendments 1 and 2, and others. The Welsh Government’s refusal results, of course, in the removal from the Bill of all aspects which relate to devolved elections. I am pleased to welcome these amendments, but I must say that the pleasure is tempered by the sympathy that I feel for my English colleagues, who will have to contend with some aspects of this Bill which they, and I, find very difficult to accept, and which go against the principles which govern free and fair elections in the UK.
At Second Reading, I spoke against the moves to neuter or control the Electoral Commission by the introduction of a strategy and policy statement, which your Lordships’ Committee has just dealt with. I also spoke of the deep disappointment felt in the Senedd at the way in which the UK Government was prepared to overlook or ignore the role of the Llywydd’s Committee, and its role in holding the Electoral Commission to account on behalf of the Senedd itself.
The refusal of the Welsh Government to give legislative consent to this Bill has resulted in Amendment 1, which excludes the Electoral Commission’s devolved Scottish and Welsh functions from inclusion in a statement, and Amendment 2, which defines the elections to which the functions relate, thereby securing the status quo for the commission in Wales. The refusal also has the effect that, in devolved Welsh elections, there will be no need for voter ID, no new constraints on postal or proxy voting and no extension of the overseas franchise.
Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, I have one question of clarification to ask my noble friend. During his introduction, he referred to the change of structure of government and therefore the change of structure of committees in the other place, and their responsibilities for dealing with electoral matters. Given that the Government have a habit of restructuring virtually everything virtually every year, whichever party is in power, can I seek clarification that these amendments are future-proofed—in other words, that we are not writing into the Bill the name of a committee that may not exist in one or two or three years’ time?
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, I will briefly make a point about these proceedings. As I understood it, when we debated the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, the Minister said, “We should not have these general arguments; we should be focusing on the specific amendments.” In a corner, as he was, I can see that that was the best sort of argument available to him. Now we have nearly 100 amendments which change the law of this nation, and how much time did the Minister devote to each of them? It was six seconds. This is not a detailed examination of a Bill; it is a Minister who thinks that whatever he happens to want—I am sure that most of these amendments are completely acceptable—should go through without proper debate, consideration and deliberation by this House.
I say that both as a protest and as something that I hope the House will carry forward in its future deliberations on the Bill. It cannot be done at the kind of speed whereby 100 amendments are considered in one grouping. It will not be done, and we will stop it being done.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly to this amendment. I seem to have used my time allocation earlier—I apologise to the Minister for wasting his time. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and my noble friend just pointed out—the Minister probably cannot hear me with my mask on, so I am sorry about that as well—it is six seconds per amendment against 13 per amendment on my part. I apologise for that.
I will pick up on a couple of things. The Minister expressed regret that Scotland and Wales had opted out of the application of Clause 14 in those two nations. He will understand that I think they have shown the utmost common sense in doing so, and I do not think it is a cause for regret at all. I certainly support what my noble friend Lady Humphreys had to say about that.
I will bring the Minister back to the fig leaf of consultation in new Section 4A in Clause 14. I said before that of the five bodies, four were completely hostile and one other was captured by the Cabinet. There is now a proposal here which means that one of those—PACAC—is captured by the Select Committee for the Department of Levelling Up Housing and Communities, and that Secretary of State will be making the strategy statement: that is something else that has got worse as a consequence of that.
I put back into play the point I made before, that if Scotland and Wales are not going to be part of new Section 4A and if PACAC is going to be neutered and transformed, it might be time to add the CSPL as one of those bodies which should be statutorily consulted as the creator and, up till now, the recommender of progress and developments on that Electoral Commission body. I would have thought that some voice for local government in that consultation should be statutory there, of course only for England, because Scotland and Wales have sensibly opted out.
We shall not oppose these amendments but we believe that the direction of travel on this suggests even more reasons for reforming the application of Clause 14 when we get to that debate.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction. Clearly, these amendments are technical and we agree with noble Lords that they are required.
I agree with my noble friends Lord Lipsey and Lord Foulkes that this enormous number of amendments was chucked at us in one go, with very little time to look at the detail, not just of what they say but of what the implications are. Noble Lords made an extremely important point about that. That has happened with other Bills as well. In debates on the Building Safety Bill, which I have also been working on, an enormous number—38 pages—of amendments were given to us with a very short time to assess them. Can the Minister take that away and think about it for future legislation? It is difficult for noble Lords to assess such amendments in a reasonable fashion.
We need to look at why the amendments are necessary. Clearly, as noble Lords have explained, it is to do with the devolved Administrations. When the Bill was originally proposed, it was for legislating on a UK-wide basis, and that included some areas where the devolved Parliaments in Scotland and Wales could legislate in respect of their own local and devolved elections. Clearly, the Government had to seek legislative consent Motions from the devolved Parliaments. Unfortunately for the UK Government, the Governments of Scotland and Wales both declined to lay consent Motions and requested that all aspects which relate to devolved matters be removed from the Bill, hence the large number of amendments.
I will just draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that, out of more than 350 legislative consent Motions, consent has been denied just 13 times, according to the Institute for Government. UK Bills have been redrafted previously when devolved Administration consent has been withheld under the Sewel convention. Can the Minister say why that option was not considered? Perhaps it was considered and we do not know about that, but it was rejected.
The Government have said that they were disappointed by the move—the Minister used the word “regrettable”—but said that they would respect this request by preparing the necessary amendments to the Bill, which is why we have so many before us in this group. I thank the Minister for apologising for this to the Committee—I appreciate that, as I am sure other noble Lords do.
I want to look at why the Welsh and Scottish Governments did not agree with the Bill. As the Government did not redraft it following the concerns raised but instead decided to plough on regardless, it is important to draw this to the attention of the Committee to fully understand the implications of many of its proposals.
In the Welsh Government, the Elections Bill was scrutinised by two Senedd committees: the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, and the Local Government and Housing Committee. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, on her excellent speech about disappointment in Wales over the Government’s behaviour around the Bill, particularly because they completely refused to listen to the findings of the Llywydd’s Committee.
The Local Government and Housing Committee report agreed with the Welsh Government’s memorandum that consent should not be granted, saying:
“The majority of the Committee believe any proposals to legislate on these devolved matters should be brought forward by the Welsh Government and subject to full scrutiny by the Senedd.”
The Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee also expressed concern at the lack of engagement between the UK Government and the Welsh Government. Can the Minister say why there was a lack of engagement —what went wrong with that process?
In addition, the committee agreed with the Welsh Government that some of the reserved measures would have a considerable impact on electoral administrators in Wales, particularly around voter ID. The same will happen in England. It highlighted the potential for voter and candidate confusion and complexity for electoral administrators if devolved elections happen close together or on the same day as a reserved election, as happened in May 2021. This could lead to a situation where postal and proxy voting rules were different and voter ID requirements in polling stations were different for polls happening together. My noble friend Lord Foulkes talked about the importance of consistency. Diversion will only cause confusion.
On voter ID, the committee also cited Electoral Reform Society Cymru concerns about poll clerks becoming
“bouncers at the ballot box”
and being required to turn away
“potentially thousands of would-be voters each election.”
Concerns have also been raised by Jess Blair, director of the Electoral Reform Society Cymru, who said that the Elections Bill makes
“sweeping changes to our democracy.”
She said that
“it looks like UK ministers have barely engaged with Wales or Scotland so far. This bill is being swiftly rammed through with little consultation”.
That echoes the concerns expressed already in your Lordships’ House. She continued:
“Moreover, the changes to the Electoral Commission represent a UK government power grab, with ministers given new controls over our elections watchdog. This is a dangerous and unprecedented move that the Welsh Government is right to oppose. This Elections Bill could lead to a ‘two tier franchise’ in Wales, with some elections banning those without ID, and others remaining open and free. Both the Welsh Parliament and Holyrood should use their powers to pause this power-grab bill, and secure changes to protect the right to vote.”
So they have done.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken in the debate. Perhaps I am allowed occasionally to speak as an individual from the Dispatch Box as well as a Minister, and I have not changed a view that I held as Back-Bencher, which is that the minimum number of amendments is desirable and that all Governments should seek to get Bills into the best possible condition before they come before your Lordships’ House. That is desirable, and I made an apology at the outset.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, and others pointed out, a significant number of the amendments arise from our decision to respect the recommendations of the Senedd and the decision of the Scottish Government. We believe that some of the issues concerned are important and that we should proceed to legislate, but, as I said in my opening remarks, we intend to continue discussions with the Scottish and Welsh Governments and would be interested to see how they proceed. We have welcomed the indication that they are considering legislating comparably in a number of areas covered.
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, asked whether there were areas where we were deferring to the Scottish nationalists. I would not put it that way. Some of the areas were where there was a disagreement. Your Lordships have already indicated that you might also disagree with Her Majesty’s Government—let us say, on the elements relating to the proposed strategy and policy document, and that is one area covered by these amendments, as the noble Baroness opposite said.
However, one consequence of the withholding of the consent Motion will be that the modernised undue influence offence will apply only to reserved and excepted elections. The Government’s view is that a UK-wide application of the measure would have delivered greater levels of integrity by upholding what we submit in this Bill should be a basic principle: that those guilty of an intimidation offence should not be allowed to stand at any election in the United Kingdom. That is why we sought legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament on those measures. Following these amendments, which we have introduced for the reasons that I have given, and if your Lordships give assent to the legislation, offenders will still face a five-year ban from standing for all elected offices in the UK save for the Scottish Parliament or Scottish local government. In respect of devolution, it will be for the Scottish Government to make the necessary changes themselves to disqualify individuals who are disqualified for such offences in other parts of the UK. Other areas of undue influence, sanctions against intimidation, measures on notional expenditure—referred to by the noble Baroness—and third-party campaigning will apply only to reserved and combined regulated electoral periods.
There will be divergence, and in some cases there is already divergence. There is already some minor divergence, for example, between the current version of the undue influence offence in the 1983 Act and the situation in Scotland. That has not so far caused any confusion, and we do not expect this to be any different. We would expect ambiguities to be straightforward for the courts to resolve.
Obviously, we will continue to watch events. I am not anticipating that the Scottish Government would not wish to legislate in this area, or indeed, as the noble Baroness said, that the Welsh Senedd might not. But we are submitting to Parliament the idea that Parliament should act in respect of things such as undue influence, intimidation and the measures on notional expenditure. We have taken the judgment to proceed—showing respect to the devolved Administrations not by waiting, but by excising and allowing them to make their own decisions and proposals.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked me a specific question on a specific matter, which I undertake to write to her about, and to place the letter in the House in the normal way. My noble friend Lord Hayward asked about the designation of the new committee. This is in the legislation, because the effect of one of the amendments before the House is to remove PACAC and put in the other House of Commons committee. Ultimately, if this Bill is not thrown out—as was impishly suggested at the start of our proceedings—it will go back to the other place for it to determine. I shall give way to my noble friend Lord Hayward in a moment.
It surely is the case that if a government department is responsible for an important subject such as elections, the scrutiny should be conducted by the committee of the other place that is responsible for scrutinising that department. As I said, that will be the committee that is being substituted, under the chairmanship of Mr Betts. I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Hayward (Con)
I am sorry if I did not make this clear, but I was asking a question about the future structure of committees, beyond the next change. I think I used the term future-proofing, as it takes into consideration Governments’ habit of changing structures. Is there a part of the Bill that will future-proof structural change, so that when we move on from one select committee having responsibility for overviewing elections matters to another committee having that responsibility, it will not require a change to primary legislation?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I have not had advice from the Box on this, and that is always a dangerous place for a Minister to be. However, I try to read carefully what I put before your Lordships’ House, and I think it is provided in proposed new section 4C(8) that,
“If the functions of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee at the passing of this Act with respect to electoral matters … become functions of a different committee of the House of Commons, the reference … to that Committee is to be read as a reference to the committee which for the time being has those functions”.
Maybe I am parsing that wrongly. If I am, I will apologise to my noble friend and to the Committee and come back with a better explanation—but sometimes a Minister just has to try his best at the Dispatch Box. Does the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, want to intervene?
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry to come back to something the Minister said just before the intervention of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, but I think the record will show that the Minister said that, when we have passed such amendments as we do, we send them back to the other place for it to determine. I do not think that is the procedure. I thought they came back here, and then we decided whether we accepted them or not. Will the Minister please set the record straight on the procedure?
Lord True (Con)
I think I did set the record straight on the procedure. According to the principle of amity—I have great amity and respect for the noble Lord—I was not going to pick up the fact that he took me to task for saying that someone had spoken for a long time. I did not say that; I said it was an interesting coincidence that a prepared speech was ready at very short notice. I did say to the Committee—I reiterate this, and the noble Lord can give me a few strictures if he sees my departing back—that I would sit through every hour that your Lordships require of me on this Bill.
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
I do not want to take up the Committee’s time on this. Perhaps we could have an exchange of letters.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
May I take up the point that the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, raised earlier? We are now about to agree—or otherwise—more than 100 amendments, after 42 minutes’ debate. Those amendments are vital in Scotland and Wales, as well as in England, and will determine the future of a whole range of aspects of the electoral structure. This is not giving the matter proper consideration. Perhaps in an unguarded moment, the Minister said that he was prepared to spend all the hours necessary to consider such matters, and we need to consider this in more detail on Report. How can we do that, and look at all the aspects relating to elections in Scotland and Wales as well as in England, without just passing them through in well under an hour?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the groupings put before your Lordships’ House are agreed through the usual channels. I can only serve the House in the way that has been agreed through those channels. As for the concern expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, I have nothing to add to my explanation. If the substitution of PACAC with the new appropriate House of Commons committee is agreed by your Lordships’ House, it will become a Lords amendment to the Bill, and will go back to the House of Commons and be considered by it appropriately. I have nothing further to add.
“(5) For the purposes of subsection (3A)—(a) the Commission’s “devolved Scottish functions” are the Commission’s functions in relation to—(i) Scottish Parliamentary general elections, elections held under section 9 of the Scotland Act 1998 (constituency vacancies), and local government elections in Scotland, so far as those functions do not relate to reserved matters within the meaning of the Scotland Act 1998, and(ii) referendums held throughout Scotland in pursuance of provision made by or under an Act of the Scottish Parliament;(b) the Commission’s “devolved Welsh functions” are the Commission’s functions in relation to—(i) general elections of members of Senedd Cymru,(ii) elections held under section 10 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 (elections for Senedd constituency vacancies),(iii) local government elections in Wales, and(iv) referendums held under Part 2 of the Local Government Act 2000 or Part 4 of the Local Government (Wales) Measure 2011 (referendums relating to local authority executive arrangements),so far as those functions do not relate to reserved matters within the meaning of the Government of Wales Act 2006.” Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment defines what is meant by the Commission’s “devolved Scottish functions” and “devolved Welsh functions” for the purposes of the new subsection (3A) added to the inserted section 4A of PPERA.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resume, and in doing so, I suggest that we do not resume the Committee stage of this Bill until 2.45 pm.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we have only done two of these amendments.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
As my noble friend the Minister quietly reminds me, the amendments will be moved in their place on the Marshalled List.
Ukraine Update
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, first, I state again the full support of Her Majesty’s Opposition for the position the Government have taken on Ukraine. We welcome the military support the Government have given to Ukraine and our NATO allies. It is important to start this debate with a restatement of that fact.
The reports of the barbaric bombing of a children’s hospital and a maternity ward in Mariupol are just the latest horrors to emerge from Ukraine. Goodness knows how many men, women and children have been killed, let alone soldiers. Now we learn that ever-more devastating weapons have been used, such as the thermobaric vacuum bomb, with awful photos and videos emerging of the dead and injured—civilians, not combatants. In light of this update, can the Minister tell the House what the Government’s assessment is of the current situation in Ukraine? Can she also update the House on the progress of the additional military support being provided for Ukraine, including, as we read in our papers today, the Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles? If NATO planes cannot enforce the no-fly zone, we must surely enable the Ukrainians to do so themselves.
Chillingly, we also learned today that western analysts believe that Russia is contemplating the use of chemical weapons. Can the Minister tell us any more about this assessment and what our response would be in the event that they were, shockingly, to be used? What work is going on with the International Criminal Court regarding any future action that may take place as a result?
There is also growing alarm at the prospect of the danger the war poses to nuclear plants at Chernobyl and elsewhere. Can the Minister say anything about what assessment has been made of that threat to us all, and what can be done?
There are also heart-breaking pictures of people desperate to leave, fleeing the country in terror. Can the Minister report any progress on the establishment of humanitarian corridors to enable people to leave, even in the midst of the military conflict?
I very much agree with the Defence Secretary who, in his Statement to the other place yesterday, spoke of the fear of many people here about what will happen next, as President Putin threatens countries that offer help to Ukraine. What do the Government expect to happen? These fears have been expressed to me and, I am sure, to many other noble Lords. I am sure that we would want to do all we can to reassure the people of our country.
In light of all this, is not the Defence Secretary right to have said the following yesterday in the other place? I very much agree with this and am sure everyone will. In talking about this fear, he said:
“We should take strength from the peoples right across Europe who are standing shoulder to shoulder to protect our values—our freedom, our tolerance, our democracy and our free press. That is our shield.”—[Official Report, Commons, 9/3/22; col. 327.]
I could not have put it better myself. I think the Defence Secretary spoke for all of us when he said that yesterday. Is not our unity of purpose and belief our greatest strength, even in these dark days? That unity exists here in this Chamber, as well as across the country. I assure the Minister of our full support on everything the Government are doing.
Lord Campbell of Pittenweem (LD)
In an expression with which the Minister will be familiar, brevitatis causa, I adopt the questions put by the noble Lord who spoke on behalf of the Opposition.
Two matters arise, though, on which I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments. The supply of the laser-guided Starstreak missiles is referred to in the Statement, and there is an element of doubt about whether it can reasonably be described as defensive. Might she expand a little on the Government’s thinking on that?
Turning to another element which I heartily support, there is an obligation or undertaking to make a substantial contribution to humanitarian aid, more of which will inevitably be needed. Many countries bordering Ukraine are taking its refugees, which must constitute a substantial economic burden for them. Will any of the sums referred to in the Statement be made available, in turn, to any of these countries?
This Statement is extraordinary because, on the one hand, it describes unmitigated barbarism and, on the other, breathtaking bravery. The targeting of civilians, their homes and refuges is certainly barbaric, but the bravery is shown in the extraordinary fact that this nation, against all odds, has mobilised to face an enemy described in the Statement as one with “overwhelming firepower”. This enemy targets the elderly, the vulnerable and the young. I ask, not in the hope of getting an answer: what sort of people attack a maternity hospital? Whether done by design or carelessness, by a bomb or, as has been suggested, artillery, it is still a war crime. There should be no doubt about that.
Now we have the use of thermobaric vacuum bombs, a particularly lethal form of attack. That has not emerged as some kind of intelligence information; it has been boasted about publicly on a Russian television network. There is too, as has already been mentioned, the threat of the use of chemical weapons. Indeed, that threat referred not only to chemical but possibly biological weapons. This undoubtedly raises significant matters for consideration perhaps in this country, but most certainly in Ukraine itself.
In spite of all this, the spirit of the citizens of Ukraine has not yet been broken. Russians claim that the people of Ukraine are their brothers and sisters. It is a very curious affection which relies on cruise missiles, helicopter gunships and artillery shells.
My concern is this: as Russian and perhaps Kremlin desperation increases, and as Mr Putin’s schedule is more and more incomplete, other considerations may arise in his mind. He has mentioned nuclear weapons on several occasions. Are we ready for that topic to be mentioned again? I draw to the Minister’s attention, although I suspect she does not need me to, the fact that Russian generals include the notion of nuclear war-fighting as part of their doctrine. It is an issue upon which the Government would be well advised to start consideration now.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Baroness Goldie) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Campbell, for their helpful, constructive and encouraging remarks. We are all clear—and were particularly so when we had the privilege of listening to President Zelensky—on the absolute unity of purpose to which the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, referred.
