Grand Committee
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester) (Lab)
Good afternoon and welcome to the Grand Committee. Members are encouraged to leave some distance between themselves and others. If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, this Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after a few minutes.
Universal Credit (EAC Report)
(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Economic Affairs Committee Universal Credit isn’t working: proposals for reform (2nd Report, Session 2019–21, HL Paper 105).
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I rise to introduce the Economic Affairs Committee report Universal Credit isn’t working. In the first paragraph of their response to the report, the Government say that they are
“surprised by several of the Committee’s observations with regard to Universal Credit … In particular, in contrast to the title of the report, the effectiveness of UC as a comprehensive benefits system has been admirably demonstrated in response to the pandemic.”
I pay tribute to the department for the way in which it dealt with the Covid outbreak and the speed with which it was able to put people on universal credit, but I have to say that the rest of the response from the Government shows that they are remarkably tin-eared.
In introducing the report, I begin by thanking our outstanding clerk Adrian Hitchins and our policy analyst Will Harvey for the splendid support that they gave to the committee to enable us to produce this report, which at long last has been given time to be debated. So much time has passed that I am no longer the chairman of the committee, but we have an excellent new chairman in the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, from whom I am looking forward to hearing later in the debate.
When the Government announced plans to introduce universal credit in 2010, the scale of their ambition was largely greeted with approval in Parliament and among commentators. However, support seeped away as universal credit was rolled out. The way that universal credit has been designed and implemented appears to be based around a kind of idealised claimant and it has features that are harming many of the most vulnerable people in our country. It is certainly linked to the exponential growth in food banks and it is probably also linked—although rent rises are a feature—to the dramatic increase in rent arrears. Many claimants reported to our committee that they find the system incomprehensible. Overall, it is fair to say that universal credit’s reputation has nosedived.
The Government’s response indicated that they were surprised by the title of the report, as I said. A couple of recommendations were accepted, although one of them was actually rejected and has now been accepted. Indeed, this very afternoon, the Government have been taking credit for reducing the taper for universal credit, which is a welcome measure. Nevertheless, during our inquiry, which was completed in July 2021, most witnesses thought that universal credit should not be abolished because of the severe disruption that this would cause for millions of people and thought instead that substantial reform was required in order to make it fit for purpose.
Change cannot come soon enough as far as I am concerned. The country is facing a major assault on living standards as a result of soaring inflation, tax increases, rising mortgage costs and savage fuel and energy price increases. The Chancellor’s decision to cut universal credit by £20 a week at this moment is simply indefensible. Conservatives believe in securing a safety net below which no one can fall and it is hard to see how millions of families in this country will manage in the months ahead. The conflict in Ukraine is forecast to put up energy and food prices substantially. Inflation is expected to rise to 8% this spring and perhaps even higher later in the year according to the Bank of England, which has consistently underestimated the rate of inflation and the impact of its policies of quantitative easing.
Of course, the basket of items used to calibrate CPI inflation does not begin to measure the actual inflation that many of the poorest families in the country experience. Scandalously, many of these very poor families have higher electricity charges through pre-paid meters. Benefits are due to rise by 3%, resulting in a substantial real-terms cut to income as essential bills escalate. Since our report was published, the Government have increased the work allowance and reduced the taper rate, as I have alluded to, to ensure that working universal credit claimants can keep more of their earnings. This is very welcome, especially since it supports the original purpose of universal credit to incentivise work. It still means that some of the lowest-paid people in the land are facing an effective marginal rate of tax of 55%—I note that the Chancellor has started to call the reduction of the taper rate a “tax cut” but, if it is a tax cut, it is an effective marginal rate of tax of 55%. That is 10% higher than people earning over £150,000 in taxable income. As if things were not tough enough, deductions from universal credit awards have left some claimants with an income that is substantially lower than their essential needs. Surely the DWP should be required to conduct affordability assessments before making deductions from awards.
Scandalously, universal credit is being used by the Government as a vehicle through which to recover debt. Most of this is comprised of around £6 billion of historic tax credit debt. Many people who owe this money are unaware of it. Certainly, the original receipt of an overpayment may have been outside of their control. The recovery of the money is leaving many households with an income that is well below what is needed to get by on, even before the current cost of living crisis. We called on the Government to write off historic tax credit debt that is owed by universal credit claimants. It should be treated as a sunk cost. Who really believes that this money is ever going to be repaid? Why create so much misery and anxiety among people who are extremely vulnerable in many cases?
The five-week wait for the first universal credit payment is the main cause of insecurity for claimants. Many people have nothing on which to fall back during this period, when their needs are most acute. The wait entrenches debt, increases extreme poverty and harms vulnerable groups disproportionately. The Department for Work and Pensions has introduced some measures to mitigate the most harmful effects, but these fall well short of what is needed. In the view of the committee, the DWP should introduce a non-repayable, two-week initial grant for all claimants. This would provide some security to claimants, mitigating the timing problems in relation to housing costs, and would make repayments of advances more manageable.
The way in which universal credit payments are calculated is based on a monthly assessment period and is designed to mimic the world of work. I ask the Committee: on which planet are these people living? Most people about whom we are concerned here are not used to be being paid on a monthly basis with index-linked pension plans, like the civil servants who have produced this scheme. However, it can result in substantial fluctuations in income month to month, which makes it extremely difficult for claimants to budget. This is impractical and fundamentally unfair and it should be resolved. We recommend that the DWP fixes the level of awards at the same level for three months. If claimants experience significant falls in income or disadvantageous changes in circumstances during this time, a mechanism should be introduced to enable them to have an early reassessment.
Paying awards on a monthly basis does not reflect the lived experiences of many claimants. It forces them to fit the rigid requirements of the system and causes unnecessary budget and cash-flow problems, both for those out of work and for those who are used to receiving wages more frequently. All claimants should be able to choose whether to have universal credit paid monthly or twice monthly.
Moreover, the way universal credit is paid as a single household payment should be revisited. Access to an individual income is important for maintaining balanced and equal relationships and, in more distressing cases, for reducing the risk of financial coercion and even domestic abuse. The DWP should review the option of a separate payment by default, drawing on the review carried out, I am pleased to say, in Scotland.
The conditionality requirements on claimants who can look for or prepare for work should be rebalanced. The extent of conditionality has increased significantly over recent years, too often to the detriment of claimants. Less emphasis should be placed on obligations and sanctions. Instead, there should be more support to help coach and train claimants to find jobs or to progress in their current roles.
The UK has some of the most punitive sanctions in the world, but there is very little evidence that they have a positive effect. Removing people’s main source of support for extended periods risks pushing them into extreme poverty, indebtedness and reliance on food banks. Furthermore, there is a great deal of evidence that sanctions, and the threat of sanctions, are harmful to claimants’ mental health.
We recommend that the Government publish an evaluation of the impact of conditionality and sanctions on mental health and well-being. Furthermore, we recommend that the DWP evaluates how the current length and level of sanctions facilitate positive behaviour change and how they lead to sustainable work outcomes. The DWP should also expedite its work on introducing a written warning system before the application of a sanction. Sanctions should always be a last resort.
Our report was an appeal for the Government to act now. That was in July; it is now even more important. Universal credit needs an immediate increase in funding to match the cost of living crisis, reform in its design and implementation, and improved support for claimants to find and prepare for work.
In his Mais lecture last month, the Chancellor quoted the opening paragraph of Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, which I am sure everyone in the Committee will have read. I will remind them of what it says:
“How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it. Of this kind is pity or compassion, the emotion which we feel for the misery of others, when we either see it, or are made to conceive it in a very lively manner.”
In the difficult months ahead, may these words be his guiding light. I beg to move.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the committee on a first-class report and commend its then chair for having championed some of its recommendations, even today, notably concerning the withdrawal of the £20 uplift. The departmental response was, though, depressing, with what the then chair described in a letter to the Secretary of State as “perfunctory replies” to some of its “most urgent recommendations”. Although I noted numerous “do nots” and the occasional “acknowledge” or “note” in the response, the word “accept” was notable by its virtual absence. Thus, over one and a half years on, the problems identified by the report remain and some have got worse.
I have frequently quoted the report, in particular with reference to the benefit cap, which has still not been reviewed; the two-child limit, which is dragging more and more larger families into poverty; the already referred to five-week wait, which is not solved by repayable advances, especially given the level of other debts recuperated from weekly benefit; and the implications, especially of the single household payment, for victims and survivors of domestic abuse, ignored in the Domestic Abuse Act.
I will highlight just two areas now that stem from two of the valuable sets of principles framing the report, which were ignored in the DWP’s response: that universal credit should
“provide claimants with adequate income”
and
“provide security and stability—income must be predictable”.
These principles, and many of the report’s criticisms, were echoed by participants in two more recent studies but were found sadly lacking in their experiences of relying on UC. One participant in the Covid realities research, to which I referred yesterday in my OQ, said that
“the title ‘social security’ is laughable. We have never felt so insecure”
and the report referred to
“chains of insecurity and uncertainty”.
Likewise, an ESRC-funded study of couples on UC, carried out by a team that included the committee’s specialist advisers, found that in particular the monthly assessment of earnings, the whole-month approach to changes of circumstances—under which circumstances on a single day decide entitlement for a whole month—and monthly payment all contributed to insecurity, instability and lack of predictability. These issues were all raised by the report, as the noble Lord said, but given short shrift in the department’s response.
With regard to adequacy, the report argues that UC should be set
“at a level that provides claimants with dignity and security”
and pointed out that the £20 uplift
“shows the original rate was not adequate”.
Well, the evidence of its inadequacy was mounting even before the cost of living crisis, but, despite that, as we have heard, claimants now face a cut of more than 4% in the real value of these inadequate benefits over the coming year. Women as the shock absorbers and managers of poverty will bear much of the brunt of this cut. As the Minister knows, I feel strongly that there has to be an additional uprating, preferably in April but failing that in October. If a second uprating requires emergency legislation, so be it; this is an emergency. Additional funds to local authorities for discretionary support, announced today, are no substitute for the security provided by weekly benefits that meet people’s needs. In the longer term, we need a proper review of the adequacy of benefits—as the report sort of calls for.
I hope that the noble Lord will excuse me if I spend the rest of my time on an issue that is not explored in the report but is highly relevant to its recommendations on support with claiming, namely migration to UC. I recently attended a meeting of the UC all-party parliamentary group, of which I am an officer, and we heard evidence about the issue of migration that made me realise that I for one had taken my eye off the ball of migration, which now threatens to hit and bruise badly many claimants. I am grateful to the Child Poverty Action Group, of which I am honorary president, for its help on this.
First, the CPAG reports growing concerns among advisers about the “lobster pot” aspect of natural migration, which means that there is no going back once a UC claim is made, even if it proves to be to the claimant’s detriment. It and other charities recently called on the DWP to allow test claims so that the many households—including, for instance, many of those with disabled children—that turn out to be worse off on UC after making a voluntary claim can return to the legacy benefits system. Alternatively, they suggest that they could be covered by the transitional protection that will be available under managed migration, now called Move to UC. Could the Minister give us the department’s response to this recommendation?
Turning to Move to UC, the process of managed migration was supposed to be based on the outcome of a three-stage pilot. This was, understandably, paused at the start of the pandemic after just eight months, during which I understand that fewer than 13 households were confirmed as having made the move to UC. The purpose of the pilot was, according to Neil Couling of the DWP, to develop a
“measured approach to roll out, ensuring the system works for everyone.”
But, instead of continuing the pilot as originally promised, the DWP now says that it has gleaned a “considerable amount of learnings”, sufficient to proceed. Those learnings have not been made public and it is hard to be confident that the department has the necessary information from such an attenuated pilot.
Proceeding without the level of testing originally envisaged, or proper reflection and scrutiny, puts claimants’ well-being at risk. As the DWP has acknowledged, those who fail to respond to an official notification about migration will have their benefits stopped, threatening increased vulnerability and possible destitution. To ensure that this will not happen, can the Minister assure us that further piloting will take place so that the DWP can design a process that we can be confident will work? Will she publish the evaluation of the pilot, such as it was, without further delay and give an assurance that the department will fulfil the commitment to publish the evaluation strategy for the pilot? Finally, can she also assure us that Parliament will have the opportunity to scrutinise the managed migration/Move to UC regulations before the cap allowing no more than 10,000 claimants to be migrated to UC is lifted?
I can understand why the department wants to get on with it after the time lost during the pandemic, but surely it is more important to get it right. I therefore support the CPAG’s call for a pause in the Move to UC programme until it has been properly piloted, the evaluation has been published and Parliament has had a chance to scrutinise the plans. Can the Minister also say when the department envisages being able to publish take-up figures for UC, because, as the report points out, the promise of increased overall generosity rests on higher take-up? This higher take-up has been promised to flow from the supposed simplification of combining most means-tested benefits into a single award. The response to the report’s recommendation on publication of take-up figures simply said that
“The Department does not publish estimates of UC take-up rates”
and implied that there were no plans to do so. Well, I hope I read that wrong and that there will be plans to do so. We need to know when that will be possible. I understand why it may not be possible now, but it has to be possible at some point.
Finally, what is the Government’s response to the principle enunciated by the committee that UC
“must … reflect the lived experience of claimants—they must be at the heart of its design and involved in devising solutions to problems”?
This is a principle that was raised in yesterday’s OQ and that the Scottish Government have taken to heart, but I have yet to see evidence that the UK Government have.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I am very grateful for the opportunity to discuss this report from the Economic Affairs Committee. The contributions we have heard from the former chair of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, have explained the detail of what has actually gone wrong with the universal credit system.
First, I am very concerned that the report was issued in July 2020 and that we are discussing it in this Chamber only in March 2022. Given that the Government’s formal response was sent 18 months ago, it is very hard to see what has held up such a debate—and, inevitably, some facts and figures have changed. When the Minister replies, perhaps she might just explain why we have had to wait this extraordinary length of time to have a debate on this absolutely vital matter for so many.
However, we should be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for enabling a Private Notice Question to be placed on the Order Paper of your Lordships’ House on the very day of the Spring Statement. Doing so has drawn out a number of facts. One is that, as I interpreted the Minister’s response in the Chamber a few minutes ago, the Government have done no affordability assessment, and nor has anything been done as an impact assessment more generally. That is very serious, as in most cases impact assessments are part and parcel of what the House of Lords is asked to consider.
Many responders to the committee’s inquiry said that universal credit was not necessarily broken. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—indeed, the report—says that it commands broad support in principle as a structure, but it does need reform. It is hardly surprising to me that some things went wrong, simply because it was such a major change to the benefits system. Inevitably, some things do not work as well as you want them to. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, identified in his introduction, the rise in the use of food banks is a direct consequence of what has happened with universal credit. The noble Lord was absolutely right in his initial remarks to comment on why the Government said that they were surprised by the recommendations in the report—because so many of those recommendations are absolutely justifiable. So I will add my own surprise that the Government were surprised in their response to the committee’s recommendations.
As the committee said, universal credit should not undermine
“the security and wellbeing of the poorest in our society.”
I understand, as I guess we all do, that the report was issued at a very worrying time for a lot of people as the pandemic threatened their livelihoods. Like the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, I recognise that the Government produced temporary and permanent welfare measures to the value of around £9 billion during the pandemic. In the Budget last October, low earners were able to keep 8p more for every £1 earned, and the work allowance increased by £500—and the pressure on the taper issue did have an impact.
The report congratulates DWP on its response to the pandemic and the huge increase in workload that the department had to manage, helped by digital working and automated processes. However, as the committee said, the underlying problems with universal credit remain. Some new claimants are not used to monthly pay. A fortnightly payment option would help them. The five-week wait for new claimants is too long and creates insecurity. The committee’s two-week grant recommendation seemed to me to be a very wise and helpful proposal, but the Government have turned it down. I still do not fully understand the audit reasons they have for so doing, because there are ways around that, which the committee proposed.
The Government say that an applicant may be able to get a universal credit advance if they are unable to manage during this five week-period. I hope that the Minister might be able to tell us in her reply what evidence from research undertaken by the DWP the Government have that that advance system is working fairly and reasonably for those who receive universal credit. As the committee rightly identified, the principle at stake is that the system should not cause shortfalls in income for individuals. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, sanctions should be applied only as a last resort. The DWP should do affordability assessments before making deductions from awards. As a principle, someone’s income should never be lower than their essential needs.
We have heard about the cut of £20 per week; there has been a huge amount of debate around it. In my view, it was a gross error. I was hoping that something further might be done about it today, but I fear that that has not happened. More than 5 million low-income families lost just over £1,000 from their annual income, creating severe financial hardship for many people. What this revealed was that the real problem with universal credit is low incomes; that issue is fundamental to understanding the crisis around universal credit. With the current inflation rate heading towards 10%, an uplift under CPI of 3.1%—the Minister will recall our discussion of that uplift in Grand Committee a couple of weeks ago—simply will not do.
Crisis seems an appropriate word to use in this situation. Rent costs, housing costs, energy costs, food prices and transport costs are all rising. Food bank use has been rising and is clearly going to rise further and further. Household finances are much more difficult for the low paid because they have so little money. We need a real living wage, not the national living wage. The Government talk of the national living wage, but they have to talk about the need for a real living wage. It is true that many universal credit recipients are in work, but many people see adjustments being made to their hours of contract. It does not help when people get their hours cut, never mind a low hourly rate; in the end, this is about the income they receive.
I repeat that the five-week wait is the primary cause of insecurity in universal credit as it
“entrenches debt, increases … poverty and harms vulnerable groups disproportionately.”
Those were the words used by the committee, so there is an opportunity for the Government here. We will not get more than a few months into 2022 without needing to do something further.
In that respect, I ask the Minister about the proposal to close so many DWP offices. I seek an assurance from her that this will not in any way impact the support of clients who need help. A few days ago, there was an announcement that 42 DWP offices were to be closed across the UK. Apparently, 13 will be full closures while 29 are to be closed and relocated. There are offices being closed in Stoke, Southend, Peterborough, Chesterfield, Aberdeen, Kirkcaldy, Barrow, Bishop Auckland, Doncaster and Burnley—taking jobs out of these communities.
The Minister, David Rutley, said that the closures
“will not impact on jobcentres and the customer-facing interactions”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/3/22; col. 1032.]
Can the Minister explain exactly what a customer-facing interaction is? What are the implications for the agreement and contract that the Government have with Citizens Advice, which comes to an end a year from now, in March 2023? Under the help to claim system that has been running since 2019, Citizens Advice in partnership with Citizens Advice Scotland has given people independent advice. I understand there has been an investment in that of £21.3 million. If it would be helpful for the Minister to write later, rather than respond in detail now, I want to be reassured about the impact on people for whom digital or telephone contact may be very difficult. If they were able to go to a local office, will they be able to continue to go to that office to secure help?
That is all I want to say at this stage, but I think we will come back to this matter several times this year. I hope the Government and the Chancellor understand that this issue is profoundly serious. I said that two weeks ago, when we talked about the use of CPI at 3.1% for the benefit uplift, when inflation is heading towards 10% this year. For those on low incomes, that position is simply unsustainable.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, I first add my thanks to the Economics Affairs Committee for producing this excellent report. As is often the case with a Select Committee report, reading it is not only enlightening but deeply informative. I have learned a great deal from it, for which I am grateful.
I too pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for his tenacity, such as when securing the intervention in the Chamber earlier. It was so interesting that the concerns were being raised from every Bench. I hope the Government Whips and others are listening to the profound unease coming from every quarter of the House; it is not going to go away. I have experience of working across two relatively well-off counties. I used to work in the Black Country, but nowadays I have responsibility for Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, which are fairly wealthy, by and large. The concerns coming out of parts of Watford, Stevenage and Bedford are uniform: we are facing a serious challenge.