I think we all felt that tangible unity of purpose, not just across the political spectrum within the Parliaments but across the United Kingdom and with our allies and partners. I entirely agree that the unity of purpose is cement-like in bonding us all together in our determination to see off this tyrant, this tyranny and this completely unjustifiable and illegal war in Ukraine. Both noble Lords referred to some of the recent footage. By launching this unprovoked attack on Ukraine, President Putin has chosen this path of bloodshed and destruction, barbarism and butchery. That is what must be resisted. We cannot allow that evil to remain unchallenged and unaddressed. I am very grateful to noble Lords for articulating these sentiments.
I will try to deal with some of the specific points raised. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, asked for an assessment of where things are in Ukraine. It was clear from the Statement what a very significant catalogue of help has been given, so I will not rehearse that. I have some up-to-date information on where things may be. There is an estimate from the US that between 5,000 and 6,000 Russian troops have died in Ukraine. That is a matter of huge sorrow for the families of these soldiers, which we regret—they are deaths we consider to have been pointless and unnecessary. This folly, this evil excursion, should never have been embarked on.
Russian forces have once again made only minimal progress over the last 24 hours. The logistical issues that have hampered the Russian advance persist, as does the strong Ukrainian resistance. Ukrainian forces around Kyiv and Mykolaiv continue to frustrate Russian attempts to encircle the cities, but we must be realistic. Russian is likely seeking to reset and reposition its forces for renewed offensive activity in the coming days, including operations against the capital, Kyiv. It remains highly unlikely that Russia has successfully achieved its planned objectives according to its assessed pre-invasion plans, but we all know the carnage that has been wrought as it has pursued this completely unjustified and illegal incursion.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, also asked about chemical weapons. Yesterday, the White House warned that Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine or manufacture a false-flag attack, which we would find utterly reprehensible and condemn. We must be alert and constantly assessing our intelligence and reports of information coming out of Ukraine about what is happening.
That leads me on to the other issue, raised by the noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Campbell, the matter of war crimes. The International Criminal Court of course has a locus in this. We agree that it is vital that perpetrators of war crimes are held to account. I know that all noble Lords will hold that view. It is worth reflecting on the fact that 38 countries, co-ordinated by the United Kingdom, led the largest ever referral to the International Criminal Court, to ensure that Putin will be held to account for his war crimes. We are constantly reviewing that situation closely.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, raised the attack on Chernobyl, the former nuclear power-generation site. This is a matter of grave concern, as is the attention paid to the other nuclear site. We were extremely concerned about the reports about Chernobyl, but we understand that no radiation has been released and that this is not likely given the presence of emergency back-up power. What is regrettable is that it has been difficult for the Ukrainian authorities to access the plans and our call is that Russian must allow that access, to undertake essential maintenance work to ensure that power can be restored as best it can.
The noble Lords, Lord Coaker and Lord Campbell, raised Putin’s rhetoric. We are now familiar with that rhetoric, most of it intended to frighten, to intimidate, to destabilise and to cause anxiety. The view of the United Kingdom is that we, along with our partners and allies, are dealing with an extremely serious situation. We are focused on that. Your Lordships will agree, as I have inferred from the helpful comments from both noble Lords, that the UK is seen to be absolutely taking its share of heavy lifting in responding to this. That is our primary obligation. That is what we are doing to the best of our ability, effectively, with our partners and allies.
Humanitarian aid and safe corridors would, as a concept, be admirable and commendable, but delivery in practice, given what we have seen on the ground, is much more problematic. The best that we can do is to work with Ukraine and the neighbouring countries to ensure that with our humanitarian support, we give the best assistance that we can to those who are seeking to leave can do so safely.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, asked about Starstreak, the new initiative announced by the Secretary of State yesterday. I am no technical expert, and some of your Lordships will know this much better than me, but Starstreak is a high-velocity, man portable anti-air missile. We believe that this system will remain within the definition of weapons and will allow the armed forces of Ukraine to better defend their skies. I commend my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence, who has shown a penetrating insight on these matters and a very welcome practical reaction to what is happening. This is an important help to the Ukrainian forces.
The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, referred to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State’s words “standing shoulder to shoulder”. I thank the noble Lord for his kind remarks, which reflect the very welcome unanimity that we are seeing across the political spectrum. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, rightly praised the bravery of Ukraine. We are all full of admiration for the quite extraordinary resilience that the people of Ukraine are showing. It is absolutely incredible, magnificent and inspires us all to do our best to support them.
I think I have answered the points raised, but if I have omitted anything, I will refer it to the noble Lords.
Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)
My Lords, we have 20 minutes for Back-Bench questions. If noble Lords can ask a short question and do not make speeches, it will allow everyone to get a chance to ask a question.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, have the Government given any attention to the close parallels between the situation in Ukraine and the one in Georgia? Both states have adjoining boundaries with Russia and in both cases Russia has already attained illegal footholds, in Georgia through South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We have been supplying very helpful defensive weapons to Ukraine. Are the Government giving any attention to supplying defensive weapons also to Georgia, if that is what it requires?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
As my noble friend will be aware, and as I said earlier, the United Kingdom, both bilaterally with Ukraine and in concert with our NATO allies, has been concentrating on responding to the situation in Ukraine. That response has called for a specific commitment from the United Kingdom in relation to defence resource and defence equipment, and that is the focus of our thoughts at the moment.
Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have given notice of my question to the noble Baroness. On the question of Chernobyl, what is the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency at present? I take it that the whole world system has not somehow broken down, but Moscow and Kyiv are covered by the arrangements for Chernobyl and similar RBMK reactors and so on. I helped organise it 30 years ago. Can we say that there is some role for the International Atomic Energy Agency rather than having a squabble, with Russian people appearing in a highly radioactive room and saying that they are now running it?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I probably have limited information to give the noble Lord, but as I said earlier, we have what we think is a reasonably reliable report on the current state of the site. The Government are in contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and we continue to support its impartial efforts—that is important; the agency is impartial—to ensure the safety and security of Ukrainian nuclear facilities. Of course, Chernobyl is one of them, but there are others. There is no more specific information I can give to the noble Lord at the moment, but I reassure your Lordships that we continue to monitor the situation closely.
Baroness Meyer (Con)
My Lords, I hear that Lavrov is now accusing the Pentagon of developing biological weapons in Ukraine, which is clearly to justify what the Russians plan to do themselves. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that the Government should support the BBC as much as they can—BBC News Russian and the BBC World Service—to deny that fake news?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My noble friend makes a very important point. The extent of disinformation and misinformation pedalled by President Putin and his Government is a matter of huge frustration and one that causes anger. It is frustrating, but I reassure my noble friend that we are responding to that. We found that one of the best ways to respond is to release intelligence which we feel we can safely release. Therefore, to some extent, that effectively pre-empts what Russia may be minded to accuse people of doing.
Let me say in passing that I think we are all full of admiration for all the journalists who have been out in Ukraine and so bravely reporting back, not least for the BBC. I think all of us are watching our journalists and BBC correspondents broadcasting from Kyiv, and they seem to me to reflect the very best elements of journalistic courage and professionalism. I want to publicly commend that, but reassure my noble friend that we are doing everything we can to counter disinformation.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, Ukraine grows a fifth of the world’s wheat, and the prime planting time is the first 10 days of March—that is, exactly now—but this is not happening. We already have bad harvests from the USA and Canada, and not only will Ukraine suffer massive food insecurity itself: it supplies 90% of Lebanon’s wheat, about 50% of Egypt’s, and all along the north African coast. Prices are expected to double from what they were in 2008, when they were one of the lead reasons for the Arab spring. I know we cannot do something about this from here, but what discussions are the Government having with the WHO and the FAO? This is a crisis we can see coming towards us really fast.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
The noble Baroness makes a really important point and one that has registered with many people, not least Governments. It is somewhat wide of my area of departmental responsibility, but I hear what she says and will reflect that back to the department.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, many serious analysts expected Kyiv to be taken via Belarus within two days or so. Clearly President Putin did not factor in the remarkable resistance of the people of Ukraine and their morale, in spite of the imbalance of forces. Quite rightly, we have decided to give sophisticated weaponry to Ukraine, but that surely needs very good training. Where will this training be done—outside the borders of Ukraine?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I can confirm the first part of the noble Lord’s question: yes, there will be a degree of training required. He will understand that, for reasons of operational discretion, I am not going to be more explicit about that.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I am sure my noble friend will agree that that symbolic afternoon on Tuesday was one of the most remarkable in the history of Parliament. Symbolism does have its places. Could I suggest that Parliament—both Houses—should nominate President Zelensky for the Nobel Peace Prize? Could I also suggest that it would be another symbolic gesture to underline our unity if the leader of the Opposition were invited to Cabinet meetings when Ukraine is on the agenda?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My noble friend makes a number of interesting observations. I am sure that we are all conscious of the extraordinary attributes of President Zelensky, and everyone will be reflecting on how we best acknowledge that. As to matters of Cabinet protocol, my understanding is that the leader of the Opposition is, in fact, briefed on Privy Council terms. I think my noble friend Lord Coaker would confirm that the Government have been as explicit as they can with intelligence and information, and I am not aware of any dissatisfaction with that.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
Notwithstanding that last answer, have the Government made any assessment that could be made public about the possibility of red lines, particularly in relation to biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and how that might be communicated to the western public if such weapons were used?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
It is a matter of international law that chemical weapons are proscribed. That is one of the areas of concern; there was speculation on the part of the White House in the United States that Russia might be thinking of this. It is very difficult to talk of things like red lines. Nuclear deterrents exist, and they exist within international law. While some may disagree with that, they do exist; indeed, we are a country with one of these important deterrents. Our focus at the moment in this complicated and distressing situation, daily unfolding before us in Ukraine, is how we collectively do our best to respond to that by supporting the Ukrainians in defending themselves and in showing our solidarity—this unity of purpose to which reference has been made—with the President of Ukraine and his people.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, with thousands dead, millions displaced and little talk of settlement, why not push the case I have repeatedly suggested since 22 February, before the invasion: no NATO membership for Ukraine for 20 years, pending earlier agreement in the Normandy contact group; protectorate status within Ukraine for Donetsk and Luhansk, under international monitoring arrangements; and Azov-associated battalions, Donbass militia, associated paramilitaries and all Russian forces withdrawing from theatre and, where appropriate, disbanding? The only downside is Putin’s possible survival under that scenario—we should remember, then, that our role is not regime change.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
If I may commence my response to the noble Lord by picking up on that last point, our role is to support a sovereign country which has been the victim of a completely illegal attack in which war is being waged within its boundaries. It is for that sovereign country to come to its own decisions about how it wants to see the future. It knows that it has the unstinting support of the great majority of global powers, and that has been manifest in not just statements of support but activity, for example at the United Nations. I suggest that these matters have to rest with the Ukrainian Government; it is a sovereign state.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Minister is completely right: it is not for Britain or anyone else to negotiate away parts of Ukraine. I applaud the military assistance provided by the Government to the people of Ukraine and ask what more we can do to meet the central request in that remarkable address by President Zelensky the other day, which is to keep Ukrainian skies safe. As I say, I very much welcome the assistance that has been provided and the new equipment that was discussed yesterday, but if the Americans are not prepared to facilitate the transfer of those Polish jets to the Ukrainians, what might we be able to do, with other countries, to assist the Poles in making those planes available to the Ukrainians?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
The discussions to which the noble Lord refers have indeed been taking place between Poland and the US. We have been quite clear that it is for Poland to make its decision and that we will support whatever that decision is. So far as the United Kingdom response is concerned—as manifest in the recent announcement of the Starstreak anti-aircraft missile—we readily, frequently and robustly assess what is needed and what we are able to provide. That is the basis on which we will continue.
The noble Lord will be aware that when people talk about creating no-fly zones, we get into very difficult territory where a fine balance has to be observed between helping Ukraine and not escalating this conflict into a European or third world war. We are very mindful of that, as are all our NATO partners, and those members have had the fullest and most extensive discussions about that aspect.
To reassure the noble Lord, I said earlier that Russian planes and helicopters have been shot down, and that has been achieved with the existing anti-aircraft missiles available. This new missile is a very powerful piece of equipment, which again will allow the Ukrainians to preserve operational activity in their airspace but deal with enemy aircraft overhead.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, I warmly welcome today’s announcement that Roman Abramovich, another Putin crony, is going to be sanctioned. However, I ask the Minister and HMG to look at a possible but counterintuitive idea: if some of these oligarchs are willing to attack Putin and the invasion, disavow the regime completely and help the Russian opposition from this country, then the sanctions on them could be lifted.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
To be honest, I think it is premature even to be discussing that. The sanctions are part of a universal and, I think, very effective ligature around the Russian economy and Russian financial activity, and anyone would be very wary of dismantling any part of that composite edifice. At the end of the day, as we speak, this illegal invader, with his military, is in Ukraine wreaking carnage, and our duty is to do our level best to stop him and help the Ukrainians defend themselves.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, Mariupol has been without water for five days now and children are dying of thirst. Can more be done to provide food and water to those who are trapped by this terrible war?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
I understand the noble Baroness’s concern, which I think is shared right across the Chamber. What we, as the United Kingdom Government, are doing, as she will be aware, is offering an extensive package of humanitarian aid. The total offer is £395 million, and that has been used in various ways. The important thing, as she identifies, is how to get aid into Ukraine. The funding that we are providing will help agencies to respond and, I hope, create a lifeline for Ukrainians, with access to basic necessities, particularly medical supplies such as medicines, syringes, dressings and wound care packs. Indeed, one important request from the Government of Ukraine has been in the area of medical supplies. We have provided £3.5 million to fund medical supplies to Ukraine, and medical items have been flown to the region. They came from the DHSC and from the NHS in Scotland.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, has it created any problems for the UK Government that Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister of a Government who have no responsibilities whatever for foreign affairs or defence, has suggested that we should consider a no-fly zone?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
As the noble Lord will be aware, the United Kingdom Government have been approaching this crisis at the global level with other NATO member states. We have been doing that to try to provide a concerted and properly thought-through response to this crisis. Member states, including the United Kingdom, have behaved responsibly and effectively, and have shown shrewdness in assessing what is possible and what is not. I commend their collective judgment on the matter.
Viscount Waverley (CB)
My Lords, I am sure the Minister will correct me if I am wrong but I believe that issues relating to Ukraine being involved with NATO membership are actually contained in its constitution. That would need to be changed, and it cannot be changed until there is peace.
Grave situations require disconcerting questions. Red lines have been mentioned. Do HMG have red lines in the event of Russia using chemical weapons in Ukraine? What is HMG’s assessment, analysis and response to reports that Russian mercenary groups are being deployed in Ukraine, including but not limited to Wagner Group and related organisational offshoots, including foreign fighters from Syria? When are we going to call enough as being enough? Finally, what can be done to cut through the fog of disinformation for the people of Russia so that they know what is being conducted by Russia in their name?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
To pick up the point about disinformation, as I briefly alluded to in reply to my noble friend Lady Meyer, we are taking steps. We try to find channels of communication into Russia, whether through social media or whatever, to relay the facts of what is happening in Ukraine. We hope that some of that information is now getting into Russia and being disseminated.
As to what we do if the conflict escalates, we constantly —again, in conjunction with our NATO allies—appraise and assess what is happening and then, after discussion, conceive the appropriate response to it. That is what we have been doing and shall continue to do.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Does my noble friend accept that it is rather unhelpful to describe lethal weapons being sent to the Ukraine as either offensive or defensive? Weapons can be used in either role; it just depends on how they are deployed.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
From the outset, we gave Ukraine anti-tank missiles—and we were one of the first countries to do so—but we have been clear that these are bits of equipment that they use to defend themselves against attack; if there is no attack then there is no need to use them. We cannot leave Ukraine in a position where it is unable to defend itself while the rest of us sit back and shed tears. We are trying to put our money where our mouth is and give the Ukrainians what they need. I think we are managing to do that. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell, raised the issue of Starstreak and asked whether it fell within the broad definition of what we understood to be legitimate and reasonable in the circumstances. We construe it to be so.
Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)
I do not wish to go into operational details but could my noble friend the Minister tell us what steps the Government might be taking or discussions they might be having with British business to ensure that our businesses are ready in the event of a possible Russian cyberattack?
Baroness Goldie (Con)
As my noble friend will be aware, the United Kingdom has its National Cyber Security Centre, which is well placed to deal with and anticipate such attacks. It enjoys a close relationship not just across government departments but with those departments’ client users. Obviously, we can never guarantee that cyberattacks will not happen, but we will certainly do our level best to anticipate them and, were that to happen, to swiftly manage and restore communication.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for answering the questions as fully as she has while skilfully not answering in such a way as to give away too much information at such a sensitive time. I think she has done brilliantly.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
But two noble Lords got up at the same time. We must proceed.
Home Office Visas for Ukrainians
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my right honourable friend the Home Secretary to an Urgent Question in another place on refugees from Ukraine. The Statement is as follows:
“Mr Speaker, I am grateful for this opportunity to update the House on the Government’s humanitarian response to Putin’s depraved war on Ukraine. As the House knows, the UK’s humanitarian support for Ukraine has been developed following close consultation with its Government. On 4 March, I launched the Ukraine family scheme. It applies to immediate and extended Ukrainian family members, and everyone eligible is granted three years’ leave to enter or remain. Today, I want to set out further changes that I am making to make the process quicker and simpler.
I have two overarching obligations: to meet my first responsibility of keeping the British people safe and to meet their overwhelming demand that we do all we can to help Ukrainians. No Home Secretary can take these decisions lightly, and I am in daily contact with the intelligence and security services, which provide me with regular threat assessments. What happened in Salisbury showed what Putin is willing to do on our soil. It also demonstrated that a small number of people with evil intentions can wreak havoc on our streets.
This morning, I received assurances that enable me to announce changes to the Ukraine family scheme. Based on the new advice I have received, I am now in a position to announce that vital security checks will continue on all cases. However, I can announce that from Tuesday Ukrainians with passports will no longer need to go to a visa application centre to give their biometrics before they come to the UK. Instead, once their application has been considered and the appropriate checks completed, they will receive direct notification that they are eligible for the scheme and can come to the UK.
In short, Ukrainians with passports will be able to get permission to come to the UK fully online from wherever they are and will be able to give their biometrics once in the UK. That will mean that visa application centres across Europe can focus their efforts on helping Ukrainians without passports. We have increased the capacity at those centres to 13,000 appointments a week. That streamlined approach will be operational as of Tuesday, 15 March, in order to make the relevant IT changes.
I will, of course, update the House if the security picture changes and if it becomes necessary or feasible to make further changes to protect our domestic homeland security. Threat assessments are always changing and we will always keep our approach under review. In the meantime, I once again salute the heroism of the Ukrainian people.”
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that, but the Home Office’s response so far to Ukrainians fleeing Russian bombardment has been shambolic. The Home Secretary seems to be making it up as she goes along. Desperate people—families with young children—have travelled hundreds of miles because the Home Office cannot get a grip on where its own visa centre is. Why are the changes announced today not being made for another five days? What do people do today, tomorrow or the next day? There are Army troops on standby to help: why have they not been brought in to staff emergency centres?