I have to confess to noble Lords that some of the material in this report was new to me. I am ashamed to say that I had not realised, until reading it, that universal credit is being used by the Government as a vehicle to recover debt. I was glad to be able to raise that earlier although I do not think the Minister understood the point I was making, because we received no answer. This is deeply disconcerting, not only because it will not deliver what the Government want. Simply taking pennies off the poor at a time when Her Majesty’s Government have written off £16 billion in Covid business loans due to errors and fraud—which led to resignations from the Front Bench in our own House—is quite extraordinary and unrealistic.
As a general principle, I am absolutely committed to recovering debts. If the Government deem it necessary to pursue these historic tax credit debts from UC claimants, I hope they will broach other debts with the same level of vigour. I think we have no choice but to support the recommendation that we look for a Jubilee-style “Reset the Debt” policy, which would be just a small first step to addressing the serious and growing problem that we face.
What is true of the notion of pursuing claimants is equally true of the sanctions regime, which, as the report mentions, is one of the most punitive in the world. The findings of the report in this regard largely mirror those of the 2015 study by Christians Against Poverty, which stated that there was little evidence to suggest that the UK benefits sanctions regime made a positive contribution to helping people find work but that it did help in discouraging those who were unemployed from applying to the benefits system. I fear that the new shortened sanctions regime introduced earlier this year is merely an extension of this logic: an aid to get people off, and further discourage them from accessing, UC. However, the whole point about UC is that it is for people who have no other place to turn to. That is why it is vital that Her Majesty’s Government can categorically prove that sanctions help facilitate claimants in finding work and that the Government are open and honest about their purpose and effects.
I move now to some general points. The most fundamental question is whether universal credit is enough to live on. Leave alone the details of the system; there is simply a fundamental, pressing question when we face the levels of inflation that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has just mentioned about whether it will enable people to weather the current economic storm. Can the Minister assure us that Her Majesty’s Government are looking at what would be appropriate increases in universal credit, as this huge storm comes together? It is simply hitting people now. I had a meeting this morning with someone from my diocese who yesterday visited the food bank in Broxbourne. Parts of Broxbourne are fairly well heeled, but they had seen a doubling in the number of clients in the past year; it has really hit them badly.
This report goes beyond a simple discussion of the amounts of universal credit that individuals receive and details the design flaws and tensions within the scheme. We all know that it is hoped that UC should be a transitional pathway to lead people into stable, long-term employment and financial independence. We all think that is the best way forward. The problem is that we are trying to do it at a time when much of this poverty is to do with in-work poverty, as repeatedly and consistently raised by different people.
Regardless of the lived circumstances, I echo the report’s concerns on the substantial fluctuations in month-to-month income due to the monthly assessment period and the huge difficulties that that is causing people. When visiting and meeting people in different parts of my diocese, I have been struck by how much this has been raised, as if it is almost impossible to make any plans. That then rolls out in all sorts of areas of public policy. For example, not being able to plan means that we cannot do the detailed work needed to ensure that people can live on a balanced diet, so that we can address the huge problems caused by eating inappropriate foods and obesity, which have knock-on effects such as diabetes and other problems.
I totally support the report’s recommendation to fix the level of awards for three months, to provide longer-term budgetary stability and encourage people to work without any pecuniary downside. Extending the assessment period might allow individuals to experience what one hopes is the dignity of labour as a platform on which to build their employment prospects. I hope that the Government will take on board some of the report’s recommendations so that we can attend to the disparities and produce a fairer and more just benefits system, which accords with Her Majesty’s Government’s own vision of a system that will help people to move into work in the long term and find themselves in a position where they can be full and contributing members of society.
Baroness Valentine (CB)
I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss this important topic. I will focus on one particular aspect of universal credit: housing benefit. I should first say that I work part-time for Business in the Community on levelling up left-behind towns, in places such as Bradford, Rochdale and Sheffield. Each of these towns has their own unique strengths and challenges. In passing I should say that I am delighted that Bradford has just been shortlisted for City of Culture, which would give the city a tremendous boost.
The place on which I want to concentrate is Blackpool, which, according to Zoopla, provides a gross annual yield to buy-to-let investors of 8.6%, the second best in the country. So far so good, but now let us look at the living conditions in those buy-to-let houses. Blackpool has about 4,000 private rented units in the centre of town, the legacy of bed and breakfasts that did not keep up with the more modern hotel accommodation that is now available. Many of these B&Bs have been converted to houses in multiple occupation and those HMOs are located in eight of the 10 most deprived wards in England. Life expectancy in this area is the worst in England.
Some 80% of these tenants rely on housing benefit or universal credit. While tenants in social housing can rely on the decent homes standard, there is currently no quality assurance for a private landlord receiving housing benefit. Therefore, if you are motivated only by money, or indeed absent and unaware of local conditions, the incentive is to squeeze in as many people as possible, leading to those profitable yields that I mentioned. Not only are these people crammed in, but the conditions are appalling. It is estimated that one in three of these buildings has a category 1 hazard. This type of hazard is defined as
“the most serious harm outcome … for example, death, permanent paralysis, permanent loss of consciousness, loss of a limb or serious fractures”.
I am delighted to say that two Secretaries of State had the chance to see these dreadful living conditions for themselves last week, during the Conservative Party’s spring conference. The Government have now announced a package of interventions. These include beefing up the council’s inspection and enforcement team and investing through Homes England to create more liveable neighbourhoods.
I am truly delighted that the national Government have focused on Blackpool as an exemplar of how to level up. But the issue remains that tens of millions in housing benefit goes to these HMO landlords and, without any requirement for decent standards, there are plenty in Blackpool who will do everything in their power to avoid the expense and hassle of upgrading their properties. It is imperative that, as soon as possible, the Government bring in legislation which means that substandard landlords are not eligible for housing benefit payments, mirroring the decent homes standards that were introduced in the social housing sector in 2000.
The levelling up paper aims to reduce the number of “non-decent homes” by 50%,
“with the biggest improvements in the lowest performing areas.”
I would like to suggest an addendum: “and no non-decent homes will be funded by public funds provided through housing benefit or universal credit.”
Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)
My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend Lord Forsyth and the committee on their excellent report. I had zero hand in it and agree with it entirely. It is always difficult to follow my noble friend Lord Forsyth on occasions such as this, because I feel that I am repeating everything he has said—he is so eloquent at summing up reports.
I am not going to go through the entire list, but it strikes me as an incredibly comprehensive critique of how universal credit should be improved. Reading the Government’s response, I too was very disappointed by its tone and substance—and, like the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I was surprised by the Government’s surprise.
Something more fundamental than this strikes me. As we just saw in the Chamber, this entire area of policy, especially the issue of the £20, is uniting Members on all sides of the House. This area of policy needs a fundamental reassessment, for reasons that I will come on to, but especially for the reasons the report sets out: the five-week wait for the first payment; fixing the level of awards for three months; rebalancing the sanctions regime; the abuse of universal credit to recover debt, as the right reverend Prelate mentioned; and, perhaps most important of all, making the £20 a week uplift permanent. All these recommendations seem to make perfectly eminent sense—and that was the case when the report was published.
Let us remember, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, that the world is now fundamentally different. Back then we were in the first phase of the crisis called Covid and inflation was still seen as under lock and key, or thereabouts. Oil was at $40 a barrel. Today, we have heard that prices are rising at the fastest rate for 30 years and oil is at $120 a barrel. It really is the case that the past is a foreign country; we did things differently there.
As we look ahead, we see energy bills rising by 50%-plus in April alone. As we heard in today’s Statement, households are facing the biggest fall in disposable income per person since the 1950s. Meanwhile, the backdrop to this is that the tax burden is on track to be at its highest since the 1950s, while debt is at its highest level since the 1960s. It is worth noting, as this is the backdrop to all the policies that we are addressing, what that means. As we heard in today’s Statement, interest payments are set to hit £83 billion in the next fiscal year. That is a record level—more than is spent on schools, the Home Office and the MoJ combined.
So wherever I look on the economic dashboard, I see the lights flashing red. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, this is an emergency. At times in politics we are apt to use the word “crisis” in a slightly flippant way. But this is a crisis, and it really is one for those who are on the lowest incomes. I think all of us here share a sense of responsibility and a sense of wishing to take real and urgent action to address that.
As the OBR warns today, and as my noble friend pointed out, benefits are going up by 3.1% in April, but inflation is set to average at 8% in 2022-23 as a whole. Before today’s Statement, low-income households face a real-terms cut in income just six months after the £20 per week cut to universal credit. Let us remind ourselves what all this amounts to. The Child Poverty Action Group’s analysis shows that families’ universal credit will fall in value by £570 per year on average. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has calculated that 400,000 people could be pulled into poverty by this real-terms cut to benefits. Families with children in poverty will face £35 per month in extra energy costs even after the Government’s council tax rebate scheme is factored in.
That is before we get to other issues that we should be concerned about. One that I am very concerned about is the rising cost of food. Wheat prices are already up 40% this year alone. That is before we get to the threat of another hike in energy bills in October. Citizens Advice forecasts that 14 million households will struggle with their bills. That is one in four adults. Let us put all that together: we cannot continue with business as usual.
I absolutely applaud some of the measures taken today but, as the document from the OBR makes clear, total tax and benefit changes in today’s Statement offset only about a third of the overall decline in real per person disposable incomes. That assumes that this crisis does not deepen further. Although I welcome some of the measures in today’s Statement, I cannot help but think that we are giving with one hand and taking back with the other, creating a piecemeal system that is extremely confusing.
I ask a simple question, building on what others have said: why are the Government not taking the simpler and more straightforward approach of using the welfare system and reforming it to help those on low incomes and committing to the policies set out in this report? I know that the Minister will argue that the increase in work allowance and the cut in taper are an effective tax cut. We heard that from the Chancellor on Sunday. But what does she say to the Resolution Foundation, whose analysis shows that around three-quarters of families—that is 3.6 million—on universal credit in 2022-23 will be worse off under the new regime than they would have been absent the last Budget changes but if the £20 per week uplift had been retained? That is question one.
Secondly, picking up on what my noble friend said, what does the Minister say to the finding that the overall marginal effective tax rate for universal credit families earning over the work allowance will be 70% in 2022-23? This is the same rate as experienced by families receiving tax credits from 2003-04 to 2010-11. How does this 70% marginal tax rate square with the Government’s assertion that they will ensure that “work always pays”?
Finally, as I said in the Chamber earlier, I fear that we have lost sight of one of the best ways to help those on low incomes, which is to provide them with jobs and job security. I have to repeat what I said in the Chamber: the rise in national insurance is absolutely a hammer-blow to many of the people we are talking about whom we wish to help and the businesses that employ them. Of course I welcome today’s announcement regarding thresholds and likewise I welcome the employment allowance, but I note that today the Institute of Directors has commented that this measure is marginal for employers.
We have to consider what the national insurance rise will do, not just for employees but for employers. Let us consider the sectors that will be worst hit, which are the ones that have been worst hit by Covid: distribution, transport, hotels and restaurants. How will this measure help them create jobs? How does it help them encourage investment? How does it make them more competitive? How does it help them to keep their costs low? I hate and dislike everything about this tax rise. It is taking us in the wrong direction. But the key point that is relevant to this debate is that it exhibits a lack of strategy and a lack of principle that bedevils this Government. It does nothing to help those on low incomes who need that job security.
The question for my noble friend the Minister, who I fear might get a bit of a tough time this afternoon, but I know she can take it, is whether the Government are really doing enough to help those on low incomes. Are they really rising to the moment? Do they still see this as business as usual or are they treating it as the emergency that it really is?
Viscount Chandos (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, who, as he has just demonstrated, is an excellent successor to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, as chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee.
We are finally able to debate our report on universal credit, in the bijou location of the Moses Room, 20 months after its publication. Other noble Lords, not least the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, have remarked on this unacceptable delay—if not necessarily the relegation of the debate to the Moses Room. For me, there is perhaps one silver lining to this cloud, which is that I find myself the only speaker this afternoon, apart from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who was an EAC member when the inquiry was held, so I feel that I can be permitted to say a few words about the chairman as well as echoing his tribute to the work of the staff, special advisers and witnesses who guided us through this exceptionally complex and difficult subject.
The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, led the committee from the front and none of us could match the burning sense of injustice about the Government’s policies that he articulated in the meetings and subsequently, as his introduction today has demonstrated. It is a little-known secret that to commemorate Sir Bernard Ingham’s description of the late Lord Biffen as a “semi-detached” member of the Thatcher Cabinet, the Conservative Whips in your Lordships’ House vote annually on the Bernard Ingham award for semi-detachment. I am told that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has won this so many times in recent years that he may well own the trophy in perpetuity, although I think that there are promising signs that the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, may give him a run for his money.
It would not be right to thank the many witnesses who gave oral or written evidence without noting the particular contribution of Sir John Hills, professor of social policy at the LSE, who very sadly died not long after the report’s publication.
I will concentrate my remarks on a couple of big-picture questions; other speakers have already raised highly effectively many of the specific recommendations in the report and the universally disappointing response from the Government. First, is it right to see universal credit as the basis of in and out of work benefits for the foreseeable future? The report’s summary states that
“we received overwhelming evidence that Universal Credit should not be replaced with a new system, not least because of the severe disruption that this would cause for millions of people.”
Although I continue to feel a nagging worry that this could be an example of sunk cost fallacy after 10 years of tortuous migration from legacy benefits—still not completed—I at least tentatively support this conclusion. My suspicion is that the digital platform on which universal credit is based should and will survive but that, by the time the reforms advocated in the committee’s report and others from different sources have been implemented by possibly a more enlightened Government than this one, the system will be largely unrecognisable from that which currently prevails.
One of the recommendations of the report was that childcare should be taken out of universal credit. Picking up on the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Valentine, we had a vigorous debate about whether housing benefit really fitted within universal credit. In the end, we concluded that it should not be moved, but I think that a universal credit system would still work effectively with four or five of the legacy benefits incorporated, not the current six.
I turn now to my second main question. Can any system give the support that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, so eloquently argued that we, as a civilised society, should give to those in financial distress? I vehemently support the noble Lord’s condemnation of the Government’s decision not indefinitely to continue the £20 per week uplift that was introduced for the period of lockdown when many households’ outgoings may have decreased.
However, as every psychotherapist might say, “Maybe we should move on”. I will move on and ask the fundamental question: what amount is necessary and fair for any household to live on? Professor Jonathan Portes, who was the chief economist at the Department for Work and Pensions from 2002 to 2008, wrote last year:
“The overwhelming case against cutting Universal Credit: not the pandemic, but the extraordinary cuts to unemployment-related benefits over the last four decades.”
In the period from 1979 to 2019, average out-of-work benefits fell from 25% of average earnings—hardly a licence for luxurious living—to less than 15%. Even if the temporary uplift in universal credit in 2020-21 and the suppression of some earnings may have reversed that trend in those years, the relative normalisation of the economy now will inevitably see new lows tested.
The furlough measures introduced by the Government in response to the pandemic and related working restrictions were rightly and generally praised. These provided for furloughed employees to receive 80% of their previous earnings, capped at £30,000 per annum. Can the Minister explain to your Lordships why she thinks that, if 80% was the right level of income support under the furlough scheme, 15% of average earnings is a justifiable level of support for unemployed people in normal economic conditions? I am not saying that 80% is a sustainable level in the long term, but surely 15% is far too low.
It may or may not be a coincidence that today’s debate coincides with the Chancellor’s Spring Statement, with what I can only regard as a stunt of an income tax cut in two years’ time—and I admit that perhaps the inventor of stunts of that sort was my right honourable friend Gordon Brown. The general tone of today’s Spring Statement seemed to be, “I’m all right, Jack”. Unless and until the Government reform the system of universal credit in the way in which the committee has advocated, we will face a period, to adapt JK Galbraith, of
“private affluence and public poverty”.
Lord Desai (Non-Afl)
My Lords, one of the great advantages of being a non-affiliated Peer is that I am always placed last on the list. I want to take a different stance from that taken by most noble Lords. I agree with all noble Lords that this is an excellent report and I have learned a lot from reading it. I have studied poverty in various ways in the UK, India and other places for much of my career in economics. There is one unfailing thing that one can say about these things: to those who have, more shall be given, and from those who do not have, what little they have shall be taken away.
Debt recovery procedures are much tougher on the poor than they are on the rich. In 2008, when the stock market collapsed, all previous discipline of balanced budgets was abandoned and money was printed like there was no tomorrow to give the banks, which had lost money, and everybody else lots of money so that they could re-establish the value of their property. The consequence was that, when universal credit had to be implemented, there was no money, surprisingly. It was therefore created in an atmosphere where it was said, “We don’t have any more money for all this”. So the poor, as always, were the last in the queue.
I want to take a slightly different stance from that taken by most speakers. Why is the political economy of welfare, if I may so call it, so mean to the poor? This is not just about universal credit, although I would say that it is especially horrible to the poor. For a long time, we have had a tradition that the poor should be treated with suspicion. The poor will be suspected of being lazy and shiftless and if they are ever unable to prove that they are seeking work, that will immediately lead to some kind of punishment by taking their benefit away.
It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, who has shared with us his committee’s great report, quoted the Theory of Moral Sentiments and cited the Chancellor. During the pandemic, I have written a book about why political economy is so misanthropic. Adam Smith was all right; he was generous in his attitude towards the poor and how the whole purpose of an economy was to create wealth not only for the few but for the many, if I may coin a phrase. It was with the Reverend Malthus and Ricardo that economics became very mean. When Malthus invented his completely fake theory of population growth, it was to make sure that the poor were not given more money because, if they were given it, they would breed more people and therefore it is useless to give people more money. David Ricardo put that in his theory of how there should be an iron law of wages. We then had the poor law reform in the 1830s and so it continued.
The logic was simple. There are so-called paupers who cannot work due to physical reasons, but they are all right. Then there are the poor, who are to be suspected because they are capable of working but likely to be lazy and shiftless, so the maximum meanness ought to be exercised in compensating the poor—you have to make them work. Finally, under the great and rational Benthamite rule, workhouses were created so that the unemployed would be in those, and nowhere else, to be strictly supervised by the poor law commissioners. Bentham wanted the children of the poor to be employed from the age of four as apprentices, so that they would learn that work was their fortune.
We have continued like this. I remember when we had the idea, before universal credit came, that if a single person was poor they would get so much but if it was a couple, they would not get twice that: they get less than twice because somehow the poor do not need as much money as the rich. That of course led to people living apart. Then people had to spied on by their local council in case they were cohabiting, which was not so much a sin as an economic crime, and so on.
We have this attitude, and it has not gone away. During the 2010 to 2015 Government, corporation tax was cut because cutting corporation tax or income tax is always good and beneficial to society. However, as far as the poor are concerned, cutting it is good for society because that is where we have to save money. This sort of logic has continued. I do not know how one can move the political and economic system from appreciating that announcing a 1p cut in tax in 2024 will get you applauded in Parliament. However, had he said that he would restore the £20 cut in universal credit, he would have done much more than was expected of him.
Anyway, I want not so much to ask questions but to make a couple of points. How does whatever minimum entitlement we have decreed for universal credit compare with the poverty levels that the European Union has laid down? The World Bank has a measurement of poverty for the third world; it is around $3.50 per day per person. The EU standard is 60% of median income; I may be wrong by a few percentage points but 60% of median income is the EU poverty level. Is the universal credit entitlement below or above the poverty line?
I should also say that, as soon as I started studying these things, I found these arrangements so complex that you need a PhD to know what is going on. I remember that there used to be a very fat book published by the Child Poverty Action Group in the 1960s to help people make their way through the variety of benefits and things, with all the conditions and exceptions and this and that. Why do we make the poor work so hard for the pittance we give them? Why can we not simplify the matter so that people get their money in a certain, predictable way? After all, as someone else said, we are not giving them much money compared with how much we have lost in fraud. It is nothing; it is a pittance. Although we were right to give money for furlough, we did not give a similar amount of money to the poor.