The Minister mentioned people with passports: what happens to those without passports or who fled bombs without grabbing their documents because they were being bombed? What about, for example, the Ukrainian nurse working in our hospitals? Can the Minister guarantee that her family would be welcome here? There are so many gaps and so many holes in it, notwithstanding the announcements that have been made today to deal with the human suffering that we see in Ukraine. The Government have to get a grip and get a grip now.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
My Lords, as to why the changes will not come in until Tuesday, it will be necessary to get the IT systems up and running, and it will take until Tuesday to get that done. What that will do, however, is free up the system generally for those without passports to be helped at VACs, and the whole system will be speeded up that much more quickly. It might assist the noble Lord—and I have given updated figures every day that I have taken Questions this week—to know that, as I understand it, as of this morning, we have now granted 1,305 visas.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, those seeking sanctuary in the UK crossing the channel in small boats, many of whom do not have passports, undergo biometrics and security checks in the UK. Why can Ukrainians, without family in the UK or passports, and nationals of other countries fleeing Putin’s war, not do the same? In particular, women, children and the elderly are unlikely to present security threats to the UK, so what is stopping the Government lifting visa requirements, as EU states have done?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
As I said to the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, yesterday, one thing that we will not do is dispense with security checks. But there will be a lot more capacity at VACs for those without passports, because those with passports can now come here and have their biometrics taken here.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
Will the Minister please clarify whether the new opening-up of the scheme for those with visas applies to those who do not have family here, but are coming under a sponsorship scheme? Will she say how sponsors are being collated; whether it is correct that it is the Department for Levelling Up that is responsible for all of this, and how it is working with the Home Office; and whether the Government have recruited recently retired Border Force staff, who are expert at spotting problems, to come in and help man, so that we can bring in the thousands of people who otherwise risk dying of cold, apart from anything else?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
As I said to the House yesterday, the humanitarian sponsorship pathway is going to be a DLUHC operation. Obviously, I will be working in close contact with DLUHC. In fact, I was speaking to Richard Harrington this morning, and we will be working closely together to ensure that this sponsorship pathway operates smoothly. On whether the biometrics will be dispensed with for those on that scheme, I cannot answer the noble Baroness, because I am not sure that that has even been decided yet, but I will certainly update her on that.
Lord Porter of Spalding (Con)
My Lords, the changes are welcome, but they are far too late. We were arguing the case for people to be able to come in without visas last week. As the Minister has already mentioned Salisbury, I am not sure, but I seem to think that I saw pictures of the people who were allegedly guilty of those offences, and they did have passports and visas. The visas were, therefore, not the security system that we would have hoped they would be, so I do not see why we are still faffing about around the edges. It is too serious to have every move that we are making being dragged out too slowly. We need to get our finger out and get on with it.
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I understand my noble friend’s points, but we will continue to carry out security checks on anyone who comes in. The point is that Ukrainians with passports will be able to come straight here and have their biometrics taken. That will free up the system much more quickly.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, perhaps the Minister could help us a little. Ukrainians are arriving, some of them with leave to remain, but they have no recourse to public funds. For example, yesterday my chaplain at the airport in Luton was phoning me saying, “We have 12 people. They have been put up for a week in a hotel by Border Force, but that is going to come to an end on Monday.” We are currently trying to raise money and funds, and to identify places for these 12 people. This is a really serious problem facing us immediately. We want to help, but there is a very real danger that, if we cannot get the legalities sorted out, there are going to be people—particularly single people—sleeping rough by next Monday. Will clear guidance be given to local authorities, and can we try to find a way through some of these problems, which need to be addressed now?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I am assuming that the right reverend Prelate is not referring to people coming in under the family scheme, because clearly they would have recourse to public funds. I am assuming that he is talking about Ukrainians seeking asylum here. Ukrainians coming here under the family scheme, by its very nature, will have family members here. I will take this offline and discuss it with the right reverend Prelate, because certain things in what he is saying do not seem to fit the scheme that we are talking about.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, do we have any evidence as to how many Ukrainians actually have a passport?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I do not know; I can find out for the noble Lord.
Baroness Meyer (Con)
My Lords, when history books are written, the United Kingdom will be judged as much by its humanitarian response as by its supply of weapons to Ukraine. Can my noble friend the Minister assure the House that instructions on how to apply for visas are written in clear English, in Ukrainian and in Russian, and that the new online service will not crash as soon as it opens on Tuesday?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I can certainly undertake to do that for my noble friend.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, it is not as if we have not had weeks of notice that this was going to happen. What has been going on? Has the Minister looked at today’s papers—not necessarily the Guardian but the Conservative-supporting papers? They are all appalled. British public opinion is appalled at what has been going on. If Ukrainians who do not have family connections wish to seek safety here, what is the pathway for them to do it? Will there be limits? Will they be able to come easily or will it be more difficult? This morning, I had a desperate email from somebody asking if we could take 80 orphans. What is the policy?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The noble Lord might recall me talking this week about the humanitarian sponsorship pathway, which is for Ukrainians without family in the UK who want to come here. There is no cap on the number of people who can come. All they need is a sponsor. As was mentioned previously, we have been inundated with offers. One thing that I discussed this morning with Richard Harrington was how we capture that generosity and ensure that the people who want to help can help.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, we capture that generosity by being efficient. Will my noble friend tell me what is the status of Lille? On Monday, refugees were told to go to Calais and on Tuesday they were told to go to Lille. Where do these poor people go?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
There will be a temporary facility at Lille, but I want to put in context for my noble friend and others in the House the number of people who went to Paris compared with those who went to VACs in Poland. The number in Rzeszów and Warsaw was 10 times the number going to Paris, for obvious reasons. People are far safer to go to the nearest VAC as they exit Ukraine.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness is very bold in giving assurances about the robustness of the IT, which I was going to ask about. As well as information being available in the correct language, will she explain more broadly how information will be disseminated and made available to all those at the border who must be very uncertain and have great difficulty in finding that information?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
The noble Baroness raises a crucial question because those who are not well informed at the border could potentially find themselves at the mercy of traffickers. There is a lot of activity and assistance at the border to ensure that people are signposted to the right place. Dispensing with the need for people with Ukrainian passports to go to a VAC will speed up their passage here.
Elections Bill
Thursday 10th March 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Elections Act 2022 View all Elections Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 96-I(b) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (10 Mar 2022)
Lord Collins of Highbury
“(5) This section expires at the end of the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which the Elections Act 2022 is passed.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would prevent a strategy and policy statement more than 12 months after this Act is passed.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Hayman, I will speak to this amendment while she searches for her glasses.
These are classic Committee amendments in which we try to probe exactly what lies behind these clauses and in particular the clause that we do not agree with that we debated earlier. It is important to address the question that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, asked: what is the question to which this clause gives an answer? It is not clear, and I hope that we can address that with this amendment and the series in the following group to try to elicit some answers.
I was intrigued by the explanation of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that the statement is about the political environment that the commission operates in. That can change rapidly, not least the closer we get to a general election. Now that we do not have fixed-term Parliaments—not that that really determined when a general election could be held—it is not clear what timetable would be involved in this requirement to produce a statement, which the commission “must” take cognisance of. Let us have some answers from the Minister.
I will repeat the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Butler: what are we trying to solve here? What is the commission not doing that the Government think it should be doing at the moment? It is not clear. I have not heard a single criticism about the failure of the commission to carry out its statutory functions. I have heard political criticisms. The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is fortunately not in her place so I will say what I want to say. I am prepared to accept that Parliament agreed to a referendum, and Parliament will abide by the result of that referendum and the Government do so, but I am not in favour of referendums. I am in favour of parliamentary democracy. I know who used referendums a lot: Hitler used referendums to store up his power, and so does Putin. It is important to understand what we are talking about here, which is a body that oversees statutory functions in the conduct of elections.
Therefore, with these probing amendments we are seeking to know—despite the detail of what the clause says—how frequently the Minister thinks these statements will be issued. When will the first be issued? Will it be six months before the next general election? Could it disrupt the way that people, political parties and civil society react to the general election? Let us hear it. How often does the Minister think this should be reviewed? The Bill says that this is something we should expect every five years and that it will fall into the cycle of elections, but our political environment is not as stable as that, so there may be other issues that prompt this. I would like some answers to those questions.
Also, what is the Minister’s expectation for how long it will take to produce the statement and the requirement for consultation? What does he expect between the start of the process and its end? What does he think the implications will be not only for the Electoral Commission but for the political process itself and the way political parties operate? It is really important that we get some answers to those questions.
I turn back to the point the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, raised. I have been intimately involved with the Electoral Commission, certainly for the three-year period I was general secretary of the Labour Party. One of the innovations I thought was really good was that the Electoral Commission has the experience of people with quite detailed knowledge of the electoral process. It has members who are aware of the way political parties operate. It is not working in isolation; it has that experience.
One of my roles was to nominate somebody to the commission. It has a Member of this House, the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, who is a friend of mine. Even though we are in opposite parties, we have collaborated in better understanding the rules and regulations that operate on political parties. Sadly, the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, cannot be here this afternoon but I think all members of the Electoral Commission, even though they are nominated—some of them by political parties—take their responsibilities and independence very seriously. I think if he were here the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, would explain that that was why he did not sign the letter from the Electoral Commission; he is a Member of this House, and it would perhaps have been inappropriate. But that does not stop him taking his responsibilities on the Electoral Commission seriously.
I do not get it; I really do not get what this is all about. What are the Government trying to correct or do? There are mechanisms now, as we heard in the previous debate, about accountability, the Speaker’s Conference and representations. Of course, just as importantly, political parties nominate to the commission—not just the Conservative Party or the Labour Party, but the Lib Dems and the Scottish nationalists have representation on that body. It is independent representation, but they take their statutory responsibilities seriously.
Let us get some answers if we can, not only to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, but also to when the first statement will be produced. How long will it take? How close will it be to the next general election? What impact will such a statement have on the conduct of that general election? These are vital questions, irrespective of a future debate on whether the clause stands part. We need answers to these questions because they will determine our attitude to whole aspects of this Bill. I beg to move.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, has ranged rather more widely than the contents of the two amendments in this group, but I respect that Committee is an opportunity for probing detailed aspects. I want to speak only to the second amendment about the length of time you would normally expect a statement to exist.
We have to see these as strategic statements; they are about strategies and policies. Too short a timeframe simply would not work. The presumption in the Bill is five years, which is a reasonable medium-term timeframe for giving some stability, with the option for reviews earlier on various grounds listed in the Bill. I support the general concept of five years being a good starting point, recognising that there can be occasions when this has to be revised. But they should not be picked up and looked at every year or in the run-up to an election, because they should be dealing with issues that have a longer duration.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
Can I just ask the noble Baroness a question? If she looks back over the last 20 years, or even over the period of the Electoral Commission’s existence, what have the gaps between general elections been?
Baroness Noakes (Con)
I do not think that is a relevant question because I do not believe the statement is going to be used to try to fine-tune what is done in relation to any particular election. It will be about more strategic things like getting more participation from certain groups in the democratic process and those sorts of issues.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I am sorry to interrupt but I think this is an important dialogue to have. We bandy around the words, “strategy” and “long-term strategy” but what we have not had from the Government—though the noble Baroness has attempted to give us an answer—is the answer to: what is behind this clause on this statement? Why do we need this statement?
I agree with the noble Baroness that one of the important things, and what this Bill should be about, is how we increase participation. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is unfortunately not here, but this Bill should be about what we do to increase participation in our democratic process. How do we ensure that more people are able to participate and what do we do to take down the barriers that inhibit participation? If the noble Baroness is saying that this statement will be about that, why are those things not in the Bill?
Baroness Noakes (Con)
I am going to let my noble friend the Minister answer all this in detail because I am not a government spokesman on this. I was merely offering my opinion on the timeframe. When we get to the stand part debate, I am going to offer some other opinions about why these statements are useful in the context of regulators.
My concern is to see that these statements are strategic in nature and that means not short term in nature. They should be seen in that context. The timeframe of five years is fine for that, but I am going to leave my noble friend the Minister to respond in more detail to the broader questions that the noble Lord has asked.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, these amendments may lead to some mitigation of the effects of the Government taking control of the strategy and policy of the Electoral Commission if the Bill is passed in its present form. If Clauses 14 and 15 are not taken out of the Bill, as they should be, we can still limit some of the damage by preventing the party in power continually changing the statement in accordance with its own interests.
Amendment 3 would not allow a new statement 12 months after the Act is passed, while Amendment 13 tests how often the Government might seek to change such a statement. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, pointed out, the amendments probe the Government’s intention in relation to the timings and processes of the proposed strategy and policy statement to which the Electoral Commission will be subject. The governing party appears to want to emasculate the role of the independent watchdog.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, since the Minister will no doubt address the question that the noble Lord, Lord Collins, raised, perhaps I may just add a supplementary. In addition to asking what problem Clauses 14 and 15 address, why is a strategy and policy statement thought the necessary solution to it?
Lord Kerslake (CB)
My Lords, may I add a further supplementary question? In the Written Ministerial Statement, the Minister in the other place, Chloe Smith, said:
“In recent years, some across the House have lost confidence in the work of the Commission”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/6/21; col. 11WS.]
Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether that is the view of some across the House of Commons or of the Government? Is this change about an issue of confidence or is it something different?
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, it is interesting to follow the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, who says that this is a strategic statement that is there for five years and not for revision. If we look at page 24 of the Bill, new Section 4E says that there is a power to revise the statement and that the Secretary of State may revise the statement at any time. It goes on further to say that:
“The power under subsection (1) may be exercised … on the Secretary of State’s own initiative”.
If this is a strategic statement, it then goes on to say about revision on page 25 under new Section 4E(4):
“The Secretary of State may determine in a particular case that section 4C(2) (consultation requirements) does not apply in relation to the revised statement.”
The view of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is that this is a five-year strategy where the Secretary of State does not want to intervene because it is about the long-term view of the commission. But the Secretary of State can solely decide that not only are they going to revise but that no consultation is needed. May I ask the Minister under what circumstances and for what purpose would the Secretary of State wish to revise the strategy and policy statement? Under what circumstances would the Secretary of State deem it inappropriate to consult on the new statement, particularly if we follow the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that this is a strategic view where the Secretary of State does not need to get involved on day-to-day issues because the strategic direction is set for five years? Why have the revision policy and, particularly, why can the Secretary of State determine alone to change the statement without consultation?
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, if I may respond to that, I was careful to say that it a broad presumption of five years and that the Bill allows for other opportunities, which I am sure my noble friend the Minister will explain. The noble Lord failed to deal with the fact that the revision can be considered at the request of the commission as well—it is not just a one-way street—and that is provided for in new Section 4E.
Lord Scriven (LD)
If noble Lords will allow me, the point I was raising was the basis on which the noble Baroness said that it was a strategic five-year statement and therefore the noble Lord, Lord Collins, had got the concept wrong. If it is a five-year statement that gives a long-term vision for the commission, the Secretary of State should not have sole power to revise without consultation. That is the point that I was making. It is in the Bill.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, on consultation, may I just come back to the Government’s response to the committee’s fifth report, which I read out earlier? They said that suggestions to set minimum timeframes for consultation were disproportionate and unnecessarily burdensome. This is just not good practice. We must have proper consultation when we are looking at anything that changes our governance procedures.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord opposite for tabling these amendments. Let me say that it is entirely proper, legitimate and normal to table probing amendments. There is a limit to which probes will get answers because I am not going to be led into hypothetical sets of circumstances.
We all know that electoral law and practice evolves over time and things happen that are inconceivable at the time we may happen to legislate. Who would have conceived, for example, of the practices seen in Tower Hamlets in those local elections? We have collectively—I think there will be agreement across the House on this—moved to adapt the law and our practices and to respond to change. It is reasonable that there should be some flexibility. I do not wish to get into a detailed challenge—
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I was intimately involved in Tower Hamlets. I was general secretary and suspended the mayor from membership of the party at the time. Can the Minister answer the specific question? The law at the time dealt with abuses in Tower Hamlets; in what way will this statement address any inadequacies? I am not even sure that there were inadequacies in the law because it was able to address the problems in Tower Hamlets.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I hope the statement and some of the things that the Government suggest might be in it will be considered unexceptionable when we come to it. I hope people will examine it. I was venturing some response to the question of why anyone should consider that anything needed to be said to the Electoral Commission. I was about to preface it—before the noble Lord quite reasonably got up—by saying that I did not want to get into any kind of generalised criticism of the Electoral Commission because one respects its independence and its role.
Since I have mentioned Tower Hamlets, this was a case where the Electoral Commission did not act in a particularly appropriate way. It did not check that the Tower Hamlets First party even had a bank account. It did nothing to tackle the activities of the corrupt mayor. Election judge Mawrey noted in the Tower Hamlets case:
“It can be said that because the Commission rubber-stamped the application for registration it may be inferred that the Commission was satisfied. All one may say, with the greatest of respect for the Commission, that the enquiries into the structures of”—
Tower Hamlets First—
“cannot have been excessively rigorous.”
The election judge was critical in that case.
I am sure that the Electoral Commission has learned lessons from that, and one would hope that this would be the case, and I do not make any imputation or reference to existing members of the Electoral Commission. The Committee on Standards in Public Life said in its report,
“In the course of gathering evidence”—
and this is not me or the Government, this is the committee—
“we heard some affecting personal stories of a small number of MPs and campaigners who have been regulated by the Electoral Commission. Their experiences were clearly extremely difficult and stressful – both personally and professionally – and we think there are changes that can be made to improve the way the Electoral Commission approaches its role.”
We may have differences about how we should proceed in a set of circumstances but, if I am asked if there is any evidence that in the past perhaps not everything was perfect in that world—well, I have just given two examples that are not from the Government. One is from a judge, and the other is from the Committee on Standards in Public Life.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
May I interrupt again? The Minister jumps from the specific to the general and keeps saying that this statement is going to be innocuous. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, says it is going to be about five-year plans and longer-term strategies, and then the Minister talks about specific illegal acts and the failure to address some of them. We are jumping around. If there are problems—and this is why I jumped up before—particularly on postal votes, let us put in laws to address them. But we are not talking about new laws and new regulations; we are talking about how the Electoral Commission operates within its statutory functions, and the Government now want to interfere in that. This is the issue that concerns everyone. The Minister jumps from broad, innocuous strategy to specific regulation—very dangerous.
Lord Stunell (LD)
I appreciate the Minister giving way. I hope that his response will include a little more about what the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended as the solution to the problem that the Minister quite rightly drew to our attention, because the solution recommended by the committee to the Government is not included in the Bill, and the solution brought forward by the Government is condemned by the committee.
Lord True (Con)
I was answering the question I was asked in Committee; I was asked in a supplementary question, and then in another, to give an example of where there has been a complaint about the Electoral Commission, so I tried to serve the Committee by giving two answers. Perhaps that was ill-advised, but I am happy for them to stand on the record. I did say that we would be discussing on this legislation what the appropriate response is. We think that the measures that the Government have put forward, and we will debate this shortly, are proportionate and reasonable, and they are not a direction. When we see what is contained therein, they neither constrain the role of the Electoral Commission, nor direct it.
The Government oppose these amendments. Amendment 3 proposes that the power to designate a statement expires after 12 months of the Act being passed. It is unclear if the intention is that the initial statement should be designated within 12 months or that no statement should be enforced after 12 months. If the limitation is intended to attach to the initial statement, the Government’s view would be that it would add unnecessary pressure to the timetable and could curtail the amount of time afforded to the consultation.
I cannot anticipate the length for production—I was asked that, and I do not think I can respond in writing on this, because it is provisional, in a sense. Parliament has to agree the concept first, then the consultation has to proceed. It does say within the Bill that, in a subsequent review, the review period would be nine months; that is what is envisaged in the case of a review, but in saying that I am not making any commitment on progress, should Parliament agree to these procedures. I am not in a position to do so. If the statement, as drafted, prevents any further statement or revision beyond the initial 12-month period, we could not accept that, because we believe that it is important that, subsequent to any additional statement that Parliament may agree, the Government of the day and the Secretary of State should have the power to make changes and to review to ensure that it remains up to date with any emerging concerns.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
Before the noble Lord sits down, I wish to say that one of the issues that I raised, and why these probing amendments are there, is to ask not only how quickly and regularly the report will be produced, but what the implications are of a report being produced very close to a general election. Does the Minister think that there are any implications to that, and that it may impact on the political process, particularly how political parties operate?
Lord True (Con)
When one looks at the areas which are covered in the indicative proposals, I do not think that there are things that would seriously affect the conduct of elections. The Government submit that these are matters which, in the current circumstances, would be of ongoing importance—improving accessibility, increasing participation, combatting foreign interference in UK elections and improving transparency.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
Just on that last point—I keep interrupting, but this is Committee and I think it is important that we get clear answers—if a strategy paper said it is okay to take money from Russian donors, would that not have an implication for a general election? Would it not impact on certain political parties? Maybe even look at its reverse: perhaps certain money from trade unions should not be accepted. The funding of political parties is a critical issue and, if it is in this indicative statement, it will have huge implications for a general election.