So we need a political rethink of why we do what we do. Why is the logic always misanthropic in our political economy, or whatever you want to call it? I hope that reports like this one will make us think that we have to change our attitude completely and not expect the poor to be more patient, more frugal and more rule-obeying. The fault, dear Brutus, is in ourselves and not in the poor.
Viscount Brookeborough (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful for being allowed to speak in the gap. I apologise for not giving notice; I did not think I was going to be here. I had not even noticed that the debate was going on.
The report led by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, seems excellent. I am not surprised by the disappointment in the reaction. I was a member of an ad hoc committee on financial exclusion that reported in 2017. We did some of it on universal credit, although we did not go into the same depth. I agree with everything that has been said.
In the time I have, I want briefly to comment on people and mental welfare. Mental welfare has become an increasingly important topic, led by Prince William and others. It really is important and, as things do not go so well, it becomes more and more important.
One of the problems is that universal credit is too complicated. We have just heard that it is so complicated that we do not understand it. People feel like criminals when they go through this process; I will come on that in a minute. The five-week wait puts people in debt. The Government will argue that that is not the whole reason, but we know that there is an increase in the number of people who are going into debt, for one reason or another, as a result of universal credit.
We went to Toynbee Hall, among other places. As noble Lords may be aware, this is an amazing charity that supports disadvantaged people. Many things struck me there. One was a lady who I and others were talking to. She said, “I just pray that you can give me some help. This is my correspondence about universal credit”—and it was a full lever arch file. She could not understand it and we could not understand it. All it said was, “Thank you for the answer to your last question. Will you please answer the following? Thank you for the answer to that; will you please do this?” She was at her wits’ end and felt she was being criminalised.
The next problem is the wait for money and people going into debt. This has a far greater effect than the Government ever seem to accept. The low-income group is an incredibly proud group of people. They care for their pennies, worry about the food they buy for their families and manage their expenses in an amazing way. Then a change in system dictated by government puts them into debt. They say, “We’ve never been criminals; we’ve always obeyed everything. But, to me, being in debt is a crime”. It does not just hit them; they are destroyed by this.
Therefore, when the Government say that they do help but there will be some people in debt, take a moment to understand the hundreds of thousands of people who, first, are made to feel like criminals because they have to fill in so many forms and answer so many questions and, secondly, feel like criminals because they are not able to hold their heads up and say, “I have never owed anybody anything”. Something like 40% of the population are not able to repair their washing machine out of cash—and we then do this to them. I ask the Minister whether the Government would consider this further. It brings you to tears to listen to them, when you can do nothing whatever to help. We have devised a system that has taken them away from their careful life planning —not borrowing, because they hate it, and not stealing, because they are not criminals. We then put them into this and, in three weeks, they are in debt—and, as far as they are concerned, they are criminals.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
We are debating an excellent report, like all the reports produced by the Economic Affairs Committee under the dynamic and effective chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean. I find that very annoying, because I was a member of his committee and, after leaving, have detected no falling off at all in the quality of the reports it has produced. I have to tell the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that, knowing how dynamic and effective the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, is, I do not expect to see much falling off in the quality of the reports now, either.
The sad thing about this report is that it has not been overtaken, although it came out in July 2020. There is an extra dimension of sadness for me in that something is missing that could not be there, because it was written in July 2020, before the energy price spikes started. As the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, said, the energy price cap will go up by 54% next week. That is based on the increase in wholesale energy prices last autumn. We are now in the next reference period, which will determine the increase in October. At present, we are in for a rather larger increase. It looks as if the average household price, which is teetering at nearly £2,000 now, will go up to over £3,000, with another increase of 55% or 60% in the autumn.
We all know what a big component of household expenditure heating and lighting is for the less well off. Is it beyond the wit of man, or the wit of the department, to consider indexing universal credit, or an element of it, to the price of heating and lighting? Next winter could be an extraordinarily bad one for anybody on universal credit, for all the reasons that were set out in the report and discussed in the Chamber today, but with the additional reason, perhaps bigger than most of them, that the price of heating and lighting will be very much higher.
Baroness Janke (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, and the Economic Affairs Committee. As the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, it is a very august and illustrious committee, as I am sure it was when he was a member of it. It is of great encouragement to me, and I am sure to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and others, that we have this support for major changes to universal credit. I have to say that in the past we have not had a great deal of support for the kinds of changes proposed in the report, many of which we have raised. But I am encouraged today, and I hope that we have two people here who will see some of these fundamental changes through and campaign for them. I know the Minister; she is also a campaigner, and I know she will be very good at understanding the issues raised in the report and their effect on the people they apply to.
An effective safety net must provide realistic and accessible support for anyone who falls on hard times, whether through loss of a job, bereavement, relationship breakdown or other personal catastrophes. Any of these could happen to all of us in periods of our lives; they often do. The current system manifestly does not do this, as the report evidences.
The report identifies and analyses a range of familiar problems, as well as the lack of confidence, failure to understand how the scheme works and general feeling of powerlessness experienced by people who try to use the scheme, and gives practical recommendations. As many noble Lords have said, there is a need for a fundamental revisiting of the scheme’s finances. I know from reading the book Clashing Agendas by the noble Lord, Lord Freud, about the pressures in place when the Government tried to establish the scheme and set it on its way. As the report says, now is a timely moment to look at the fundamental financing of the scheme.
All noble Lords mentioned the crisis we face in energy and prices. The sticking plaster today in the form of an increase in the household support fund seems to show contempt for the suffering of so many people. As I said, I am grateful for the report because it does so much to analyse with the committee’s rigour and bring forward firm proposals that are deliverable, so I am hopeful.
As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said, confidence in the scheme is extremely low. There is an overall perception of a chaotic system that is incomprehensible, inaccessible, intractable in its decisions and harshly punitive of any perceived shortcomings of claimants. I have written down some of the report’s themes that I hope the Minister will respond to, particularly the recommendations, which seem very sensible, as many noble Lords have said.
As I said, more funding is definitely needed to provide adequacy. The current level of support is quite rightly said by many to not be enough to live on. It needs to be a secure and fair scheme that provides proper support for claimants when they need it. So the recommendation that the Government should have committed
“to making the increase in the standard allowance permanent”
is very welcome. The recommendation also says:
“To avoid undue hardship and poverty it should also examine the relative levels of benefits for couples and those with children and investigate whether there are other claimant groups who do not receive adequate income.”
Many noble Lords have referred to the delays in the system. The five-week wait is ruinous for many people. I was encouraged to see that, during the lockdown, many people who would normally be in work were made aware of just how awful it is to have to wait five weeks when you have no money to put food on the table.
The inflexibility of the monthly assessment period has been fairly well documented—in fact, I think there has been a court case on it. The idea that people should be paid monthly because it corresponds to work takes no account of the way people work nowadays. It takes no account of the fact that people work on zero-hours contracts and that many need to have two jobs in order to live. Not only do they have to wait but, worse still, they have deductions made because they were overpaid because of the schedule, not because they have too much money. As I have said, for many people, it is incomprehensible that they should be put through this system.
The recommendations on conditionality, sanctions and the punitive approach are welcome. The suggestion of a written warning system is very helpful, because many claimants do not even know that they are going to be sanctioned or realise it only when they have just had their money cut. Similarly, I support the recommendation that deductions from universal credit be first subjected to an affordability assessment and made only in accordance with what the claimant can afford. I would like to see that brought in.
Some elements of the system actually increase poverty, including the two-child limit—if the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Durham were here today, he would have a great deal to say about that—so I welcome the recommendation that the two-child limit be reinvestigated. I am not necessarily sure about the tapered allowance for large families; I would like to see the evidence that that would adequately support larger families before I agreed with it. However, we certainly support the ending of the benefit cap, which we believe is another direct cause of poverty for many people.
Many noble Lords, particularly the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, mentioned that the Government’s response is not surprising. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, who has been campaigning on this subject for much longer than I have, was not surprised by it either. However, we are encouraged that the chilling economic circumstances described so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, might bring about some rethinking in the Government and hope that it will be an incentive. One hates to think that it needs a financial and economic crisis and a crisis in the cost of living to make the Government rethink, but if that happens, we will be very pleased to see it.
As many noble Lords have said, it is the most vulnerable who will suffer the most punishing circumstances in the cost of living crisis. The noble Lord, Lord Kerr, referred to indexing universal credit to the price of heating and lighting. That would be a welcome measure. The point on cuts in budgets over the past 40 years, made by the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, is, again, one that we need to take into account. Comparison between the furlough and what people receive on universal credit is very telling indeed.
This has been a call to arms from the Economic Affairs Committee and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Bridges, will take the fight forward as chair. I know that he will have plenty of people who will be willing to help him. I hope that, as a result, we might see a real advance. I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for his strength of purpose and his willingness to take on big challenges, and hope that he will continue to do so.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, I am the substitute for my noble friend Lady Sherlock. I could not even begin to match her wide knowledge and experience of these matters, but I can match her determination in wanting to put things right. I welcome the many detailed contributions from your Lordships. I was particularly struck by the opening remarks from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth of Drumlean, who made salient point after point about the dire state of the many millions of people significantly affected by the cost of living crisis. Indeed, he gave the Government many sensible and strong points to follow, and I hope they listen to what he said. They would be wise to act upon his advice and that of his committee. His words were ably supported by the new chair of the committee, the noble Lord, Lord Bridges of Headley, who provided clear and concise key points and noted a lack of principles in this Government.
A lot has happened since the Economic Affairs Committee published the report we are debating back in July 2020. As a result, some of its content and recommendations have been superseded—in particular, retaining the £20 pandemic uplift, which has been cut, and reducing the taper rate, which went from 63% to 55% in the last Budget. I will return to these points, but let me address the content of the report itself first.
Much of the report and the issues that it found with universal credit still exist and continue to make life difficult for those eligible for it. As the name of the report says, universal credit is not working. Temporary and inadequate sticking plasters like the household support fund are no substitute for a proper social security system that offers security to families in hard times. I acknowledge that the Chancellor has doubled that fund in his Spring Statement today, but, disappointingly, he made no mention of universal credit.
Although my view and that of the Labour Benches is that universal credit should eventually be replaced, which the report does not agree with, I share the report’s overall conclusion that “substantial reform” is required in the first instance, as in its current state, the inflexible system is
“harming many, particularly the most vulnerable.”
A big part of this is about complexity. Universal credit was heralded—I remember seeing the TV documentaries with Iain Duncan Smith—as a simplified system, making it easier for claimants and the department alike. Instead, as the report notes, claimants do not know the support they will receive on a month-to-month basis, and the use of an arbitrary assessment date and pay date do the opposite.
Claimants are also on the end of significant shortfalls caused by the whole-month approach to any changes in circumstance, which in many cases will be out of their control and in no way reflects the lives of those in low-income households. A fair system would reflect the lives of those using it and be flexible enough to adapt.
As well as reflecting any changes in circumstances, the Government have said that their intention was for payments to reflect work, but this is not the reality. The report notes—as did the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth—that many new claimants have no experience of monthly pay. Having no flexibility in payment schemes different from this is detrimental to claimants, who are being forced to accommodate the system rather than the other way around. This principle extends to single household payments. As the report highlights, this simply does not reflect reality, but more pressingly it is an enabler for financial coercion and domestic abuse by making it more difficult for sufferers of these terrible situations to escape.
But the most damaging design flaw is the five-week wait. We know that the Government are aware of this as they have taken steps to mitigate it, but they have not gone far enough. Taking an advanced payment—one of the Government’s favourite tactics to make it look as if they are doing something when they are really doing nothing—means claimants choosing between a shortage now or later. This has left claimants, particularly those in vulnerable groups, disproportionately in limbo, with increasing debt, poverty and anxiety. Also, it is a minimum five-week wait. Some people are waiting even longer—and, even if everything goes to plan, in this time many people are referred to food banks as they struggle with debt, rent arrears and the mental health issues that arise from or are exacerbated by the uncertainty.
Moving on from design issues, there is of course the question of the adequacy of awards. Since the report was published, the then newly introduced £20 weekly uplift has been scrapped—in October last year. That was the second cut to benefits in six months, which, given the numerous other issues with the system and the cost of living crisis, was the last thing that claimants needed and will have achieved little beyond making the wide range of difficulties faced by claimants harder.
It is welcome that the Chancellor followed Labour’s lead and reduced the work allowance taper rate at the last Budget, but that is the equivalent of bailing water from a sinking ship with a spoon. Over one in four people on universal credit have no work requirements because they are unable to work due to a disability or a caring responsibility—a group for which lowering the taper rate provides nothing.
The committee’s report also highlighted the use of universal credit to collect other debts, which claimants are often unaware of, from recipients including
“£6 billion of historic tax credit debt”.
How can the Government look at this and think it is anything other than entirely against the principles of the system? You cannot have social security that offers no security.
Ultimately, I think that drifting away from the set of principles that would constitute a working social security is where universal credit has gone wrong, regardless of how this point has been reached. My noble friend Lady Lister expertly noted that, in the longer term, a review of the adequacy of benefits is needed. She has a detailed understanding of the causes of poverty and has provided many solutions for the Government in her academic work, if only they were willing to listen and learn.
The committee set out eight key principles that it set the report’s conclusions and recommendations against, derived from evidence taken during the inquiry, and which it considers reforms should be shaped by. I hope that very few in this place disagree with a set of principles that includes dignity and respect, providing adequate income, security and stability, reflecting lived experience, and being fair and flexible. But what is clear from both the committee’s inquiry and the experiences of claimants that we hear regularly is that the system we currently have in place does not reflect these principles closely enough. So I sincerely hope that the Government will turn to them as a guide and enact the serious reform that universal credit requires.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the committee and my noble friend on the report that we have been considering today. I will start by saying that I completely appreciate the depth of feeling and passion on the issues that have been raised.
I start by disagreeing slightly with something. When it is said that universal credit is not working, I would have to disagree. If we had had the legacy system in place and the issues around Covid-19, I doubt that anybody would have got any money on a regular basis. There are certainly a lot of elements of UC that work, but today all noble Lords have raised concerns that we must take account of, and we must change where it is possible to change.
The reform of universal credit is an ongoing process. It is under the leadership of Neil Couling and his team. I congratulate them on their excellent work.
My noble friend Lord Forsyth mentioned pre-paid meters. At this stage, let me say that I completely agree about the issues and additional expense that they cause. This situation rests with BEIS but I undertake to follow up on it personally, as I agreed to do in the Chamber earlier this week.
I completely agree with noble Lords that this is a difficult time. I would like to set the record straight, if I may. On universal credit and the monthly assessment period, if we had had the tax credit system, there would have been an annual assessment. That is why we have the debt we do. A monthly assessment is far better for the individuals we are trying to serve.
I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. It is worth noting, as some have said, that this report was commissioned prior to Covid-19. In what has been a very difficult period, the universal credit system has proven its worth through the invaluable support it has given to the 6 million people who faced financial insecurity during this time, with the pandemic seeing the amount of universal credit claims double and many people—a high proportion of them—being paid on time.
On the cost of living, which all noble Lords raised, the Government have introduced new measures to help with energy costs on top of the existing £12 billion of support that they are providing to help families during this financial year and the next. We are increasing the national living wage to £9.50 but I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Desai, about whether it is a living or a thriving wage; however, we have increased this amount as the years have gone on.
I will come on to more interesting points about housing costs, but we have helped with the cost of housing. Discretionary housing payments can be paid and are very flexible. In 2021-22, the Government made £140 million of discretionary housing payments available to local authorities. Vulnerable renters struggling due to the impact of the pandemic will be helped by a £65 million support package announced by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The funding will go to councils in England to support low-income earners in rent arrears, helping to prevent homelessness.
The noble Baroness, Lady Janke, and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, raised the issue of energy bills. The Government have announced that they will provide significant financial support of up to £350 to the majority of households, protecting them from half of the forecast £700 rise in energy bills. This support is worth £9.1 billion in 2022-23.
There is also a £150 non-repayable cash rebate on council tax for 80% of households, and the Government will provide £144 million in discretionary funding for local authorities to support households that would not be eligible for that. There is the warm home discount scheme, cold weather payments and help with basic food costs through Healthy Start food vouchers. We are investing more than £200 million a year in our holiday activities programme while ensuring that children get food in the school holidays.
Noble Lords have said that our record on the cost of living is poor. I do not accept that. We have a proud record of being on the side of working people. Since 2010, under successive Governments, we have doubled personal tax thresholds, which we increased again today. We have doubled free childcare, which I will come on to. We have increased the work allowance and cut the taper rate; my noble friend was right to say that this measure was in his report prior to us doing it. Of course, as I said, we have also extended free school meals.
The robustness of the UC system was evident in dealing with an unprecedented event, which we could not have foreseen. As I have said, this would not have been possible under the legacy system. The digital nature of universal credit allowed for its adaptability during this period, where we managed to get a record number of claims processed within the first few months. This ensured financial security at a very uncertain time, with around 95% of claims being paid at the end of their first assessment period, despite pressures on the UC system. Regrettably, I must say that during this period organised criminals and opportunists sought to exploit the extraordinary circumstances of a global pandemic for gain.
Last autumn, we announced a 75% uplift in our investment in counter-fraud, compliance and debt operations, taking our funding to £1.4 billion over the next three years. With this funding, we are: setting up a new, targeted review of universal credit claims; investing in enhanced data and analytics to prevent fraud and error occurring; increasing our capacity to address serious and organised crime; and scaling up our existing operations, through funding for around 2,000 additional trained specialists to identify and stop scammers. This investment will generate billions of pounds of savings over the scorecard period.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, raised Help to Claim. We recognise the challenges that a digital platform may pose for those who are unable to use this technology. That is why we have support through Help to Claim, and the alternative of being able to make a claim by telephone. A £21.3 million investment has been made available for the Help to Claim provision, providing support for a further 12 months, following a recent competition. From 1 April 2022, people will be able to access Help to Claim support online and over the phone through Citizens Advice and Citizens Advice Scotland. The service will be available at any time until the first full, correct payment of universal credit is made. People who are unable to access support, or to make their claim to universal credit by telephone or online, will be able to go to their jobcentre, where jobcentre staff will identify the right support to meet their needs.
The use of assessment periods ensures that we calculate a household’s benefit entitlement correctly, reducing overpayments and debt for families who already face financial uncertainty. The use of real-time information further enables this with accurate and current earnings information, ensuring the robustness of the assessment of entitlement.
All noble Lords have raised the issue of advances. I must confirm that, for those in financial need, the introduction of new claims advances allows for an eligible claimant to receive their full benefit entitlement up front, resulting in 25 payments of UC over 24 months. For those looking for work, universal credit works alongside existing provision to get people back into work, and to help fill the 1.2 million vacancies available. To highlight this, the Government’s Plan for Jobs initiative has made great strides in its bid to help 2 million people back into work. Further evidence can be seen through Kickstart, which is integrated with the universal credit system, resulting in over 130,000 young people getting valuable work experience to assist them to move forward in their careers. This is complemented by the reduction of the earnings taper and increased work allowance to ensure that work does pay, and results in 1.9 million households keeping, on average, around an extra £1,000 a year.
The department firmly believes that the best way to support claimants is through empowered work coaches, who engage proactively with claimants to help them identify the options they need to help build their skills, increase their confidence and return to employment. The claimant commitment is a tool for setting out, and getting the claimant to take ownership of, what they need to do in return for receiving their UC. In this sense, conditionality is indeed adapted dynamically with the claimant to ensure that the requirements for receiving support are appropriate and proportionate to the claimant’s current situation.
The claimant commitment is a key enabler to support claimants into work or to increase their earnings. For staff, it should be an enabler which supports robust setting and monitoring of work-related activities, and fair decision-making in relation to sanctions. The claimant commitment is a living document and is continually reviewed with the claimant, as appropriate, to ensure that it reflects their current situation. As such, the department considers that this meets the needs of the claimant, as well as our work coaches, in supporting claimants back into work.