Lord True (Con)
The permissibility of donations is a matter of the law of the land, and we will be considering the law on political donations later. As the noble Lord will see, the issue is publishing clear and easily accessible information about spending and donations, which is a job done by the Electoral Commission, but it would probably be prudent to look at foreign interference at this time. I think that would be supported across the House. I give you that as an illustrative example.
Lord Scriven (LD)
Before the Minister sits down, I must press him further to answer the two questions that I asked. First, this is a strategic document: what would a Minister require, on his or her own initiative, to change a strategy? Because a strategy is there for the long term. It is not about day-to-day issues. Regardless of what happens, you keep to your strategy—that is one of the key issues of leadership. Could the Minister give the Committee examples of something, rather than general “unforeseen circumstances”, that might happen that would require a Minister to intervene to change a strategy?
Secondly, the Minister did not answer my question about why they would wish to do that under new Section 4E(4) without any consultation.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the Government are setting out a structure in which there would be a regular review. As I outlined, I am not in a position to answer hypothetical questions about a future that might arise. I did say that things have arisen that require a response, and which I am hoping to persuade Parliament in the course of this Bill, following the Pickles report, that we should respond to. Such things might occur in the future, but the structure and timing the Government are setting out are those set out in the Bill. I am not going to be led into hypothetical consideration of what might or might not happen in the future.
Lord Scriven (LD)
Could the noble Lord answer the second point: why, regardless of any change, would you wish to change something without any consultation? That is a key issue. What would stop consultation taking place on an issue that a Minister decided to change in a strategy?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I am sure that any Government’s preferred position would be to consult, but the Government believe there is a need for a contingent power here. If noble Lords object to that, no doubt they will lay down amendments.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, this has been an extremely useful exercise. Rather than answers, we have more questions, which I think we will pursue in later debates in terms of not only clause stand part, but some of the other elements of the Bill we need to address. Certainly, if we end up on Report with this clause still in place, we will need to come back with strict and clear amendments, particularly on the fundamental issue of consultation. Despite a very useful debate, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Collins of Highbury
“(5) A statement designated under this section must not be published until a draft statement has been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statement
This probing amendment would mean that a draft strategy and policy statement must be approved by both Houses of Parliament.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
It is me again. Here, we are trying to better understand what the Minister means when he repeats reassuring paragraphs, not least, “This is not the Government imposing on the Electoral Commission; this statement will be subject to Parliament, and there will be consultation”—although, there will be circumstances where there will not be consultation, which is even more worrying.
We are trying to probe exactly how engagement and approval of both Houses of Parliament will work. This is important, because in the other place the majority rules, which means there is sometimes a lack of scrutiny and attention to detail. The Government have a majority and the Executive, if they take an opinion, try to force their view through the House of Commons, naturally, by the function of the majority party. So, scrutiny gets squeezed. This was one of the interesting things about the scrutiny the Commons did on this Bill in Committee. It was done in two and half hours. There were some really important clauses on funding that got no consideration at all, which is why the role of this unelected House—again, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is not in her place—is so vital. Our job is to scrutinise, to ensure that when legislation is passed by the majority in the other place, it is fit for purpose, does what it is intended to do and does not have other implications.
These probing amendments try to push the Government into giving clearer answers about how Parliament is going to engage in the process of this statement. We are also seeking a clear position on the role of this House in scrutinising and ensuring that the majority party of the Executive is not able to force things through, which can have huge implications. I was going to say it can have huge implications for the Opposition parties, but of course, it may also do so for the majority of the votes cast in our democratic process.
I come back to the fundamental point that many noble Lords have mentioned. Changes to our electoral system should be made by consent and in a way that all political parties can accept—these are the rules, and we are all going to follow them and abide by them. As soon as an Executive start pushing things through that favour their party and cause damage to the other parties, that is a very dangerous road to go down. We are trying to ensure through these amendments that changes in statements are not just written and approved by the Executive and forced through by the Whips of their party, but are subject to proper involvement, engagement, consultation and approval by Parliament, because we are a parliamentary democracy. I beg to move.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I am going to start by banking an agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury. I completely agree, as I think the whole House does, that the quality of scrutiny in the other place underlines the importance of what happens in your Lordships’ House. Having banked that, I could not understand why these amendments have been tabled. Amendment 4 asks for the strategic and policy statement to be approved in draft by each House—but that is exactly what proposed new Section 4C calls for. It calls for the Secretary of State to lay a draft before Parliament that cannot be designated until it has been approved by each House of Parliament. These are standard procedures in each House, including, importantly, your Lordships’ House. I understand why the noble Lord might want to seek a way of saying that we want more than the normal procedures that apply to secondary legislation, but these amendments do not get any closer to that. They simply duplicate in a different place what is already in the Bill, both for the initial statement and for the revised statements.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I accept the point the noble Baroness is making, but I think everyone in the House is always concerned about the way in which secondary legislation is implemented. Even though we have the opportunity to scrutinise it, it is extremely difficult ever to change it; and although we have certain powers in secondary legislation, it is not clear that they will apply to this statement. I am not very keen on using fatal motions, for example. Is that going to be an opportunity for this House? That is why we are asking these questions. These are probing amendments that do not simply say that this is the position we want to see. However, the principle of proper parliamentary engagement is one we want to ensure, and doing so might mitigate some of the aspects of this proposal.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
I completely understand that point, but the noble Lord is raising something much broader, which goes beyond the existing procedures we have for handling secondary legislation. I agree with the noble Lord that we should have a full and proper debate about whether there should be alternatives to the nuclear option. However, that is not a debate for this Bill.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, we can all agree that the Government are constantly overreaching themselves and trying to accrue more and more powers. It is perfectly acceptable to try to ensure that the Government do not do so in this case. The Electoral Commission must be independent of both the Government and Parliament. This is a way to avoid any sort of conflict of interest for all MPs and, at times, for us. While we normally support any efforts to subject decisions to parliamentary scrutiny, it would be a false solution in this case. The strategy and policy statement must be removed from the Bill absolutely and entirely, rather than simply adding Parliament’s conflict of interest to that of the Government. We heard from noble Lords earlier who said, “Let’s get rid of the Bill”. Let us get rid of as much as we can on the way.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, the merits of the amendment are secondary to the replies that the Minister gave on the previous group of amendments. I thought that he might like a second go when responding to this group. I sum up the Minister’s defence of the strategy statement as standing on two legs. The first leg is that it is vital to the proper conduct of future elections that the Electoral Commission has a government-sponsored strategy statement in its toolbox. The second is that any strategy statement which this Government could devise would be so bland, inoffensive and harmless that it would make no practical difference to the way in which elections are conducted. That was a phrase the Minister used in his reply to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, in the previous group. Would the Minister like to have a go at seeing which of those two legs he wants to stand on when replying to this group?
Perhaps he could also scoop up the third argument he deployed: that flexibility is essential and speed may sometimes be needed, and this would justify missing out any consultation. He further said that every Government would want to see consultation take place. I can think of quite a few Governments who very much did not want consultation to take place. It is very commonly the job of Oppositions to remind Governments that consultation is a necessary preliminary to getting good legislation. I am delighted if, somehow, he has been taken in by the idea that every Government would want to see consultation. However, I would remind him that even during the coalition’s time—when I saw behind the scenery slightly more than I was expecting—it was a constant fight within departments for my colleagues and I to persuade his colleagues that consulting properly before legislating would be a good step forward. I hope he will be able to reconcile his two conflicting arguments about why we need it, while tackling and giving a response to the circumstances in which avoiding consultation might be—at least in some way—justified, rather than simply for the convenience of a Government at the time.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, just on that point on consultation, I suggest that the Minister, when he responds, thinks of the expression “more haste, less speed”. Rushing things through without proper consultation can lead only to difficulties and the issue being revisited at a later date.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, we had a debate on the previous group. Despite the beguiling invitation of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, I am not going to rehash that debate. I am certainly not going to accept advice from those Benches on how many legs I should stand on at one particular time. They often seem to have about five or six legs, in my campaigning experience.
The Government oppose these amendments. I understand that they are probing, but I can reassure the noble Lord that we do not consider them necessary because, under the Bill as we propose it, the approval of Parliament—the whole of Parliament, both Houses—is required when a statement is created or whenever it might be revised. That is, as my noble friend Lady Noakes said, there in the Bill. That will ensure that the Government consider its views and then gives Parliament the final say over whether a statement takes effect.
This measure, in our judgment, will improve the accountability of the commission to the UK Parliament and ensure that Parliament, in the last resort, remains firmly in control of approving any statement. That is why the Government have proposed the affirmative procedure in the Bill for the approval of a new or revised statement and I can certainly confirm for the noble Lord that any statement must be approved by both Houses, including your Lordships’ House, before it can be designated. Therefore, we think these amendments are unnecessary.
Lord Beith (LD)
The Minister is relying so strongly on the case that Parliament would have final control over whether the statement was acceptable, he must be assuming that each House has the capacity to turn down and reject the statement. Can we take it that he will not, in those circumstances, say that it is somehow unconstitutional for this House to say that the statement is in defiance of the principles of democracy and damaging to our electoral system?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, again, I am not going to be led into a wide and potentially very interesting debate on how your Lordships would behave in regard to any legislation, including primary legislation. I draw attention to what is before the Committee, which is that your Lordships would have to pass an affirmative resolution, and that does give your Lordships a power in law.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
The question has been asked better than I was trying to put it. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, acknowledged that in this House we are extremely reluctant to use the nuclear option, because we are not elected; the elected House has primacy. But we are not talking about legislation in the normal sense of the word—we are talking about a strategy statement that will influence the operation of a body that oversees the conduct of our elections, which could be issued quite close to a general election and might impede the operation of political parties. Constitutionally, I am always very reluctant for this unelected House to challenge the elected House on legislation, but I think we need to be clear and the Minister has to answer this question. This is very different and that is why we are so concerned about it: it concerns the way our general elections are conducted. If this House thinks that a statement is going to impinge on the way our political parties are able to operate, does the Minister agree that we should have the authority to reject it?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord confuses various things. The constitutional position is as I set out. With the greatest respect, I say to him that the precise proposition that he has put before the Committee in this amendment is that the House should have the opportunity to reject. I do not know about standing on various legs, but he is logically opposing his own amendment. For our part, we think—
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
Let us be clear about this. We have had the Leader of this House challenge this House when it has simply sent something back, let alone rejected it. Then we have a Prime Minister who says, “Well, we’re going to put loads more Peers in the House.” This is a separate issue. It is not a constitutional issue about the rights of the House of Commons; it is about a strategy statement for the Electoral Commission, which has statutory duties to be independent. I can see circumstances where a statement is produced, maybe even as close as four months prior to a general election, that could have severe implications for the conduct of political parties in that election. In those circumstances, even though I am in general against this House rejecting the democratic will of the House of Commons, this Bill imposes a duty on this House to consider whether it needs to operate the powers that it has.
Lord True (Con)
I note what the noble Lord opposite says. I believe that I have set out the correct constitutional position. If he wishes to persuade your Lordships’ House to act differently from the way it normally operates, it is up to him to make that argument and it is his privilege at the time, but that is not the argument before the Committee. I do not believe that the statement or the illustrative example of a statement justifies the kind of language which has been used about it today. We will have a debate on clause stand part shortly, but since the effect of the amendment is simply to replicate what is already in the Bill, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw it.
Lord Stunell (LD)
On a straight point of information, if an emergency statement is produced without consultation, can the Minister give us an assurance that it will itself come before both Houses of Parliament or will it bypass that process as well?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, any statement has to be treated in the light in which Parliament enacts statements to be approved, and that is by affirmative resolution.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
Once again, my Lords, the debate has generated more areas of concern than it has put at ease. Undoubtedly, we will need to think about coming back to some of these issues, whatever happens in the debate on whether the clause should stand part. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment reflects a recent change in Select Committee arrangements in the House of Commons.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendments in Lord True’s name relating to the inserted section 4A of PPERA.
Lord Collins of Highbury
“(f) civil society groups.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would mean that the Secretary of State must consult civil society groups on the draft of the strategy and policy statement.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I want to preface my remarks about these amendments, because they relate to a fundamental ingredient of our democratic life and our democratic society. I have often spoken in my role as shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs about the importance of civil society. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who has responsibility for human rights, frequently hears this and responds incredibly positively. There are many societies and countries where the guarantors of human rights are not Parliaments and parliamentarians but civil society, faith groups, women’s groups and trade unions. They are the important ingredients of a thriving democratic society. If we take them away, we do not have such a society; we end up with a society where elections may be held every five years but with a president like President Putin. These are the things that we have to be concerned about.
Baroness Barker (LD)
My Lords, I have the great privilege of being a member of the Select Committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, which considered citizenship and civic engagement in 2018 and has recently reconvened to look at the matter again. Largely with that in mind, I support Amendment 7, in particular. Bad as this Bill is in many ways, we have to treat it from the standpoint that, somehow, it could be a mechanism to improve representation, participation and the understanding of the electoral process by wider society.
The reason why it is important that civil society organisations be evidently included is that they do something unique. They represent people who are not in Parliament—all sorts of diverse and minority communities: precisely the people who are not engaged, and consequently not represented. We have already begun to see the beneficial effects of the Government talking to civic society organisations in the preparation of the Bill. I would make a case similar to that which the noble Lord, Lord Collins, made for trade unions, and say that we should be unafraid of including those groups in the development of the statement for the Electoral Commission.
One group of civil society organisations that we might think about are those concerned with citizenship, such as Young Citizens or the Association for Citizenship Teaching, organisations which exist with the primary purpose of improving the knowledge of future generations and their engagement and involvement in the electoral process. That is a thoroughly commendable thing and by including it in this Bill, we would not be doing anything that would in any way inhibit the Secretary of State or damage the process. This would be a small but valuable addition to the Bill.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I always have some empathy with the noble Lord opposite, who I greatly respect, when he speaks of Labour tradition, the tradition of working people and social traditions. My mother’s grandfather and his family were brought up in Salford and teeming parts of Manchester, and the education they had that led them to improve their lives and secure some degree of prosperity came through the mechanics’ institutes and institutions created by civil society with a good social instinct. So I understand what the noble Lord says and how he feels. I also understand how the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, feels when she speaks about civil society.
These amendments propose extending statutory consultation to specific groups, however defined. As the Bill stands, the consultation process provided in Clause 14 will already ensure that the statement will be subject, where applicable, to some statutory consultation with key stakeholders, including the Electoral Commission, the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission and the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee. If the amendments your Lordships agreed earlier and are about to agree are agreed by the House of Commons, those institutions and bodies would be involved before the draft statement is submitted for the approval of Parliament.
The Secretary of State and officials will hear what has been said, but of course, the Secretary of State is not limited to consulting with only those bodies in considering legislation. I am grateful for what the noble Baroness said about reaching out to civil society. Government Ministers regularly engage with relevant stakeholders across civil society—I am sure that will continue—and a wide range of views can be considered by the Secretary of State when preparing a draft statement. I remind the Committee that the Secretary of State concerned is the one who bears responsibility for local government. Obviously, there is a particular, constant and important engagement between their department and local government. I understand the meaning and sense of the amendment asking for local government to be consulted, but that is, if you like, a standing counterparty of that department.
In addition, both Houses of Parliament play an important role in allowing for the views of wider society; your Lordships’ House is admirable in that. This already ensures that groups such as those noted in these amendments, including trade unions—which never lack a powerful voice in this House, notably from the noble Lord opposite—will be adequately represented through Parliament in scrutinising any draft statement. Additionally, the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, which is a statutory consultee, is a cross-party group of MPs and that will further allow for representation of the views of different parts of the electorate.
So, while understanding the spirit in which these amendments are advanced and certainly giving the assurance that the Government are not limited to consulting only those bodies listed in the Bill, I urge that the amendments be withdrawn or not moved.
Lord Stunell (LD)
Could the Minister confirm that, when he referred to the Speaker’s commission just now, he meant the Speaker’s committee? He suggested that it had a wide remit to consult with society, whereas I am sure he will recall that it is substantially made up of Conservative Cabinet Ministers.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, that was not a correct characterisation. I meant to say, “the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission”, which is a cross-party representation of MPs. If I misspoke, I apologise.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his response to this debate. Consultation will be an important part of how we proceed on this and an issue which we will keep emphasising and reiterating. However, in the light of the comments, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendments in Lord True’s name relating to the inserted section 4A of PPERA.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the amendment in Lord True’s name at page 22, line 14.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the amendment in Lord True’s name at page 22, line 14.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for the amendment in Lord True’s name at page 22, line 14.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendments in Lord True’s name relating to the inserted section 4A of PPERA.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, regrets that he cannot be here to introduce this stand part notice. He has asked me to do so in his place. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, was here and was very anxious to speak in this debate, but he has had to apologise because if he had spoken, he would not have been able to listen to the whole debate.
We started this debate rather a long time ago. In one sense, all the rhetoric has been played on both sides. I am not necessarily going to be unable to use a little bit of rhetoric, but in answer to this wonderful exchange between the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and the noble Lord, Lord Collins, about the problem and the answer, I suggest that the problem that is being faced, summarised in the way that the Minister put it, is a certain loss of confidence in the Electoral Commission’s ability to exercise its responsibilities. That may be wrong, but if it is right and that is the problem, I respectfully suggest that Clauses 14 and 15 of this Bill are emphatically not the answer to that problem. Once again, I am sorry to trespass on something which I rabbit on about in the Chamber, but we are vesting power in the Executive, and that is always dangerous.
These are matters which should be outside party politics. I recognise the difficulties of making this utterly immaculate, but how our elections are conducted and handled should, as far as possible, be clear of party-political pressures or Executive pressures, influence, control, or power. If they are subjected to any of those, they damage public confidence in how the Electoral Commission will work.
I need to go back to the founding principle, which I found in the 1998 report:
“An Election Commission in a democracy like ours could not function properly, or indeed at all, unless it were scrupulously impartial and believed to be so by everyone seriously involved and by the public at large.”
As a follow-up to that, the CSPL review of the Electoral Commission in 2007 said that
“any system … must … protect the Commission’s independence and impartiality from the possibility of undue influence for partisan political or electoral advantage.”
It is there that Clauses 14 and 15 fall down.
I shall go through the Bill to pick out one or two provisions. I suggest that every one of these provisions in Clauses 14 and 15 is dangerous in the sense that they increase the influence of the Government of the day over the Electoral Commission. It is no good just taking them as individual provisions; they need to be looked at as a package. Let us start with new Section 4A in Clause 14—if anyone is bothering to look, it is on page 20—dealing with the strategy and policy statement, which is a new idea. The clause says:
“The Secretary of State may designate a statement … prepared by the Secretary of State that sets out … strategic and policy priorities of Her Majesty’s government”
in relation to elections. By definition, that highlights whose policies and priorities are going to be included. Then it sets out
“the role and responsibilities of the Commission in enabling Her Majesty’s government to meet”
the Government’s own strategic and policy priorities. You do not need to look much further to see where undue influence is likely to be increased.
Then the Electoral Commission, which everyone agrees should be independent of government—I think that at Second Reading everyone eventually agreed with that—is required by statute to enable the Government to achieve their priorities as they relate to elections. I told the cynic in me last night, “Don’t say this”, but we have been waiting an awfully long time so I am going to say it anyway: I thought the priority of most Governments was to win elections. Still, I will not repeat that; it is cynical of me.
Let us look further. The Secretary of State can use the statement to issue guidance relating to other matters for which the Electoral Commission already has, or may in future have, statutory functions, whether by primary or secondary legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, is in his place, and he is not going to let the Government forget about the significance of the misuse, as I would describe it, of guidance. Using guidance as a power rather suggests that it would be extremely difficult for the new Electoral Commission working under these new arrangements simply to ignore the obligation to follow the guidance; the guidance will be there and the commission will be obliged to look at it. How lawful that would be if it went to a matter of judicial review, I will leave to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. We really need to look at those two terms together.
The suspicion about these clauses, a suspicion that has been ventilated around the House—although not the whole House—is due to the total absence of any formal or public consultation on the issue. If this were happening in another country that we thought was a democratic one, true to the principles of democracy and the wide franchise, we would be very worried about what was happening to our democratic friend.
We have spent a long time looking at new Section 4B in Clause 14. What is the obligation of the commission? It says:
“The Commission must have regard to the statement when carrying out their functions”—
that is, the Government’s prepared statement setting out their strategic and policy priorities. That is the only order that is made in the legislation. Sometimes we have legislation where the organisation or body, whatever it might be, is required to have regard to some statement or other or to some principle in the legislation, but it is rare—I do not say that it never happens because that is a word that I never use—for it to have no other responsibility. But this provision is all that the commission has to have regard to, in the express language of new Section 4B.
I underline that that provision is not one of a list of factors that the commission has to bear in mind. It does not identify any other factor to be taken into account. It does not provide a way out for the Electoral Commission to say, for example, “We’re not obliged to follow the statement, and we will not, because that would influence us into making a decision that we think would be electorally unfair. It is motivated by political advantage.” So that is a very stark responsibility. I rather enjoyed the observations by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, this morning about how the world really looks if you are in the position of someone who is “having regard to” government policy. The “must have regard to” is clear and unequivocal, and there is no room in the legislation for any other consideration being provided for. So we have “Her Majesty’s government” instead of “Parliament”, and no other consideration except the statement once it has been designated.
I now turn to one of the defences put up by the Minister: the consultation process. We heard a lot about the consultation process this afternoon. I will tell noble Lords what I think about it because there were times when I had to look at legislation that said the Lord Chief Justice will be consulted. It was completely valueless in terms of any action. The Secretary of State can consult. “Hello, my noble Lord, Lord Collins. What do you think of this Bill? You are very worried about it? I have taken a note of that, but I will now write it exactly the way I like it.” That is consultation. It would count as consultation and pass any judicial review as a proper form of consultation.
To look a little further, as a controlling element therefore of shielding the Electoral Commission, which is after all what we are supposed to be doing, why does everybody think a fig leaf is elegant? It is not elegant; it is transparent, and the sight is not a golden one. The obligation is to consult. There is no requirement for concurrence or agreement. Obviously, everyone can make non-binding suggestions, but they provide absolutely no form of protection for the Electoral Commission.
The Secretary of State has to consult and then decide what he or she thinks is necessary. That is not a protection for the Electoral Commission. It is a nice idea. It looks good and polite and British, but in terms of power, which is what we are discussing, it has no impact. I cannot help reminding the Committee—I said this at Second Reading—what PACAC had to say about this issue:
“We recommend that the Bill be amended to provide that the Electoral Commission is able to depart from the guidance set out in the Statement if it has a statutory duty to do so”—
well obviously, but the committee adds—
“or if it reasonably believes it is justified in specific circumstances.”
And here is the rub:
“This amendment is necessary to give effect to the Government’s stated intention that the Statement will not amount to a power to direct the Electoral Commission, and to protect the Electoral Commission’s independence.”
Well, that is pretty stark. I wish I had thought of saying that myself but, as PACAC said it, I am very happy to adopt it as my own. We should note that it is ultimately a matter for the Secretary of State. That is new Section 4C.
We can omit new Section 4D, because that deals with the five-yearly review. New Section 4E, on which the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, has spent some time, is in many ways the most pernicious part of the whole Bill. It states:
“The Secretary of State may revise a statement designated”.
He can do it on his own initiative and if the commission requests it. It is a dispensing power, because new Section 4E(4) states:
“The Secretary of State may determine … that section 4C(2) (consultation requirements) does not apply in relation to the revised statement.”
In 1688, we kicked out the King. We got a new one, we got a new Queen, we got an Act of Settlement and Parliament was sovereign at last and nobody liked the disapplication or dispensing power.
But can we look a little further at this, at the Secretary of State’s “own initiative” without notice? The Secretary of State is not obliged to consult anybody. He “must give notice”—that is, after he has made up his mind—of what he proposes to do, and
“must consider any representations made by the Speaker’s Committee”.
That is even less than consultation; he “must consider any representations”. It is very strange, is it not?
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
My Lords, I think the whole House is grateful to the noble and learned Lord for the forensic way in which he has taken these clauses and demolished their legitimacy. I sat through the entire Second Reading debate, and this was identified as one of the major issues in the Bill. I put it to the Government that to introduce these provisions is a terrible mistake to make. I have no idea what type of discussions within government led to this being part of the Bill. I find myself wondering whether I am going to have to wait for the Minister’s memoirs to discover that, privately and secretly, even he thought there were disadvantages to putting forward a proposal of this kind. Whatever you may think of it now, there will be different Governments in the future who may use this legislation in ways that we cannot predict and would not want.
It is rare for me, in the short time I have been here, to listen to a debate which could be encapsulated in a single speech, so I will sit down. I hope that the House realises what a mistake is being made and just thinks of the damage that will be done to our reputation as a democracy were these provisions to go through.
Lord Judge (CB)
With the indulgence of the House, when I was explaining about the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Wallace, I omitted a courtesy to the Minister for the meeting we had last week. I always appreciate those meetings and I am sorry I omitted that.
Lord Kerslake (CB)
My Lords, it was a fantastic dissection of these clauses by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I lend my support to the argument and, had there been any spaces left, I would have added my name to those opposing the clauses. There is a right way of doing legislation relating to our democracy and a wrong way. The Bill, as I said at Second Reading, is definitively the wrong kind of approach. It should have been done with consensus, pre-legislative scrutiny and a much wider form of consultation than we saw.
I have real problems with these two clauses, both the way they have been brought forward and their content. I will deal first with the way in which they have been brought forward. We have heard a lot about the absence of wider consultation. What truly astonished me was what I heard from the Electoral Commission in its excellent briefing to Cross-Bench Peers yesterday. I asked the commission if it was consulted before the Government made their statement of including this in the Bill and the answer was “No”. It was not. It is quite extraordinary to bring forward something of such significance to the commission and not consult it or even inform it of your intention beforehand. That says a lot about the Government’s attitude towards the commission and how they will approach consultation in the future. It is an appalling lack of respect for a pivotal organisation in our democracy.
My second point is around the substance of this section of the Bill. The Government, to put it very directly, are substituting government control for parliamentary scrutiny. That is essentially what is happening with these two clauses. Of course, the Electoral Commission is not perfect. It will have made mistakes and will own up to having done so; it will make mistakes in the future, I am sure, but it is absolutely not resistant to being accountable. It will and does appear in front of Select Committees. As we have heard, it appears in front of the current committee that has been spoken about. The issue is not accountability—being able to hold it to account for what it does and challenge it. That is already in the current arrangements and if it needed to be strengthened, it could be.
This is an issue about control. Is the Government’s view the same as that held, apparently, by a number of Members of the House of Commons, who have lost confidence in the commission? If it is not that, what is it? What problem are we trying to solve here and why are we taking such significant control? The response from the Government is, “Look at the illustrative version of this: there is nothing to see here”. I am afraid that is just not good enough. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, we need to look at what is on the face of the Bill. What does the Bill allow to happen in these circumstances? It is quite clear that, through the Bill, a much more difficult set of requirements could be put on the commission by way of its strategy and policy. We cannot take an illustrative version of this and be assured by it; it simply is not enough. We have to be sure that no version that would be difficult and problematic, and damaged its independence, could come forward under the legislation—and, quite clearly, it could.
We have had much debate about what is meant by “have regard to”, so I looked up a common definition. It says,
“to take account of this guidance and carefully consider it … there would need to be a good reason to justify not complying with it.”
That is what is in the dictionary for “have regard to”, and it is pretty onerous. For anybody who has worked, as we heard earlier, for an arm’s-length organisation, and I have been the chief executive of one, “have regard to” from a Government is a pretty strong expectation that you will follow and do as you are told. I have to be really blunt here: the only conclusion I can have about why this is coming forward is that it is to put the commission in its place and make it clear what the Government expect it to do and how they expect it to do it. That is a very serious and dangerous step forward.
Another defence that is put for these proposals is that we have this sort of provision for other regulators. That is a completely invalid argument. Other regulators are there to carry out the business of government, to execute and deliver government policy. It is perfectly in order that they have strategy and policy statements from the Government, because they are very clearly acting on behalf of the Government. They may have a certain independence but are there as agents of government. The Electoral Commission is not an agent of government—this is where I think the confusion has come in—but a body that acts on behalf of Parliament and our parliamentary democracy. That is the core difficulty I have with what is in the Bill.
If I had any doubts about the issue, if I thought I might be overreading it, I invite colleagues to read again the letter that came from the commissioners. I shall just read out one paragraph:
“It is our firm and shared view that the introduction of a Strategy and Policy statement—enabling the Government to guide the work of the Commission—is inconsistent with the role that an independent electoral commission plays in a healthy democracy. This independence is fundamental to maintaining confidence and legitimacy in our electoral system.”
Those are extraordinary words from all bar one of the commissioners, and I suspect the one who did not sign it probably had very similar views—I do not know because I cannot ask him. The key point is that having a statement as strong as that from the Electoral Commission, the body we are looking to introduce this for, ought to settle the argument. We ought to say, “If that’s how they feel about this, there must be a serious and real issue that needs to be addressed here”. I do not think I have ever read, in my entire public life, something as strong as that from a body such as the Electoral Commission. For that reason alone, we need to throw out these clauses.
PACAC has said the same thing. Indeed, it said it had not had any representations in support of these clauses—nothing at all. There were plenty who were concerned about it, and I am sure every other noble Lord’s mailbox is like mine, stuffed with correspondence from people who are really concerned about this. If we are serious about the concerns of maintaining the integrity of the democracy we have and the integrity of the Electoral Commission, we should support the proposal and throw out these two clauses.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I hesitate to rise to speak, given the entrenched views already expressed, both in this debate and in earlier debates this afternoon, but I think the reaction to Clause 14 has been disproportionate. Strategy and policy statements for regulators are not new. They are now an established part of the regulatory landscape, although it is still a relatively new concept and noble Lords may not have been following this development. As has been said, strategy and policy statements already exist for other regulators. There is absolutely no evidence that they have in any way impaired the independence of those regulators from government. If there had been a problem with them, it would be well known by now, as all regulators have multiple routes for making their views known. There is no significant difference between the functions of the Electoral Commission and the other regulators, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, sought to say. There is no significant difference to make them exempt from what is a development in the regulatory practice in this country.
I was deputy chairman of Ofcom when the Government announced that they would legislate for a strategy and policy statement for Ofcom. That was eventually included in the Digital Economy Act 2017. Like all regulators, Ofcom was extremely protective, and somewhat precious, about its independence. It is fair to say that, within Ofcom, the reaction was of considerable suspicion of the Government’s motives. I had left the board before the final statement was eventually published in 2019, so I have no insights into the final process. However, having read that statement, it is difficult to see that there is anything in it that would cause any concern about the independence of Ofcom. I have not heard of anything to that effect. In fact, the statement itself looks rather anodyne to me, as do the statements in relation to the other regulators. I have not had an opportunity to look at the draft statement for the Electoral Commission, but even the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, found nothing disobliging to say about it when he spoke earlier.
Lord Beith (LD)
I am sure that the noble Baroness believes firmly that the Government she so strongly supports would not issue a statement that would challenge the independence of the commission. However, there is absolutely nothing about the illustrative statement—or, indeed, in comparison with statements made for other regulators—that in any way circumscribes the ability of this Government or future Governments to go much further than that, unless they are restrained by things that we put into the legislation.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
At the end of the day, there is a requirement for Parliament to agree. That is an important part of the framework. It is not something the Executive can do alone. It would need to become a parliamentary approved statement and, as we discussed earlier, it must be approved by both Houses of Parliament.
My second point is that we should be absolutely clear that strategy and policy statements are not directions. No power of direction exists for the Electoral Commission, and Clause 14 does not create one. Noble Lords would be rightly concerned if Clause 14 created a power of direction in relation to the Electoral Commission. I think that the Electoral Commission was just plain wrong, in its written briefing, to claim that it would be subject to government direction as a result of Clause 14.
I regret to say that the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, for whom I have the highest regard, was also wrong, when he spoke on the first group of amendments, to assert that this statement amounts to a direction. It does not. Directions are very clear in what they can force public bodies to do. This does not force anything. The only requirement, as we have heard, is in new Section 4B for the Government to “have regard to” the statement. We discussed that in the first group of amendments, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has made some comments on the ineffectiveness of that, because it does not refer to other things which it could “have regard to”. It does not trump the commission’s statutory objectives; it does not compel the commission to do anything at all, or to take account of anything else.
We must keep all this in proportion. It is an additional thing for the Electoral Commission to take into account; it does not replace all the existing law relating to the commission. This is the formulation used for all existing regulators, and I believe it is the right approach to protect regulatory independence. As I said, no concerns have been expressed to date about the independence of any of the regulators subject to statements.
The important thing is that the commission has to report on what it has done in consequence of the statement. In practice, as we will see from the way in which the statements tend to align with what the independent regulators are doing, statements generally reinforce what those bodies are doing, and relatively new information beyond what would be included in the annual report comes as a result of those statements.
However, it is important that the independent regulator explain any divergence from the Government’s priorities as approved by Parliament. For example, if the Government said that their priority was to improve democratic participation, not just generally but for particular groups, we would want to know what the commission had done about that and whether it had had any impact. That really does not threaten independence.
I believe that transparency and accountability are what the strategic and policy statements are really all about, and why they are useful. One element is for the Government to be transparent about their policies and priorities, because they have to set them down, get them consulted on and then have them approved by both Houses of Parliament. The regulators then have to be transparent in reporting on what they have done in respect of those priorities—or whether they have done nothing at all. That allows them to be held to account by Parliament—in the case of the Electoral Commission, through the Speaker’s Committee. I hope noble Lords will see that this legislation is not the monster they have created in their own minds. In fact, it can be seen as a very positive development for improving transparency and accountability. I hope we will allow these clauses to stand part of the Bill.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
My Lords, I regret that, like the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, I was unable to attend the Second Reading debate. At the time I was on an aeroplane returning from work in the United States. However, I have read the full proceedings in Hansard with great care and I feel appropriately informed.
Moreover, some time spent in the United States has also given an added perspective on some of the measures in the Bill, for there is about it a definite odour of the Donald J Trump playbook. There is the whiff of voter suppression in the extra requirements being added for access to the franchise. There is a distinct stench of the politically partisan in the measures that undermine the independence of the Electoral Commission. But perhaps the strongest stink arises from changes in the franchise being imposed by the current majority party, without pre-legislative scrutiny or a Speaker’s Conference. This strikes at the foundations of our constitution, written and unwritten.
I predict that in due course, much as the late Enoch Powell predicted, Mr Johnson will be defeated in an election—and then there will be a, perhaps minor but none the less significant, online campaign claiming that the election was stolen or rigged. While it would be unfair to claim that the noble Lord, Lord True, had planted the seeds of such a threat to our democracy, he will have added a little natural fertiliser. In his speech introducing the Bill at Second Reading, he made much of the precautionary principle, and of taking steps to protect the integrity of elections from potential, if as yet hypothetical, threats. He did not, however, extend his precautionary principle to the measures in Clauses 14 and 15 that, as the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee stated, risk undermining public confidence in electoral outcomes by diminishing the independence of the Electoral Commission, both in perception and in reality.
As the late Lord Hailsham famously observed, this country is governed by an elected dictatorship. A Government with a substantial majority in the other place can do virtually what they please. That is why this House, with its, let us say, peculiar composition, has a particular responsibility to protect the constitution, written and unwritten, against partisan proposals by the governing party. Here, the discussion by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, of statements for regulators gives us a valuable insight, because, in this case, the statement is made by the regulated entity. It is as if one of the broadcasters could have a statement telling Ofcom to what it should have regard. The Secretary of State is a political figure. In the electoral arena, he is a regulated entity. He should not be in a position to provide advice of any sort to the regulator.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said at Second Reading,
“there is a constitutional necessity, in a system of democracy based on universal suffrage, that any electoral commission should be wholly and totally independent”.—[Official Report, 23/2/22; col. 239.]
By rejecting these clauses and affirming the independence of the Electoral Commission, this House will make a vital commitment to free and fair elections.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, in considering the Government’s plans to take more direct control of the Electoral Commission, we should go back to considering the consensus that existed when it was established. In 1998, the Committee on Standards in Public Life, then chaired by the late Lord Neill of Bladen, proposed the creation of an
“independent … Election Commission with widespread executive and investigative powers”.
Introducing the resulting legislation, the then Home Secretary, Jack Straw, explained how the commission would
“undertake its key role at the heart of our electoral arrangements”.
He emphasised that
“the commission must be as independent of the Government of the day as our constitutional arrangements allow, and it must be answerable directly to Parliament and not to Ministers”.
On behalf of the Conservative Opposition in the other place, Mr Robert Walter, then said:
“The Opposition have always made it clear that we support the recommendations of the Neill committee and that we shall support the legislation that implements the report”.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/1/2000; cols. 42-109.]
In this House, the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, introduced the legislation. He said that
“the commission will need to be seen to be scrupulously independent both of the government of the day and of the political parties”.
The consensus about the essential independence of the Electoral Commission was backed on that occasion by the late Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish, a greatly respected Member on the Conservative Benches at the time. He said that
“there should be an electoral commission”,
but:
“There must be no possibility of the commissioners being \ As currently drafted the provisions in Part 3 of the Bill are not consistent with the Electoral Commission; cols. 1088-95.]
This principle of the Electoral Commission’s independence from the Government of the day survived five general elections. No previous Government before this one sought to change that principle. So I ask why, if we could not have “Tony’s cronies” overseeing the work of the Electoral Commission, we should then have Michael Gove overseeing it? To have any government Minister of any political party setting the overall strategy and policy for the Electoral Commission effectively ends its independence.
Since the last general election, the Conservative Party has been subjecting the Electoral Commission to undue pressure. In August 2000, the then Conservative Party co-chair Amanda Milling wrote in the Daily Telegraph that, if the Electoral Commission failed to make changes,
“then the only option would be to abolish it.”
That sounds pretty much like a threat to me. An independent election watchdog should not operate under such threats—not in a democracy.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, drew a parallel between the Electoral Commission and Ofcom. However, Ofcom has a huge and evolving remit; inevitably, it has to respond to changes in government policy in areas as diverse as regulating the spectrum and the quality of broadcasting. The Electoral Commission is a very different beast, with a very straightforward role: to oversee elections and regulate political finance to ensure that we have a free and fair election system.
It describes its job as working
“to promote public confidence in the democratic process and ensure its integrity”.
What could a Government want to do to change that? It is simple, straightforward and easily understood. I cannot understand what the policy statement enshrined in Clauses 14 and 15 would add to that quite straightforward purpose. Nothing I have heard today has helped me in that direction, and I hope the Minister might be able to answer the question that others have asked: what is the purpose of this?
That there is room for improvement in the way the commission operates is true, but the proposed policy statement is simply not the way to accomplish that. In my experience, when it comes to elections, political parties have one overriding objective: to win as many votes as possible. Indeed, in the 2015 general election, the Conservative Party was so keen to win votes in South Thanet that it drove a coach and horses—and, indeed, a battle bus—through the rules. So egregious were the breaches that in 2019, Mr Justice Edis, presiding over the subsequent court case, was highly critical of what he termed Conservative Central Office’s
“culture of convenient self-deception and lack of clarity about what was permissible in law and what was not.”