When moving into work, there is additional support through the universal credit childcare offer. I completely understand the challenges that people face with childcare and that it sometimes stops them moving back to work. Eligible UC claimants can claim back up to 85% of their registered childcare costs each month, regardless of the number of hours they work, compared to 70% in tax credits. These can be claimed up to a month before starting a job and eligible claimants can receive help for upfront childcare costs by applying for help from the flexible support fund. Our work coaches absolutely love the flexible support fund and will use it legitimately for anything that helps to remove barriers for people going back to work. That help is non-repayable and paid directly to the childcare provider, where it is used for childcare fees. Additionally, a universal credit budgeting advance is available to eligible UC claimants to assist with upfront costs.
The Government are committed to improving the lives of disabled people and delivering the most ambitious disability reform agenda in a generation. In 2017, we set a goal to see 1 million more disabled people in work by 2027. In the first four years of the goal, between quarter 1 2017 and quarter 1 2021, the number of disabled people in employment increased by 850,000.
For those unable to work because of ill health or disability, universal credit provides generous support. A claimant who is determined to have limited capability for work and work-related activity is awarded an additional amount of benefit; it is currently £343.63 per calendar month, which is more than double the equivalent rate paid in employment and support allowance. Additionally, claimants who are assessed to have limited capability for work, or for work and work-related activity, are eligible for a work allowance and, in couple claims where one is working, access to help with childcare.
I try to be as respectful to noble Lords as I possibly can in all these debates. The two areas that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raises frequently—I respect her for it—are the benefit cap and the two-child policy. There is always a balance that must be struck between supporting those in need and having a system that provides a strong work incentive and fairness for hard-working tax households. This is not a new concept.
I remind all noble Lords that the proportion of households capped remains low, at 1.9% of the overall working-age benefit caseload. Exemptions from the cap also exist, such as those for households with earnings of at least £617 in an assessment period, and for those who are vulnerable and receiving disability benefits or are entitled to carer benefits. In addition, it is worth highlighting that the national cap of £20,000 is equivalent to gross family earnings of around £24,000, while the London cap of £23,000 is equivalent to gross family earnings of around £28,000.
The two-child limit is based on statistics from the Office for National Statistics showing that, in 2020, 85% of all families with dependent children had a maximum of two in their family; for lone parents, it was 83%. On the latest figures, 62% of households with a third or subsequent child that are in receipt of UC or CTC are not affected by the two-child policy. It is important to support families, but it is also important to be fair to the many working families who do not see their budgets rise when they have more children.
I will come on to some of the more specific points raised. I will see what I can do within the limits on my time.
A question was asked by my noble friend Lord Forsyth, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and others about why it is paid monthly. Universal credit is designed to top up earnings from employment, adapting to changes in the amount of earnings received each month. I must tell noble Lords that the department has no plans to change either universal credit assessment periods or payment structures. The current approach reflects the world of work, where the majority of employees receive wages monthly. Paying in this manner will encourage claimants to take personal responsibility for their finances and budget on a monthly basis, which could save households money. Ensuring similarities between paid employment and receiving benefits also eliminates an important barrier, which could prevent claimants adjusting to paid employment.
I cannot say this with utter confidence but I am quite sure that, where claimants are in difficulty and hardship, work coaches can help them. Rather than give information that is not 100% correct, I will write to noble Lords to confirm the additional support for when people are in difficulty.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans referred to the monthly assessment periods. Entitlement to UC is calculated in monthly assessment periods and the amount paid reflects as closely as possible the actual circumstances of a household in each assessment period, including any earnings reported by the employer in that period. Monthly reporting allows UC to be adjusted monthly, which I can only say is better than the tax credit yearly reconciliation. It ensures that, if a claimant’s income falls, resulting in a rise in their universal credit, they will not have to wait several months to receive it.
My noble friend Lord Forsyth raised the whole-month approach. As I have said before, universal credit is assessed and paid on a monthly basis. It is paid in arrears for each month and the amount will not vary to reflect the number of days in the month. To simplify the policy, we took a whole-month approach to changes of circumstance. This is a fundamental design principle of universal credit and is more straightforward for claimants to understand as they can anticipate how much universal credit they will receive, so can budget accordingly.
I come to the work of the work coaches. From all my dealings with them, all the visits I have done and all the times I have spoken to them, I know they are doing a first-class job. Nothing makes their heart sing more than when people get the right support and get into work, and where their payments are made correctly. We have 104 intensive work search claimants per work coach. To meet the demand for jobcentre services, DWP successfully recruited 13,500 new work coaches by March 2021. If any noble Lord wishes to meet a work coach, I would be only too happy to make those arrangements so that they can talk to them and see at first hand what they do. Whether the issue is money, childcare, personal circumstances, domestic abuse or anything else, they stand ready to help our clients.
My noble friend Lord Forsyth and the noble Baroness, Lady Janke, mentioned written warnings. In 2018, we committed to look at processes to give claimants a written warning instead of a sanction, sometimes referred to as a “yellow card”. We have restarted the work to test issuing a written warning instead of a sanction for a first sanctionable failure to attend a work search review. A second proof of concept is testing the operational viability of a warning system, and a further proof of concept is planned for later in the year. Once the proofs of concept are complete, we will assess the results and determine whether a larger-scale pilot is required. On sanctions, let me just say that no work coach or person in the system goes to work with a target to sanction so many people. They go to work thinking, “How many people can I progress today and get into work?”
Many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Forsyth, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, talked about advances. For UC, new claims advances are available urgently if a claimant needs support during their first assessment period and budgeting support is available for anybody who needs extra help. Advances of 100% of potential UC entitlement are available urgently. With an advance, claimants receive an additional UC payment, resulting in 25 payments over a 24-month period. We have reduced the normal maximum rate of deductions from 30% to 25% and have made numerous improvements to UC, including ensuring that people get the money they need as soon as possible through advances.
There was reference to the advances creating debt. I think the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, mentioned people who have never been in debt in their life. I understand the delicacy around this, but we are trying to get money to people who need it and for them to repay it, which is not unreasonable, over a period that they can cope with.
My noble friend Lord Forsyth made points about the current system supporting the long-term unemployed to move from one low-paid job to another. Our job is to get people into work, a better job and a career. We are managing to achieve this through our Plan for Jobs programme, with more news to come on the in-work progression system when that works.
I have already talked about the five-week wait. Nobody has to wait five weeks; I can only endorse that again.
We have talked about the benefit cap and the two-child policy. Through everything they have raised, noble Lords have talked about fairness in the system, which I understand. For policy areas that are often open to criticism that are highlighted in this report, such as the benefit cap and the two-child policy, there is always a balance that must be struck between supporting those in need and providing a system that provides a strong work incentive and fairness for hard-working taxpaying households. This is not a new concept and one that we will not change.
A benefits structure adjusting automatically to family size is unsustainable, and the Government have had to take the difficult decision to stabilise our economy and build a welfare system that works for those who use it, as well as those who pay for it. The Government’s view is that providing support for a maximum of two children in UC and CTC ensures fairness between claimants and taxpayers who support themselves through work. I doubt that I could have done anything to placate noble Lords on that issue, but it is the Government’s position.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Janke and Lady Lister, talked about the adequacy of the benefits system. All benefit uprating since 1987 has been based on the increase in the relevant inflation index in the 12 months to the previous September, as happens now. We all know that 3.1% was used this year.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raised the move to universal credit. The pilot scheme that had been active in Harrogate was suspended as the department focused on delivering the Government’s ongoing response to Covid. Ahead of restarting activity around the move to UC this year, we want to ensure that claimants are aware of their entitlements and to support those who wish voluntarily to move to UC to do so. The department will make an announcement in due course on the plans for the move to universal credit. I have no doubt that there will be all-Peers briefings and meetings for us to discuss that.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
Could I ask the Minister about take-up estimates?
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
I asked a number of questions about migration to UC. Perhaps the Minister could write about that as well.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I will cover that in winding up; I am conscious of the time.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, raised food banks. Food banks are independent charitable organisations and the DWP does not have any role in their operation. There is no consistent and accurate measure of food bank usage at constituency or national level.
On third-party deductions, benefit debts and social fund loans can see deductions reduced or deferred as the creditor, DWP, will always try to ensure that government debt is recovered effectively without causing undue hardship.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, talked about an impact assessment. The Government recognise that the public sector equality duty set out in Section 149 of the Equality Act 2010 is ongoing. As such, a full equality impact assessment was completed prior to the introduction of the uplift to UC, and it was reviewed and updated prior to the implementation of the temporary six-month extension announced by the Chancellor at the Budget on 3 March 2021.
I have already covered cost of living issues, fully cognisant of the difficulties that people are facing. I have heaps of information here. I try to answer all your Lordships’ questions and to treat the Grand Committee with respect. I do not want anyone to think that I am not prepared to answer questions; I will go through Hansard and through all these questions. I will write, and all noble Lords will get a copy of that. I thank your Lordships for the time you have spent listening to me.
Lord Shipley (LD)
Before the Minister sits down, I would be happy if she would write very specifically on the closure of DWP offices, some of which are clearly closing and not being replaced by alternatives.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I have an extra few seconds: we are rationalising back offices, and no job centres or face-to-face situations are involved. There is no desire whatsoever for anyone to lose their job.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, this is an unusual experience for me, because I have not found anyone to disagree with. On the fact that this committee is so much in agreement, on 9 March 2021, we did something rather unusual: we had a joint meeting of the Economic Affairs Committee and the House of Commons Select Committee concerned with these matters. We were unanimous in our view, and we took evidence from Mr Couling and the then Minister, Will Quince MP. There was universal agreement, except with Mr Couling, who thought that we were interfering with his perfect system. I think he said that making any changes would make it even more complicated and that he had devised a system which he thought would be around for generations to come. It is a classic example of coming up with a perfect system that everyone has to fit into and then ignoring the problems that occur.
I pay tribute to my noble friend the Minister. She does a fantastic job, and we all know that she is very well aware, from her own background, experience and the care with which she does her ministerial job, of the kinds of problems that arise. We know that the real problem here is the Treasury.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
That reminds me of something from my noble friend Lord Dobbs: “You may say that, but I couldn’t possibly comment”.