The senior central office employee who was instrumental in this electoral fraud was sentenced to nine months in prison on 22 counts. It was only because of her personal circumstances that the sentences were suspended. There is no doubt that Conservative Central Office is not the only political headquarters to have played fast and loose with the rules if it thought it could. That is why we do not want political parties anywhere near the Electoral Commission.
Those who drafted Clause 14 may have done so with the most honourable intentions in mind but, as has been said, these clauses could have a truly malevolent effect on our electoral system. There is an unpleasant whiff about them, and it could evolve into a foul stink. The positive case for these clauses has simply not been made, and I therefore support the removal of these clauses from the Bill.
Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, I am somewhat conflicted in this debate, to the extent that I, unlike a number of noble Lords who have spoken previously, do not view the Electoral Commission through rose-tinted spectacles. I shall refer to one or two problems that I and others have had with it recently. I have, however, had the opportunity to meet and deal with Mr John Pullinger, its new chairman; I wish him well and believe—partly because of what he has done in relation to some of the issues that I have had—that he will actually change the culture in the Electoral Commission.
I was fascinated by the contribution just now from the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft. I must declare an interest, because the person to whom she and the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, referred is a close personal friend of mine, but I will not deal with the case as such. The noble Baroness aired the view that, although CCHQ had been found guilty of an offence, it was almost certain that the other parties did the same. That is actually the problem—
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, I was not insinuating that other political parties had played fast and loose in that particular election. I merely meant that, had they felt able to in some elections, they might have done.
Lord Hayward (Con)
I am sorry; I did not make myself clear. I was referring not specifically to that election but to elections in general, which is what I took to be the comment of the noble Baroness.
I will first cover the Electoral Commission and then come on to this particular clause. As the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said first and others have said later, the Electoral Commission is required to produce an independent, free and fair set of elections. It is not required to start intruding in terms of developing or interpreting legislation. I was brought up to believe that these two Houses and the judges—the judiciary —decided how our laws operated. But, unfortunately, the Electoral Commission has moved into that field. I say that with reference to the debate in this Chamber on 6 January on the progress of regulatory bodies into fields and issuing edicts that they are saying are law.
I refer here not to the case that I just raised but to the availability of electoral rolls. They are key if you are going to investigate corruption in Tower Hamlets, but access to them is being denied by the Electoral Commission. In an email, it said that, unfortunately, “the law is silent” on this matter. It then went on to develop policy on it, effectively saying that it is law. It has issued instructions to EROs on a certain basis.
Later in the Bill, I shall cover the fascinating development of the law of secrecy when it comes to a polling booth, a practice that we have had for 150 years. The Electoral Commission is now changing the processes—it is changing the law—which is why I have tabled an amendment to stop it doing what it appears to be doing.
The noble Lords, Lord Rennard, Lord Wallace and Lord Kennedy, are all aware of the difficulties that I have had with it since early August on accredited observers—people who can be allowed into a polling station. The Minister wanted to go into a polling station in a by-election in Tower Hamlets and was told that she could not because she was political. She, or her office, was making those arrangements with the chief executive of Tower Hamlets. Nothing in law says that an accredited observer cannot be a political individual. I would have been quite happy if the Labour or Lib Dem spokesmen in the Commons or the Lords had gone to witness the problems there, but, suddenly, the Electoral Commission said, “You cannot do that”. Nothing in law says that.
What makes it worse—this is where I disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake—is that the Electoral Commission does not admit its failings. As I say, I made correspondence available to other parties throughout, contemporaneously, and came to the conclusion that, in the way it has operated, the Electoral Commission is institutionally arrogant. It will not admit its failings, to the extent that, despite representations, detailed letters and failures to reply, when challenged about the refusal to allow the Minister into a polling station—it had been involved in conversations some 10 or 15 days before the by-election—it said immediately afterwards that it was not aware of a Minister being prevented from entering a polling station. This is despite the fact that, two and a half months later, it admitted that it had had conversations with the Cabinet Office and the Minister’s office, not to mention one with me in a polling station and with a local councillor, all of whom the Electoral Commission officials are saying it stopped, in one form or another.
What was fascinating was that, when confronted with all these different things, Electoral Commission kept saying, “We didn’t say it.” The Cabinet Office officials thought it did, as did the Ministers and the staff at Tower Hamlets. I believe it did. It is not a body which has previously been willing to admit its failures. As I say, it failed to do so when—
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. His complaints against the Electoral Commission may be justified, but can he explain how a strategy and policy statement from the Government would put the matter right?
Lord Hayward (Con)
The noble Lord intervenes at a highly apposite time. I said at the start of my contribution that I was conflicted. All I wanted to do was set the record straight in relation to the Electoral Commission as I and others have experienced it. A number of noble Lords have said that these clauses do not solve the problems that might arise from any behaviour of the Electoral Commission. That is why I am conflicted. I do not believe these clauses solve the problem. I believe there are problems with the Electoral Commission and that Mr Pullinger and his new organisation will tackle them, but I do not believe that these clauses solve the problem.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, regularly reminds us of Henry VIII clauses. I regard this as a Henry II clause: “Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?”—or, in this case, this troublesome regulatory body. I am sorry, but I cannot read those clauses without thinking that in some malevolent hands they will be misinterpreted by some Government or another.
I was an electoral observer in 2018 in a country I know well because I completed the whole of my university career there—Zimbabwe. I met the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and challenged it on the way it operated that election. I would like to be in a position to suggest that it use and operate our law. Could I honestly do that with these two clauses as they stand?
I come back to the position on which I opened. I am conflicted. I would like to see what the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, identified: the clear operation of an electoral commission that produces independent, fair, free elections. That I could commend to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. I hope that, when it comes back, this legislation will be something that I could recommend. As it stands, with these clauses, I could not.
Lord Hayward (Con)
I am very conscious of that. I did not necessarily say that the Lords to whom I was referring were present in the Chamber; I gesticulated towards the Bench opposite. I hope I did not offend the noble Lord in saying that.
Lord Beith (LD)
My Lords, I am very glad to follow the noble Lord. He has delivered a message to people in his party that you can be severely critical of the Electoral Commission and consider that it has shortcomings and has not always owned up to things it has got wrong, but it does not follow that it makes sense to remove a body which is, in many respects, a guarantee of the democracy of our system. His illustration from Zimbabwe is telling. Who among us has not talked to people from various countries with very shaky regimes about the need to have a fair and reliable electoral system? Many have taken part as election observers, as he has, and seen a lack of independence in the electoral process that is fatal and damaging. The fact that the existing members of the commission believe that the provisions of these two clauses would inhibit their ability to behave independently tells its own story. It is on that and one other point that I want briefly to contribute.
The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, quoted from the letter that all but one of the members of the commission sent to Ministers. However, he did not go on to take a further quote from it, which says:
“If made law, these provisions will enable a government in the future to influence the Commission’s operational functions and decision-making. This includes its oversight and enforcement of the political finance regime, but also the advice and guidance it provides to electoral administrators, parties and campaigners, and its work on voter registration.”
It goes on to say that the “have regard” duty would
“provide a mechanism, driven by the then governing party, enabling that party’s ministers to shape how electoral law is applied to them and their political competitors.”
That is pretty clear, and anyone who took up a position on the Electoral Commission with this law governing how they conducted themselves would be likely to be severely inhibited by it. That raises a question of who will be willing to serve on the Electoral Commission with this kind of statutory statement as something to which they are obliged to have regard.
The other point I want to make is to reinforce something I said by way of an intervention. It really is no use the Government relying on the fact that they have produced an illustrative or indicative statement. That statement may be regarded by some as motherhood and apple pie; it might be regarded by others as offering a few hints of things that might be unsatisfactory in future statements. It is not the law. It does not inhibit or guide even this Government, let alone future ones, as to what kind of statements they will seek to get through the process.
Remember that the process is effectively one of statutory instruments—affirmative procedure, the same as statutory instruments—which, for various other reasons, many noble Lords are reluctant to use in this House to the extent of actually defeating a statement. Indeed, the Labour Party has often taken a public position that it is not appropriate for this House to take such an action, but the noble Lord on the Front Bench pointed out that we are dealing with a different matter here. We are dealing not with a general policy issue but with protection of the integrity of the election process and the body required to regulate it, and the independence that body needs to be able to do those things.
I end with the hope that the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, will be read by quite a lot of other members of his party, who might then feel free to join those of no party, my party and the Labour Party in saying that this matters. This is a threat to the independence and perceived independence of the body that regulates elections. However many of its decisions we disagree with or which may have been discomforting to our own individual party or cause, we must maintain its independence. That requires the removal of these clauses.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I will follow on from the points made very powerfully by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell. In effect, these clauses will empower the regulated over the regulator. I listened very carefully to the point from noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that statements of policy over regulators are not new. Let us take the logic of what these clauses actually do and of who is writing the statement to its conclusion. Would we allow the dominant electricity and gas company to write the strategy and policy statement for the energy regulator? Would the Government be happy for the largest water company in the country to write the strategy and policy statement for the water regulator? Would the Government legislate for the largest telecommunications company to write the strategy and policy statement for the telecoms regulator? I ask those questions directly to the Minister. If not, why not? We know as well as those outside this House do that that would empower the regulated over the regulator. We have independent regulators so that those who are regulated have no power whatever over the regulator.
Therefore, why is it that the Government seek in this Bill to allow the largest political party—that is, the Government—to write the strategy and policy statement for the regulator of elections and electoral policy? There is no logical reason to do that in order to keep that regulator independent. It completely puts the regulator at the behest of the Government in power, and it sets direction.
I want to follow what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, says, because it is important that we look at what is in these clauses. A number of times, both the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, have kind of given us warm tea and soothed us: “Don’t worry, have your cup of tea, sit down, and everything will be fine. It is a statement purely of strategy. This strategy won’t get into the operation. The Government won’t be directing what the commission does.” But let us look at new Section 4A(3)(b) introduced by Clause 14. The Secretary of State will be given the power to put in the statement
“any other information (for example, about the roles and responsibilities of other persons) the Secretary of State considers appropriate”—
any other information. It basically gives the Secretary of State carte blanche to direct the regulator of elections and the electoral system to do whatever the Secretary of State decides. It is such a wide power. It is not a strategy power; it is a power that could get right into who the Electoral Commission employs, what the role of that person is and the kinds of powers that person has.
I ask the Minister: what powers would be excluded from new Section 4A(3)(b)? The Bill says
“any other information … the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”
Is that a catch-all? If not, what would be excluded on the face of the Bill? I cannot see anything on the face of the Bill that says what the strategy and policy statement would exclude. I see that the statement could include any information the Secretary of State sees fit.
Furthermore, the Secretary of State, as we have already discussed, could do this of their own volition and without any consultation. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, was absolutely clear. “Consultation” does not necessarily mean anything. I am a former council leader. We consulted. You do not necessarily have to change what you have decided based on consultation. Some of the most powerful and important considerations we have to make in this clause are that those who have worked in and led arm’s-length bodies have said very clearly that when a Government say something is on the face of the Bill and you have to have regard to it, it is a direction and an instruction. It is not just something bland; it is a clear instruction that those people within those organisations and the Electoral Commission will see as something they have to take forward. It is very clear that the powers in this clause are much greater than a kind of “It’ll be all right, you don’t have to do it”. New Section 4B(2) says that the commission “must”—not “may”—
“have regard to the statement when carrying out their functions.”
New subsection (4)(b) says that the commission must report after the end of
“every subsequent 12-month period, on what they have done—”
not on what they have not done—
“in consequence of the statement.”
Remember: the statement is about the priorities of the Government.
I believe that these clauses, which are so widely written, give the Government such powers over the regulator that they completely and totally take away the basis of a regulator that free and fair elections can be built on and undermine the very basis of our democracy. It is for those reasons that these clauses should not stand part of the Bill.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I rise very briefly to draw three points to the Government’s attention. The first is prompted by the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, who talked about a culture of what appears to him to be institutional arrogance in the Electoral Commission. We live at a time of airborne viruses, with which we are all too familiar, and it occurs to me that perhaps they have infected Her Majesty’s Government to some degree, since I detect occasional traits of institutional arrogance in some of their statements and demeanour from time to time. I hope this debate is not going to be an example of that.
Secondly, I advise the Minister to listen extremely carefully to the forensic way in which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, laid out his argument. We have to think about what we hope is the unlikely event that something to do with the Electoral Commission and what it has done goes to judicial review or something similar. The noble and learned Lord demonstrated the way in which justice will look at the words of this law, and how they will be interpreted. So I say to the Government that, if they find themselves up against individuals such as the noble and learned Lord, they are likely to come out on the wrong side of the argument.
Thirdly, I belong to the Council of Europe, and in that capacity I have monitored three different elections. The Council of Europe exists partly to help those countries that do not have a history and tradition of western democracy as we know it to move towards a state where that becomes normalised. In the course of the three elections that I have monitored, one thing that we have always done early on is go and meet the electoral commission of the country. All that I can say from my experience of doing that is that, if we were interrogating an electoral commission and we discovered in the course of that interrogation that the commission was subject to what the Government are suggesting in these two clauses, it would start some red lights flashing. So I suggest to the Minister that the Council of Europe has a well-developed set of criteria for advising countries on how to set up their electoral commissions and how to make sure that they are fair and do what it says on the label, and I would be very happy to make an introduction to the people in Strasbourg who could give the Government access to that.
I appeal to the Minister to think very carefully about what he is trying to persuade us is the right way to proceed, because the mood of the House is very clearly that we have great concerns about it. So please let us all be careful.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, this has certainly been a very interesting debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for tabling these amendments, and I wish him well as I understand the reasons why he is not with us today. I also thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, for his incredibly thorough and forensic introduction in the noble Lord’s absence. I cannot think of anyone who could have better gone through these clauses and explained the concerns around them.
We know that the Electoral Commission was established by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 in order to oversee elections and regulate political finance in the UK independently of government. The 1998 report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life emphasised the fundamental importance of independence for the proposed commission. It said:
“Those who have advocated the establishment of an Election Commission have been emphatic that it should be independent both of the government of the day and of the political parties … An Election Commission in a democracy like ours could not function properly, or indeed at all, unless it were scrupulously impartial and believed to be so by everyone seriously involved and by the public at large.”
In its 2007 review of the Electoral Commission, the CSPL highlighted the dual requirements of independence and accountability, saying that
“any system of accountability must also protect the Commission’s independence and impartiality from the possibility of undue influence for partisan political or electoral advantage”.
In 2009, party-nominated commissioners were introduced to bring knowledge and experience of political parties and the workings of elections from those perspectives. This is now well represented and understood by the commission.
Part 3 of the Bill would make significant changes to the way in which the Electoral Commission is accountable to Parliament, giving new powers to the UK Government to designate a strategy and policy statement, about which many noble Lords have expressed concerns. It would require, as other noble Lords have said, the commission to “have regard to” this statement when carrying out its functions. It was really important that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, went carefully through the Bill on the implications of what this would mean.
The introduction of a strategy and policy statement which enables the Government to set the strategic direction for the work of the Electoral Commission is inconsistent with the role that an independent commission plays in a healthy democratic system. This independence is fundamental to maintaining confidence in our electoral system. The commission’s independent role must be clear for voters and campaigners to see, and it must be preserved in electoral law. This underpins fairness and trust in our electoral system and provides cross-party confidence in the commission. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, explained why he thinks that public confidence could be lost if complete independence of the Electoral Commission is lost.
The commission’s accountability is currently directly to the UK’s Parliaments and should remain so, rather than being subjected to government direction. As we have heard, the Electoral Commission itself took the unprecedented step of writing to the Secretary of State and the Minister in the other place. The noble Lords, Lord Kerslake and Lord Beith, quoted from this letter and I would like to do the same. In it, the Electoral Commissioners
“urge the Government to reconsider those measures which seek to change the oversight arrangements of the Electoral Commission.”
I find it quite extraordinary that it felt the need to ask the Government to reconsider because it was so concerned.
Independence from the Government of the day is important because it prevents an incumbent changing laws or practices to suit their political interests. It can also strengthen public trust in the political process. Just as the judiciary should be independent, electoral officials should be non-partisan. As my noble friend Lord Eatwell said, the Secretary of State is both regulator and regulated.
The problem with the Bill is that, in contrast with keeping electoral officials non-partisan, it proposes to weaken the commission’s independence as well as to give the Government greater power by allowing them to designate the strategy and policy statement. It gives Parliament—but in practice, a Government, if they have a majority—the power to examine the Electoral Commission’s compliance with this. The Electoral Integrity Project describes this as
“a direct violation of international best practices and would constitute democratic backsliding because it is giving the government and future governments greater control over the conduct of elections—the process through which citizens are enabled to hold government to account”.
As we have heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, new Section 4A of PPERA, as inserted by Clause 14, empowers the Secretary of State to designate this strategy and policy statement. This would set the strategic and policy priorities of the Government relating to electoral and similar matters, and the role and responsibilities of the commission in enabling the Government to meet those priorities. The statement may also give guidance in relation to particular functions of the commission and may provide additional information. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, mentioned “any other business”. If that is the case, can the Minister tell us where the checks and balances are as to what this could include?
Evidence given to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee included, its report said,
“strong criticisms from academics and a range of stakeholders that the measures lack justification and were characterised as a ‘retrograde step’ ‘an extremely dangerous thing to do’ and ‘would constitute democratic backsliding’
In his evidence, it continued, Professor Fisher pointed to
“surveys of election agents since 2005 which ‘have seen that confidence in the [Electoral Commission] has grown over this period ... there is no particular problem with those that the [Electoral Commission] regulates’”.
Far from requiring additional oversight, the commission already delivers good work in ensuring high levels of satisfaction in the integrity of the electoral process among those who are most knowledgeable and closely involved. A survey of electoral agents at the 2019 general election showed that 78% agreed that the rules in respect of election spending and donations were clear; 72% viewed the Electoral Commission as a useful source of advice; 75% thought that electoral guidance for candidates and agents was clear and easy to use; and 75% thought that the Electoral Commission’s written information on the verification and count was clear and easy to use.
In its response to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, whose report raised these concerns, the Government said:
“It is not uncommon for the Government to set a broad policy framework, as approved by Parliament, which independent regulators should consider”
giving as examples the relationship that Ministers hold with regulators such as Ofcom and Ofwat.
The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, referred to other regulators, mentioning her experience with Ofcom in particular. I too have spent many years working in regulated industries, in my case energy and water. I would instead agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, and the CSPL, which considers this to be a completely false analogy, since these are not regulators implementing government policy. The Electoral Commission regulates the people and parties that make up the Government and Parliament. The noble Lord, Lord Scriven, gave an example as to why the situation with regulators such as Ofcom and Ofwat is so very different, so I do not accept that analogy. When giving evidence on this, Professor Alan Renwick stressed that
“ministers and parliamentarians should recognise their own potential conflict of interest.”
Does the Minister recognise that there is a potential conflict of interest here?
Clauses 14 and 15 are not just about increasing the accountability of the commission to a Committee in the House of Commons, to which it already reports. Clause 14 subjects the commission to strategic and policy control, including guidance on specific cases, not by Parliament, but by Ministers. It is pretty difficult to express just how appalling this is but the noble and learned, Lord Judge, did an excellent job. Policy control and even guidance on individual cases might be appropriate for other public bodies—for example, those making decisions about infrastructure or planning permission—but it can never be right for the governing party to be able to give instructions to a body whose role requires it to make decisions that might well go against the interests of that party.
Under Clause 14, Ministers could guide the commission to interpret its powers in ways that would favour the ruling party and its friends. The courts might provide a backstop in the most extreme cases, such as where guidance tries to permit illegal activities, but judicial intervention is unlikely in more strategic interventions, such as Ministers telling the commission to restrict or halt its work on voter registration, which targets mainly young people, minorities and renters living in house-shares.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, of course I listen carefully. Having listened carefully, I infer that your Lordships view these clauses with somewhat modified rapture. Even if I were as eloquent as Pericles, which I am not, I might not be able to change your Lordships’ minds over the next five to 10 minutes. However, I hope that, as we engage on this Bill—which I hope we will continue doing—these clauses will remain in as we go forward to Report. We should always consider modes of improvement, as well as modes of rejection. I will certainly undertake to have further conversations.
I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, on his return from the United States. I understand that he was not at Second Reading, but I will correct the record by saying that I made no reference to the precautionary principle in that debate. It is not my habit to do so. If he finds in Hansard that I did, then I will gladly apologise to him.
I will address the amendments proposed to Clauses 14 and 15, and the excision of these clauses from the Bill. All noble Lords will agree—as I do—that it is vital that we have an independent regulator which commands trust across the political spectrum. This is the view of Her Majesty’s Government. The public rightly expect efficient and independent regulation of the electoral system. We must reflect at all times on the current structures charged with this important responsibility and, where there is a need for change, be prepared to make it. The one thing that will not change is that the Electoral Commission is independent and will remain so.
We believe that the Government’s proposals represent a proportionate approach to reforming the accountability of the Electoral Commission, while respecting its operational independence. I listened very carefully to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and will examine the Hansard record of his analysis of the clauses. There is no direction in the clause for the Electoral Commission to act in any particular way. There is the requirement to “have regard to” the strategy document —to which I will return later.
Clause 14 seeks to make provisions for the introduction of a strategy and policy statement which will set out guidance which the Electoral Commission “must have regard to” in the discharge of its functions. It is not a direction, as my noble friend Lady Noakes said, in what, under the circumstances, was a somewhat courageous speech and one with which I agreed. She set this out clearly.
It has been claimed that the “duty to have regard” to the statement introduced by the provisions will weaken the independence of the commission. I understand that noble Lords should be concerned about that. It is a perfectly legitimate concern. If that were the case, I would understand where noble Lords were coming from. We do not believe that the duty weakens the independence. It is also argued that the Government are given too much influence. Indeed, it was said that the duty gave “control” over the Electoral Commission’s affairs. Again, in our submission, that is wrong. We strongly reject that characterisation of the measure. This is guidance, not a directive, and, as such, the Electoral Commission will remain operationally independent as a result of this measure. It will be required to “have regard” to the statement in the exercise of its functions. This legal duty does not replace or undermine the commission’s other statutory duties. They will remain.
It is entirely appropriate for the Government and Parliament to provide a steer on electoral policy and ensure that their reforms on electoral law are properly implemented. It is not about meddling with operational enforcement decisions on individual cases or any change in the commission’s statutory duties. By increasing policy emphasis on electoral integrity, however, inter alia the Government are seeking to prevent interference in our democracy from fraud, foreign money and hostile state actors.
At present, the Electoral Commission is not fully held to account by anyone. My noble friend Lord Hayward referred to the issues of family voting in Tower Hamlets, on which I recently read an article by that courageous campaigner for honesty in elections, Councillor Peter Golds, who documents his difficulties in getting the commission to address fully and seriously, as he sees it, the problems presented by this issue. The proposed illustrative document that has been given to noble Lords, for example, asks the Electoral Commission to look into the dangers of fraud and such issues that emerge from family voting. It is reasonable to ask the body tasked with preventing fraud to address the bullying of female voters and to give priority to that.
The statement has a democratic check by being ratified by Parliament, as we discussed on an earlier amendment. Your Lordships have the power to accept or reject these proposals on the statement when it comes forward. The duty to have regard that we are introducing means simply that when carrying out its functions the commission will be required to consider the statement and weigh it up against any other relevant considerations. I do not accept the contention of the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and others that a statement is not appropriate for a public body. I agree with my noble friend Lady Noakes in her response to that.
Lord Kerslake (CB)
Perhaps I might clarify this point for the Minister. I did not say it applied to any public body. I said it related to the Electoral Commission. There is a critical difference here in its role, its standing and the nature of its accountability. The situation is quite different for other regulatory bodies.
Lord True (Con)
I respectfully disagree with the noble Lord on that. The Electoral Commission is a public body and many other such bodies have important duties and activities that impinge on the public and public well-being. I stand by my statement and agree with my noble friend Lady Noakes on that.
The propositions that we are putting forward work in similar ways to other existing statutory duties that require public bodies to have regard to specific considerations in carrying out their functions; for example, the requirement for public bodies to have regard to matters of equality when exercising their functions. The statement will not allow the Government to direct the commission’s decision-making. They—any Government—will not be able to do so. My noble friend Lady Noakes is, again, right.
Lord Scriven (LD)
I must challenge this. The Minister keeps saying that there is not a power. Can he explain new Section 4A(3)(b) in Clause 14, which states specifically that the statement may also set out
“any other information (for example, about the roles and responsibilities of other persons) the Secretary of State considers appropriate”?
That is such a wide power, that the Secretary of State can determine anything that the commission does.
Lord True (Con)
Yes, my Lords, new Section 4A(3)(b) allows the statement to contain—I am repeating what the noble Lord has just read out for the Committee; I am trying to help the Committee by doing so—any information considered appropriate, such as information
“about the roles and responsibilities of other persons.”
This could include other bodies with which the EC has relations, for example. The commission cannot be held responsible for the functions of other bodies which might be mentioned. New Section 4B(2) is disallowed from the commission’s duty to
“have regard to the statement when carrying out their function.”
New Section 4B(3) says:
“Subsection (2) does not apply to information contained in the statement by virtue of section 4A(3)(b).”
It is therefore intended specifically, for the reasons that the noble Lord puts forward, for that provision in the Bill.
The Government are clear in their submission that a statement will not undermine the commission’s other statutory duties. It could be used to provide guidance in areas where the commission is exercising the significant amount of discretion it is afforded, and will continue to be afforded, in terms of activity, priorities and approach.
More generally, statutory consultation in applicable circumstances, and the required approval of the UK Parliament when a statement is created or revised, will ensure that the Government consider the UK Parliament’s views and will give Parliament, including your Lordships’ House, the final say over whether the statement takes effect. This measure will improve the commission’s accountability to this Parliament and ensure that Parliament remains firmly in control of approving any statement.
I turn to the amendment relating to Clause 15. The purpose of Clause 15 is to expand the remit of the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, a statutory committee which is chaired impartially by the Speaker of the other place. Its existing remit is limited to overseeing the commission’s finances, its five-year plan and the appointment of Electoral Commissioners. In expanding the committee’s remit, so that it may examine the commission’s performance of its duties to have regard to the statement, the Government are seeking to extend Parliamentary accountability of the commission to the Speaker’s Committee. This will enable the committee to perform a scrutiny function similar to that of Parliamentary Select Committees, allowing it to retrospectively scrutinise the commission’s activities in light of its duty to have regard to the statement. This power will sit alongside the committee’s existing statutory duties, which we are not amending in any way.
For clarity, Clause 15 will not enable the committee, any more than the Government, to direct the commission’s decision-making. The commission will remain operationally independent and continue to be governed by the commissioners. For completeness, this clause also gives the Speaker’s Committee powers to request relevant information from the commission
“in such form as the Committee may reasonably require”,
while ensuring that the commission is not required to disclose information that
“might adversely affect any current investigation”
or that
“would contravene the data protection legislation.”
This is important in protecting the commission’s ability to investigate, and also the interests of those who may be under investigation. For the reasons that I have set out, we contend that this clause will actually improve the commission’s accountability to Parliament, while respecting the regulator’s operational independence.
Those are the reasons why the Government think that these clauses are proportionate and reasonable, and I urge that your Lordships do not seek to remove these clauses from the Bill.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister suggested that he did not use the precautionary principle in his speeches at Second Reading. At col. 314, he drew a direct analogy between the need for photographic evidence to vote and locking a door to prevent burglars. Is not that the precautionary principle?
Lord True (Con)
No, it was a humorous remark for the Committee. The precautionary principle is one that the European Union applies in considering legislative activity; it is not a principle that I espouse and not one that I endorsed in the speech.
Viscount Stansgate (Lab)
Can the Minister at least address another point made by my noble friend, on the effect that these clauses will have on the perception that our electoral process is as proper as it should be? Given the comparison that he drew with what we have seen across the Atlantic, and the damage that could be done if any electoral process suffers from a growing sense that it is in some way unfair, or has been interfered with, it is simply not worth having these clauses, to prevent the type of damage that we have seen across the Atlantic.
Lord True (Con)
I accept what the noble Lord said on that point—and, indeed, what the noble Viscount has said. What I would say is, first, that a Minister at the Dispatch Box should not criticise either a former or a present President of the United States, or any members of the parties that support them. We all make and contribute to the perceptions that people have, and one problem is with the risk of importing the rhetoric of the USA about voter suppression, fair voting or whatever, when actually every opinion poll in the United States, including among African Americans, supports the principle of voter identification. If we import that rhetoric into our public affairs, we ourselves potentially contribute to the very kind of perception that I wish to avoid, and I know that the noble Viscount also does—although he has not been in this House that long, I know that his integrity is resounding. All of us who want to avoid that ought to watch our own language in this respect. That is the only thing that I would say in response. We will debate this later, but the Government are seeking to suppress nobody’s vote. We wish to maximise participation in elections.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I hope that the Minister can answer the direct point from the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. Although the noble Lord criticised the operation of the Electoral Commission and spoke about how it might improve, he referenced something fundamental. He spoke about his experience in a country where an electoral commission operated under the direction of a Government who hindered and harmed the opposition. Does the Minister not think that, when we complain to that Government about that electoral commission, today’s action and his speech today will inhibit our ability to criticise that Government?
Lord True (Con)
Absolutely not—and I very much hope not. I come to your Lordships’ House to listen to your Lordships’ House, and I hope every government Minister does just the same. The direct answer to the noble Lord opposite is the one that I gave in my speech—that this Government do not seek to direct the Electoral Commission, and nothing in the Bill contains a power of direction.
Lord Judge (CB)
I am very grateful to everybody who has taken part in this debate. It has been a very interesting debate, with aspects of the issue to which my eyes have certainly been opened.
Noble Lords will not want me to try to address every point made by the Minister, but I shall draw attention to a couple. First, if there are problems with how the Electoral Commission is doing its job, or problems with the extent of its job and the ambit of its responsibilities, what we should do is reform the Electoral Commission. We do that in primary legislation before both Houses, not by a ministerial statement.
Secondly, the Minister said that there was nothing in here that used a direction, because “must have regard to” is not a direction. It is not a direction—but the issue is not merely power but influence, and undue influence. However much one tries to avoid the fact, if the Electoral Commission must have regard to whatever the Minister says, the perception of undue influence is obvious, the fact of undue influence is, I suggest, inevitable, and the truth of the matter is that over the years the Electoral Commission will become more and more dependent on what the Secretary of State’s statement asserts.
Finally, the point I sought to make was that the Speaker’s Committee was fine and good when we had the Electoral Commission exercising the responsibilities it currently has, without the introduction of the new Secretary of State’s statement. But what alarms me—and, I suspect, alarms the House—is simply this: there will be two government Ministers examining the work of the Electoral Commission and checking whether it has complied with, or responded to, the Secretary of State’s statement. Fine: they will be seeing whether their ministerial colleague’s directions, invitation and suggestions have been obeyed. In other words, the Electoral Commission will be judged by somebody in the same Cabinet, or the same party. That is a serious change in the way in which the commission works.
I am sorry to say this but, having listened to the Minister, I am in the same position as PACAC was. Incidentally, PACAC is one of the bodies that the Secretary of State is supposed to consult, but its recommendation has been totally ignored. The Minister has not demonstrated that the proposed measures that we are considering are both necessary and proportionate. Nor has he demonstrated that the risk of
“undermining public confidence in the effective and independent regulation of the electoral system”
has been avoided. For those reasons, among many put forward, although for today’s purposes I shall not press the matter, we shall have to return to this on Report.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would probe the provisions which prevent the Commission from borrowing money.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I imagine that, compared with the previous debate, this one will be a lot shorter and sweeter. I tabled the amendment to Clause 17, which, as I am sure noble Lords are aware, deals with criminal proceedings. I am aware that there are other amendments relating to this area that will probe much more deeply the provisions for the police and the institution of criminal proceedings, so I will be brief.
My amendment would make a very small addition to proposed new sub-paragraph (2)(a), and add the phrase “greater than a peppercorn” after the word “money”. It is a probing amendment, which we decided to put forward for discussion because, although we would not disagree with the concept that the Electoral Commission should not borrow money, that is not the issue at all. I wanted to bring this forward, and ask the Minister some questions, to find out why this provision was placed in Clause 17.
The Minister may tell me I am wrong, but my understanding is that the Electoral Commission is already unable to borrow money, so this does not seem to me to be a new policy. Can he clarify that, in case I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick here and there is a particular reason why this clause has been included? I would appreciate some detail on the reasoning behind it. There is legislation that governs other bodies. The one that comes to mind is the Office for Students, which also is prevented from borrowing money. Is the idea behind this that the Government are trying to bring more consistency across legislation, looking at other bodies? Perhaps it needed tidying up. I would be very grateful to know.
On that point, I also ask the Minister whether there are any public bodies that are now in a position to borrow money. I have got a bit confused. If some are able to borrow money, what is the justification for that and for others not being able to do the same? I just want to get a better understanding of this part of the clause.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I support the amendment, probing as it is, from the noble Baroness. As she quite rightly said, this in large measure prefigures the next debate we are going to have. I await with interest the answers that we will hear. Particularly in the case of the borrowing power, it seems somewhat otiose to put in a power that has never been exercised in any way at all.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, it seems that it is time for a change of horse—although it is fair to say that the highway that this one is on is broadly the same. On this amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, I respect her wish to explore the issue; I understand that it is a probing amendment on the question of whether the Electoral Commission can borrow money. I will try my best to answer the questions that have been raised. It is our view, at the outset, that we do not think that this is necessary, but it is of course incumbent on me to explain why.
It is important to note that the Electoral Commission is funded through Parliament each year, following scrutiny by the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission. The commission submits a main estimate, outlining its required funding for the financial year ahead for approval by that committee, with the estimate then laid before the House of Commons. Should the commission require any further funding for the year, it is able to submit supplementary estimates throughout the year to the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission as necessary. This could be where project costs have risen for unforeseeable circumstances or for unscheduled electoral events. Given this annual funding through Parliament, and with the ability to seek further funding if required for unforeseen projects or events, it is the view of the Government that the commission therefore does not need to borrow money. I think that is probably what the noble Baroness was seeking confirmation of, and I can confirm it. It is further noted that this restriction has been in place since the establishment of the commission.
On the noble Baroness’s specific question as to why it therefore needs to be in the Bill, I am seeking that answer. It may just be that it is confirmatory and needs to be put in but, if there is anything further to say on that, I will most certainly write to the noble Baroness, as it is a very fair and rather basic question.
On the other public bodies that might be in a position to borrow money—that is, who they are and perhaps to what extent—again, that is something I will need to write on. It may be a very long list or it may be a very short list, but it is a fair point in terms of providing some sort of context to this matter.
I hope that that provides a little reassurance. With that, I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his response and look forward to his letter. I thank him for agreeing to write to me so that I have the details of the response. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Stunell (LD)
I rise to oppose the proposition that Clause 17 should stand part of the Bill.
Clause 17 is a strange animal. In explaining something of the context for new sub-paragraph (2)(a), the Minister did not give me the impression that there is a clear context for its inclusion in the Bill. However, it is much easier to see what it is for when you look at new sub-paragraph (2)(b). The way I see it—perhaps the Minister can tell me whether I have got it wrong—this is, in essence, the wing-clipping clause. Wing clipping leaves the bird looking fine; it just cannot fly. So the Electoral Commission will retain all its plumage and hopefully make all the right noises at the right time, but it will not be allowed to deliver so much as a peck to miscreants, let alone take off and fly. In short, new sub-paragraph (2)(b) removes the Electoral Commission’s right to instigate criminal proceedings.
In our report on this exact matter last year, the Committee on Standards in Public Life looked very hard at the issue, not least because some of the Minister’s friends in the other place had clearly expressed strong views on it. We heard some of the context for that from the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, earlier. If I change the metaphor from birds to football, I could say that the Minister’s friends in the other place objected to the yellow cards that the Electoral Commission issued following the 2015 general election. They wanted to appeal to the FA on the grounds that the referee was biased, did not understand the offside rule and had taken a long time studying VAR before reaching for his card.
The committee heard—indeed, the noble Baroness quoted our evidence—that it had been a very stressful time for some people, not least because there was an extended period of uncertainty and a high risk of reputational damage. Nevertheless, the fact is that offences were committed, breaches of electoral law were found and convictions followed. I might say in passing that, as an amateur agent and candidate multiple times over a period of more than 40 years, it is a stressful time. However, of all the difficulties in understanding and accurately following election rules during that time, I must say that I never found the rule that national and local expenditure should be kept separate particularly taxing or problematic—but they found it to be so.
I recommend that noble Lords take a close look at the CSPL report on this, which I believe they will find balanced and persuasive, although it does not seem to have persuaded the Government. In one particular respect, we recommended that the Electoral Commission should in fact have extra powers to grant permission to parties and non-party and referendum campaigners to pay late invoices or bills from suppliers. That is taking over a function that is currently exercised by the courts. At present, there is a very cumbersome process of applying to the courts for relief if a small mistake—or indeed a large one, although most are very trivial—has been made in paying invoices and bills at the end of an election campaign. That application to the courts is certainly stressful and wholly disproportionate. If stress relief is the aim of this clause, or the Bill as a whole, that CSPL recommendation ought to be included in it—that provision should be there.
One argument that has been advanced and that the Minister may be tempted to deploy is that it is not appropriate for the rule-maker to be the prosecutor of breaches of those laws. Well, quite a lot of people exercise power in situations where they might have a conflict of interest, which has been referred to by my noble friend Lord Scriven. I remind the Minister that the Health and Safety Executive is one of many regulators that do exactly that: it manages the regulations and carries out prosecutions. I further remind him that his noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Greenhalgh, is about to give the Health and Safety Executive, via the building safety regulator, a hugely extended role in tackling the cladding scandal and the many examples of poor practice in the building industry. It may be too much to expect consistency of approach from two Ministers dealing with two Bills on the same issue in the same week, but, in one case, a regulator is being given a greatly enhanced reach of powers to prosecute and fine, and, in the other, one is having its teeth ripped out.
It may be said that there have not been any prosecutions by the Electoral Commission and you never miss what you do not have. That of course is a completely post hoc position; it would make more sense to deploy that argument if there had not in fact been dirty work at the Thanet crossroads—but the court found that there had been. The evidence given to CSPL was that, in England, the very many different police forces have very different levels of expertise in election law and offences. They were often very hesitant to get involved in complex and possibly highly politically charged cases where there is little by way of case law to guide them and quite a low chance of securing a conviction. I do not know whether the Minister has any evidence to the contrary—has he got chief police constables and police and crime commissioners queueing up to ask him, “Please can we take on more election offences”?—but I have to say that that evidence missed CSPL. So, in the absence of that, what does subsection (4)(2)(b) achieve? As far as I can see, it reduces the chance of a successful prosecution or inquiry.
So, if there is no evidence that the police are gagging to take on more work, the impression that the Electoral Commission’s wings are simply being clipped is strengthened. So I want hear how the Minister expects prosecutions of egregious offences to proceed if this is removed from the system. If the system is to function effectively, the Electoral Commission needs the backstop power to institute proceedings, not least as a spur or lever to make sure that police engage properly in taking action in an area of law where they have traditionally shied away from it.
Although Clause 17 is by no means as dangerous as the earlier ones—Clauses 14 and 15—it is here simply as a piece of red meat to give to disgruntled politicians who had a near miss. It is out of place in a Bill that was once called the “election integrity Bill”—very sensibly, the Government dropped the word “integrity”. I am afraid that it diminishes the power of the Electoral Commission in yet another small way and reduces its capacity to deliver fully and properly on one of its core functions. It runs entirely contrary to the recommendations made by CSPL, which have been delivered to the Prime Minister after a most careful consideration of all of the available evidence. I and my noble friends say that it should come out of the Bill.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord’s intent to oppose Clause 17 standing part of the Bill and to probe the new restrictions on the Electoral Commission which, in effect, will prevent it instituting criminal proceedings. This represents a significant change in the role of the commission which, until now and since its establishment, has held the power to bring prosecutions against those who break electoral law.
This will no doubt mean that greater responsibilities are left to the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to enforce electoral law. On this, can the Minister confirm whether additional resources, support and training will be provided for this purpose? The transfer of functions away from the commission will also reduce its overall responsibilities and could mean that the positions of some of its workforce are made redundant. Does the Minister expect that any jobs will be lost as a result of these clauses?
Overall, I am concerned that these measures could be short-sighted and form part of a broader attack on the capabilities of the independent Electoral Commission. At a time when democracy is under threat elsewhere in the world, the UK should stand as a beacon for our values and oversight is crucial to that. If the Government can justify this transfer of functions away from the Electoral Commission for the purpose of effectiveness, they will have our support, but given that other clauses in this Bill undermine the independence of the commission, I am sure the Minister will understand our caution over these provisions.
Let us look at the evidence. The Electoral Commission considers that its
“current powers to establish a prosecution function are consistent with those available to many other regulators”
and that the proposed measure would
“reduce the scope for political finance offences to be prosecuted, relying solely on the police and prosecutors having the resources and will to take action.”
It notes that the current low levels of prosecution for a PPERA offence, referencing one in the past 20 years, have “important implications for deterrence.”
Assistant Chief Constable Pete O’Doherty from Thames Valley Police noted:
“the current state of legislation has created a two-tier system with parties and non-parties being investigated and regulated by the commission with civil penalties imposed, while of course candidates and individuals by the police, who will end up with much more severe sentences and even criminal records. Also the relationship between the police and the commission is very strong, and having organisations that apply two very different pieces of legislation is not ideal. For example, it can cause issues in deciding what should be classed as party and what should be classed as candidate expenses, to give you an example.”
The Government note that the CSPL’s recent report on electoral finance regulation did not recommend that the Electoral Commission should be able to develop the capacity to bring prosecutions. They stress that they are
“committed instead to supporting the police as necessary to enforce electoral regulation proactively and effectively and as stated in the Government’s response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s report, the local nature of offences under the Representation of the People Act 1983 means that it is sensible for investigations to lie with local forces police, rather than being run on a national scale. The Government will consider further the Committee’s findings and recommendations, including on enforcement of electoral law.”
Finally, I turn to the PACAC recommendations:
“The Government has not clarified whether more resources and training will be provided to the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland (PPS) to investigate alleged criminal offences under PPERA.
… The Government should set out how it will ‘support the police as necessary to enforce electoral regulation proactively and effectively’, as committed by the Government in its letter to the Committee of 7 October 2021, including what resources it will make available to the police to investigate and bring forward criminal prosecutions under PPERA.
… We urge the Government to commit to review, monitor and report on potential criminal breaches under PPERA and their enforcement, which would assist in bringing forward any further legislative changes to either the civil and/or criminal sanctioning regimes. The Government should publish its findings and lay a statement in Parliament every year.
… The Government should also commit to undertaking a review of the civil sanctioning regime for electoral law offences and its interplay with criminal prosecutions under PPERA and the RPA, providing a timetable for consultation and review of the CSPL’s recommendations in this regard.”
On the Government’s response to the PACAC recommendations, we do not think that the Government have not done enough to address the committee’s concerns.
I finish by echoing the words of the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that, as it currently stands, this is wing-clipping of the Electoral Commission. It is silencing and reducing its power—a theme that we have seen continuously through different groups of amendments in Committee. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Lord True (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this brief debate and I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Khan, as another member of the team on the Front Bench opposite for this Bill. I look forward to working with him as I do with other noble Lords opposite.
The purpose of Clause 17, which the noble Lord opposes, is not to change anything but to maintain the existing role of the Crown Prosecution Service and Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland in bringing prosecutions under electoral law by clarifying the extent of the Electoral Commission’s existing powers.
I remind noble Lords that, when PPERA was passed—and it was an important reforming Bill by a Labour Government that established the commission—Labour Ministers then were absolutely explicit that the Electoral Commission should not have prosecution powers. The noble Lord, Lord Bach—a fine noble Lord—said at the time that the Neill committee, which was the independent committee that had looked into this,
“made clear its view that prosecutions in respect of breaches of the law relating to controls on donations and election expenses should be placed in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions and should not be the concern of the commission … the commission does not have that power … the commission will be an enforcement authority but not a prosecuting authority.”—[Official Report, 20/11/2000; col. 631.]
That was what the noble Lord said then, and I agree with him now.
The Explanatory Notes for PPERA clearly state that the Electoral Commission shall have
“a duty to monitor compliance (but not to mount criminal prosecutions).”
That was the basis on which the commission was set up, and all parties at that time assented to that proposition, including the Liberal Democrats.
What has actually changed? The Electoral Commission publicly stated in its Interim Corporate Plan 2020-21 – 2024-25 its intention to develop a prosecutorial capability that would allow it to investigate and bring suspected offences directly before the courts. That was in the aftermath of what some might consider the debacle of the pursuit by the commission of some citizens, which was summed up in by a headline in the Guardian on 14 September 2018:
“Elections watchdog got law wrong on Brexit donations, court rules”.
While the commission considers that current legislation provides scope for it to develop this function, that has never been explicitly agreed by any Government or Parliament. Indeed, as I just suggested to noble Lords, absolutely the reverse was the intention of Parliament when the Labour Government introduced this legislation. It is therefore important to clarify, in the light of the Electoral Commission’s statement, the relevant legislation to make it clear that the commission should not bring criminal proceedings and to put the matter beyond doubt. By doing so, we will avoid the risk of wasting public money as well as the risk of duplicating the work of the prosecution authorities who are already experts in this domain—I agree with the noble Lord opposite that that is where the resources should go.
The clause that the Government propose would add to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 to make clear the original attention of Parliament that the commission should not bring criminal prosecutions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This would not apply in Scotland where there is already a single prosecutorial authority.
The clause will not amend any of the commission’s other existing powers. The commission will continue to have a wide range of investigatory and civil sanctioning powers available to it, and it will remain able to refer criminal matters to the police, as is currently the case. We must not forget that, as the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, himself reminded us, the commission has never brought a criminal prosecution to date, although it may be talking of wanting to develop that role. Clause 17 merely retains that status quo in practice, so our measure will not add a burden to the prosecution authorities or lead to fewer prosecutions.
The proper place for criminal investigations and prosecutions lies with the experts in this domain—namely, the police and prosecution authorities. That is in line with the Regulating Election Finance report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which found that there was no evidence or support for allowing the regulator to develop a prosecutorial ability in order to increase the number of prosecutions. The proper place for criminal investigation and prosecution is with the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, and the Public Prosecution Service in Northern Ireland. These are the experts. Having the commission step into this space is unnecessary.
I draw the Committee’s attention to the Crown Prosecution Service’s evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life in July 2021, when it stated that
“the CPS deals with criminal offences under the RPA and criminal charges under PPERA, while the Electoral Commission has civil powers to deal with PPERA cases. We assess this is an appropriate division. There are important prosecutorial functions that the CPS has vast experience of, and expertise in, including police PACE processes, adherence to CPIA legislation and to disclosure rules … In our view”—
this is the CPS, not the Government—
“a criminal-civil divide provides a good level of precision … Any unintentional blurring of the lines would be counter-productive.”
I think that is advice from prosecutorial authorities who know what they are doing.
We are committed instead to supporting the police as necessary to enforce electoral regulation proactively and effectively. For that reason, I urge the Committee to resist this opposition to the clause. If your Lordships were to follow it, it might encourage the Electoral Commission to develop this function. I think the existing practice should be maintained, and therefore I urge that Clause 17 should stand part of the Bill.
Lord Rennard
“Fines for electoral offences
(1) The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums (Civil Sanctions) Order 2010 (S.I. 2010/2860) is amended as follows. (2) In Schedule 1, paragraph 5, for “£20,000” substitute “£500,000, or 5% of the total spend by the organisation or individual being penalised in the election to which the offence relates, whichever is greater”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would allow the Electoral Commission to impose increased fines for electoral offences.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, one of the problems with the Bill is that the Government failed to make any changes at all to their proposals when the Committee on Standards in Public Life published its recent report, Regulating Election Finance. The whole purpose of setting up the CSPL was to meet Sir John Major’s aim of cleaning up the reputation of politics, including political finance. It now seems that the Government want not only to control the watchdog responsible but to make sure that it has no teeth. I believe the Government have a significant conflict of interest in this matter.
The CSPL report recommended that the Electoral Commission should be able to levy increased fines for serious electoral offences. It proposed a comprehensive package of measures to improve enforcement, which included decriminalising some offences and addressing an enforcement gap in the regime covering candidate spending. There are some matters that are best dealt with by regulators such as the Electoral Commission, which must be able to enforce fines, rather than necessarily by the police and criminal courts. As the commission itself says, there could be more proportionate ways for the commission to deal with breaches of political finance law.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendment 19 in my name, which has been grouped with Amendment 18. When I tabled my amendment, I did not realise I had been gazumped by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who had the same objective as me but had put a significantly higher price on it, of £500,000 instead of £50,000. I will add a brief footnote to the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.
I have two interests in this. The first is that I was the opposition spokesman on the original legislation to set up the Electoral Commission over 20 years ago. My party fully supported the establishment of an independent body to monitor elections in this country and, as a corollary, the need to give it powers to carry out its functions and to deter behaviour that undermined the integrity of the electoral process. My view is the same and, although the Electoral Commission has not got everything right, I do not join those who seek to undermine its independence, as we heard in earlier debates.
My second interest is as the immediate predecessor to my noble friend as Minister with responsibility for the Cabinet Office in your Lordships’ House and, in particular, responsibility for answering questions from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and others, about the powers of the Electoral Commission. Indeed, my DNA may still be on the folder in front of my noble friend.
Both experiences lead me to the view that the original powers to fine, untouched since the Act was passed, need updating to reflect what has happened in the intervening period, not least the erosion in the value of money.
Looking through the exchanges on which I took part on this very subject, I see that on 28 March 2018, in response to a Question from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, I said:
“On the specific question of the £20,000 fine, the noble Lord is correct that the Electoral Commission has expressed concern in the past that this might be regarded as simply the cost of doing business, and it is making representations that it should be enhanced to a higher level. The Government are considering those representations and, alongside any other recommendations that come out of the investigation currently under way, we will then consider what further action to take.”—[Official Report, 28/3/18; col. 833.]
On 28 June that year in response to a Question from my noble friend Lord Cormack I replied:
“My noble friend will know that the Electoral Commission has made requests for legislation, particularly to increase the sanctions that are available to it.”—[Official Report, 28/6/18; col. 240.]
Also, on 17 July that year in response to Lord Tyler—whose participation in these debates we all miss—I said:
“On the question of legislation, as I have said, we are currently considering whether the Electoral Commission should have more powers; we know that the commission wants the maximum fine to be increased from £20,000 to a higher level”. —[Official Report, 17/6/18; col. 1141.]
I am now free to express views that were at the time constrained by the rules of collective responsibility—which I stretched from time to time but I hope never broke. I fully expected on the briefing I had received that, when we legislated on the Electoral Commission, we would increase the maximum fine available.
The amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, reflects the recommendation of the CSPL. We should attach weight to that body because its first report led to the establishment of the Electoral Commission, and it has a paternal interest in its well-being. It recommended a maximum fine of £500,000 or 4%, which the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has generously rounded up to 5%. My amendment is more modest, seeking simply to retain the value of £20,000 to take account of inflation and rounded up modestly.
It is worth digging into the CSPL report to find out why it came to this decision. The Electoral Commission itself gave written evidence, saying:
“Recent research indicates that the public believe that fines for breaking political finance laws are too lenient, given the amount of money that could be spent on campaigning. More than half of the respondents (52%) in our regular tracking research carried out in early 2020 said that a £20,000 maximum fine was not high enough. Only 27% felt that it was about the right amount”.
Although my party gave evidence the other way, the Committee on Standards in Public Life was robust in its conclusion.
My noble friend quoted with approbation the views of the CSPL in an earlier debate, and I will quote what it said on this subject, at paragraph 9.79:
“We consider that an effective regulatory system must be backed by strong sanctions. The prospect of significantly greater fines will act as an incentive to ensure that parties and campaigners put in place robust systems to ensure that the requirements of electoral law are complied with. For anyone contemplating deliberately breaching the law, it should give pause for thought. It seems that the Commission’s powers have fallen behind equivalent regulators such as the Information Commissioner’s Office and we have concluded that this should be redressed”.
I agree. Finally, it went on to say:
“We support the recommendation made by the House of Lords Democracy and Digital Technology Committee that the maximum fine the Electoral Commission may impose should be increased to 4% of a campaign’s total spend or £500,000, whichever is higher”.
I do not want to hark back to earlier debates, but it seems that this is further evidence of government antipathy towards the Electoral Commission. I hope my noble friend will be able to persuade me that this is not the case.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, it is quite sweet to have these two amendments in the same group. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, knows which one I prefer.
Clearly, you have to make the political parties pay attention. At the moment political parties face higher fines for data protection breaches than they do for breaking election law, which is really inappropriate. The risk is that fines for breaking election law just become part of the cost of doing business for political parties, especially those with the deepest pockets and richest donors. That is clearly not the Green Party, but it could be other political parties represented in this Chamber.
Amendment 18 would mean that the penalties for breaking election law would actually hurt the law-breakers. It follows the same logic as the general data protection regulations by implementing proportional fines so that big organisations have to pay attention.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend and Amendment 18 and to thank the noble Lord, Lord Young, who, once again, trumps everybody by having been the Minister, which is a bit of a theme in the debates he has contributed to that I have heard. He is all the more welcome for that, and I hope that in due course his DNA may reappear on the ministerial file so he can complete the job.
I think the case has been made very clear. In fact, the noble Baroness from the Green Party, whose name has just evaporated—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, I do beg her pardon—made the clear comparison between the fine a party might get from screwing up on its data protection and the fine it might get from screwing up on its election expenses. I think any ordinary member of the public, and indeed any rational Member of this House, would think that if one offence were worse than the other, the election offence is surely the more serious. I hope we shall hear that, subsequent to the new Minister picking up the file, he has been able to talk to the relevant officials who decide these things on his behalf and will be able to give us some idea that the Government will produce their own amendment on Report, or perhaps will assist the noble Lord, Lord Young, in tweaking his, so that it is at an acceptable level for his officials to approve.
I want to make the case that we and my noble friend Lord Rennard set out very clearly to make this proportionate to the fines and the impact that other regulators can have on the behaviour of the organisations they regulate. This may not be entirely in the best interests of those of us in this room, because it could be our political parties that end up paying significant amounts of money. That, of course, is the trouble, because whether the turkeys will vote for Christmas is always a difficult question to answer. Actually, it is an easy question to answer, but how do you overcome the natural reluctance there is to impose on ourselves the burdens that we willingly impose on other people when they offend regulatory standards?
I hope to hear something from the Minister. If he cannot come in at £500,000, could he at least, for goodness’ sake, come in at £50,000 and give those of us here who think this system urgently needs uprating some glimmer of hope that progress is being made?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I first say how much I am enjoying hearing the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, expressing his views in an unconstrained manner. I am also glad that he still has his DNA all over this folder, which means there are some valuable contributions.
The amendments in this group, which would have the effect of increasing the fines the Electoral Commission can apply, raise the question of how the commission can effectively deter non-compliance. This is an especially pertinent question given that the Bill removes its power to institute criminal proceedings.
In the past year alone, the commission has investigated close to 40 different parties, individuals and campaigners. Many of these investigations have led to fines. These include penalties totalling almost £18,000 to the Conservative Party for failing to deliver accurate quarterly donation reports and failing to keep accurate accounting records. In the most recent recording period, however, there seems to be no instance of the commission imposing the maximum fine. Can the Minister confirm how many instances there have been of the full £20,000 fine being applied?
The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, raises the possibility that the fine could equal a percentage of the total spend of the organisation—a point that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, have raised in relation to bringing it in line with the fairness of other organisations, such as GDPR and the Information Commissioner’s Office. This is significant in relation to raising the possibility of the equal percentage of the total spend of the organisation, because a number of smaller parties have received fines that are as large as the main parties’ fines. I look forward to hearing the Minister address the concerns raised by noble Lords in this group in particular.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I am happy to respond to Amendments 18 and 19, which were spoken to very eloquently by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham.
I start by saying that I am aware that the Committee on Standards in Public Life recommended as part of its report, Regulating Election Finance, that the Electoral Commission’s fining powers be increased to 4% of a campaign’s total spend or £500,000, whichever is higher, as was mentioned during this debate. This proposal mirrors the amendments in their intent to raise the fining powers of the commission beyond its current limit.
First, we should differentiate between civil and criminal cases. The Government’s view is that the commission already has adequate powers to impose civil sanctions on political parties and non-party campaigners up to £20,000 per offence—and I underline “per offence”. Criminal matters can be, and are, referred to the police and, in certain cases, taken to a criminal prosecution. The courts have the power to levy unlimited fines for some offences and, as the Committee is probably aware, to impose custodial sentences where appropriate.
As set out in the Government’s response to the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s report, any extension of the commission’s fining powers would need to be considered carefully to assess its necessity and proportionality. This is because it is vital that they are an effective deterrent but do not cause a chilling effect on electoral participation and campaigning. I will say more about that, because a point was made, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, about a comparison with the Information Commissioner’s Office. Any direct comparison with the fines that can be issued by the ICO should note the clear differences between the two regulators and the types of entities they regulate. I understand his point in making the comparison, but political parties across the spectrum are not global corporations. I am pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, has popped in for this last group. I am sure the Green Party aspires to be global, but I hope I do not offend her by saying that it is not at the moment.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I will just say that there are Greens all over the world, and I have not popped in just for this last one—I have been here several times today for different groups.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I have been corrected on two points, and I am glad that the world is full of Greens, I am sure, doing a lot of very good work.
There are over 350 political parties currently registered with the Electoral Commission, and many are predominantly made up of volunteers. While it is vital that the sanctioning regime is effective, it needs to be ensured that such deterrents do not cause a chilling effect on electoral participation and campaigning.
I have more of a general point to make, which I think chimes with the views expressed during this very short debate, following up on the Committee on Standards in Public Life’s recommendations. The Government are committed to making sure that elections are secure and fit for the modern age. As part of this, we keep the Electoral Commission’s role, powers and regulation under review regularly to ensure that it is able to discharge its responsibilities effectively and that electoral law can be upheld in the most effective manner.
As part of further work looking at the regulatory framework for elections beyond the Elections Bill, the Government intend to look at all the recommendations of the report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, alongside similar reports. These include a forthcoming report from the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee into the work of the Electoral Commission.
Regarding the question about statistics, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Khan, I will have to write to him about how many times the £20,000 has been levied. However, the fact that he says it has not been used lately suggests that there is not an urgent need to raise it. I have attempted to answer the question on raising the amount. I appreciate the points raised. I am afraid that for this evening, at this late hour, being a Scotsman, it is not £50,000, or even £500,000. It remains at £20,000.
However, for these reasons, I hope that the House will accept my explanations. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Rennard (LD)
I thank the Minister for his kind remarks at the outset of his reply. I might have hoped that the notes in his folder were still those of the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, as opposed to the ones that he read out this evening, since I suspect that they might have been slightly different.
All the debates today have shown that the House overwhelmingly wants to have an election watchdog, and wants it to be independent and effective. The Committee, and the whole House in due course, will have to return to the issue of the role and powers of the Electoral Commission, in particular the report on election finance by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. I was surprised that the Government committed just now to looking at those recommendations; they should have been looking at them in time for them to be considered in the passage of this Bill. That might have assisted us all.
However, the hour is now late enough. We will return to these issues in due course so, on that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Bill
Thursday 10th March 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
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