I very much appreciate the way in which the Minister responded to the debate, but I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, has been very patiently waiting to get on with the debate on the excellent Constitution Committee report, so I just thank everyone who has participated. Let us hope that the urgency and severity of the situation means that Mr Couling, the Secretary of State and the Treasury will mend their ways. I beg to move.
Covid-19 and the Courts (Constitution Committee Report)
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Taylor of Bolton
That the Grand Committee takes note of the Report from the Constitution Committee COVID-19 and the Courts (22nd Report, Session 2019–21, HL Paper 257).
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, will be contributing to this debate remotely.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)
My Lords, I am very pleased that we have an opportunity to discuss this report. It was published some time—a full year—ago, meaning that it has been a long wait, but perhaps that gives us an opportunity to hear to what extent the Government have taken on board the recommendations that we made.
The remit of the committee’s inquiry was to explore the impact of the pandemic and the Government’s response in relation to the operation of the courts. We were particularly interested in how the experience of the pandemic might influence the workings of the justice system in the future. I think it is fair to say that some of what we found will be very helpful going forward in terms of both what would work and what did not work.
No one can doubt the scale of the challenges that the pandemic brought us across all aspects of our lives. The justice system was no exception. In the report, we acknowledge the work that was done by those who have responsibility for our Courts & Tribunals Service. We said that there was
“a monumental effort by all”—
at least, most of the people—
“working in courts and tribunals to maintain a functioning system despite the COVID-19 pandemic.”
That was no mean ambition, and absolutely essential to our democracy.
However, as was patently clear from all the evidence we received, the justice system in England and Wales was under very significant strain even before the pandemic hit. It is important that we keep that at the back of our minds throughout this debate. I draw particular attention to paragraph 14 of our report, which shows clearly the impact of the Government’s funding cuts on Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service. I must emphasise how significant and damaging these cuts were. The scale of them is quite astounding. In 2019-20, Ministry of Justice funding for the Courts & Tribunals Service was a full 21% lower in real terms than it was in 2010-11. Between 2010 and 2019, a full half of all magistrates’ courts and more than a third of county courts were closed. The number of HMCTS staff went down as well.
In addition to this, there was a significant cut in legal aid funding. By 2019-20, legal aid funding was 37% less in real terms than it had been in 2010-11. That led us to the following conclusion—it is in paragraph 20, for those who are interested:
“The reduction in Government funding in the decade preceding the pandemic left courts vulnerable going into the COVID-19 crisis.”
I am afraid that that was the starting point, and it exacerbated the difficulties that the courts were going to find.
On top of all that, we have the problem of digital transformation. In 2014, the Ministry of Justice acknowledged the very real problems in the digital infrastructure of the whole system and announced a welcome package of measures to address it—in particular a package that would offer new IT support for remote hearings. The National Audit Office has reported on the problems of that programme, and it is not a happy story. We have seen repeated delays and significant problems that made it even more difficult for the justice system to adapt when Covid hit.
Finally, as an example of the lack of preparedness, we were told that the Government’s simulation of a flu pandemic in 2016, Exercise Cygnus, did not even consider what the impact might be on courts and tribunals. It was an obvious omission from an exercise that should have been complete.
That was the backdrop. That was the situation that we had pre the pandemic and, clearly, it had been made worse by the Government’s decisions. These cuts and this confusion led to an enormous backlog of cases—we will mention that later, because there are still some very worrying signs about the backlog that exists today.
When Covid hit us all, as it did so severely, change had to come quickly for everyone involved in the justice system: for victims, for defendants, for legal professionals, for the judiciary and for the support staff in courts—who very often do not get the credit they deserve for helping to keep the show in the road. On the ability of different parts of the justice system to adapt, there was a very mixed picture as to whether there was a satisfactory outcome. The immediate response of the Government—the Lord Chancellor working with the Lord Chief Justice—was to take some very significant steps. Some courts were closed; jury trials were suspended; there was a focus on priority cases, though there will always be a definitional problem there—who thinks a case is not a priority if they are involved?—and we saw the increasing use of technology to support remote hearings. There was, to give the Government credit, increased spending to facilitate the changes in technology for remote hearings. In addition, temporary courtrooms—the Nightingale courts—were opened to try to provide extra facilities and accommodation, especially when social distancing was necessary. That proved to be a very steep learning curve for everyone involved.
I shall not go into it in detail, but paragraph 35 of the committee’s report sets out the sequence of lots of the changes that were made over that period, responding to some of the pressures that existed. The most obvious of the significant changes was the move to remote hearings. This was not easy in many respects, but it was not easy primarily because of the antiquated nature of the IT systems that many in the courts system were using.
However, change there was. People responded quickly, and a new norm developed where there was a fivefold increase in the use of video and audio and, very soon, four out of every five cases were being heard remotely. Other things happened. HMCTS provided the criminal courts with a cloud-based video platform. The Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice both told us that they were impressed by the way in which the courts had responded.
It is true that, for many, this system did work. However, there was anything but a uniform experience. In the senior and appellate courts, the evidence that we received showed that remote hearings generally worked well. That was no surprise, because the judiciary and the practitioners at that level were—and, indeed, are—very well resourced, and the nature of much of the case work was more suitable for remote hearings. Because of this, the Lord Chief Justice was able to tell us that, in the High Court, 80% of normal work continued. The Supreme Court told us that no case had been adjourned because the court was unable to provide a hearing. Those figures and that information should give us some reassurance.
However, that was not the case elsewhere. There was certainly a more mixed picture in the lower courts, where the majority of cases are held and where many vulnerable litigants had a very different, and a very difficult, experience. I mentioned the family courts—and other noble Lords may wish to say more on this—where there was a rapid change to video and audio hearings. That had a very mixed set of results, with many people feeling very hard done by and that justice had not served them well. The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, which is an independent research organisation, said that a majority of parents and families had concerns about the way in which their cases had been dealt with and that nearly half of those asked said that they had not understood what was happening during the online hearing. That is a very worrying picture, and one which gives real cause for concern. The Government need to think ahead of what should be happening in the future to make sure that that kind of experience does not happen on an ongoing basis.
The committee heard from one solicitor who very clearly described the difficulties which a client had experienced with just one mobile phone and no internet connection while trying to deal with both the court and her solicitor remotely. That is not the case in every situation, but it provides a contrast with the commercial cases, where all the resources and skills are available to everyone involved.
I want to mention one aspect of remote hearings which should not surprise us because it is very logical. Some remote hearings were very useful in emphasising the potential benefits of distanced participation. I think in particular of cases of domestic violence, where the victim could be heard remotely and not have to be in danger of being intimidated by the presence of the accused, or his family, in a court room. These are all factors which must be taken into account as we go forward, but, overall, it is clear that the vulnerable individuals involved in the courts system were often made more vulnerable by remote hearings. As I said, this is something to which the Government will need to give more attention in the future.
I also want to mention video remand hearings. The Lord Chancellor described them as a “singular success story”, and there are obvious advantages if a defendant does not have to be brought from remand to a court and escorted while they wait for a hearing that might come after a long wait and then last a matter of minutes. That is a resource-intensive event, and it is clear that there are very significant benefits in remote video hearings. However, we were also told that in October 2020 the National Police Chiefs’ Council confirmed that police forces would stop using virtual remand hearings due to cost and service pressures. The Lord Chancellor seemed frustrated by that, and I totally understand why. There is obviously real scope for benefit to everybody—except perhaps the prisoner who wants time out of prison—but it is not really the answer to how we could deal efficiently with cases of that kind, and I hope that there will be a report of some progress on that, because it is a very clear way forward.
I have outlined some of the main issues that are involved, and I know that other colleagues will pick up other aspects and give more detail on some—for example, the backlog. I hope that the Minister will clarify exactly where we are on the backlog of cases. I saw recently that the Nightingale court in Bolton was being closed, along with others, and I also saw that Liverpool and Chester Crown Courts had reported an ever-increasing build-up of cases, with the number of cases at the end of March 51% higher than at this time last year. I also noted that the National Audit Office had said recently, and very worryingly, that the Courts & Tribunals Service and the Ministry of Justice were
“not yet working towards shared … objectives”.
The National Audit Office described the Ministry of Justice’s plans to tackle the backlog as “ambitious”—and I think those of us who have seen “Yes Minister” know what that means. So there are some very real problems there to be answered.
I will ask the Minister to think about one other point. It is the question of the data that is available on all these problems. We heard very compelling evidence from Dr Natalie Byrom on the need to improve information gathering—I think that she has been in touch with the Ministry of Justice—but we need some detail about what is going to be done on that to make sure that we are operating on proper information.
So I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that the experience and the response to the challenges of Covid have some aspects that deserve praise, but I hope he will also acknowledge that the system was under pressure and vulnerable because of government cuts, and that the problems of the IT system have not gone away. I think we could do with an update following the National Audit Office’s criticisms. We really are worried about that backlog. But my main concern is the fact that vulnerable people are not well served if we do not have the proper infrastructure to give them the support that they need. Just recently, the Law Society has echoed our concerns about those who do not have access to all the technology and support that they need to be effective in remote hearings. We cannot have one size fits all when many people will lose out. So we need a sense of urgency to cope with the changes that are necessary, because we need urgent investment to give us the kind of justice system that this country deserves and that we can all trust.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I was a late arrival to this inquiry by the Constitution Committee. I did not become a member until all the evidence had already been heard and the committee was considering its report. I was able to contribute a little to the discussion, having had some experience of court procedure and some awareness of the problems the pandemic had created for all court users, but the bulk of the work had been done by others. That enables me to say, without the risk of too much self-congratulation, that this is an excellent report. It has been brought to life very well by our chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton. It owes much to her skill and leadership, and to the work of the staff of the committee and to the many witnesses who gave evidence.
There is no doubt that the suddenness of the lockdown created severe problems. Much of this was because the justice system already faced significant challenges due to underfunding, as the noble Baroness pointed out. I look back to the cuts we faced in Scotland as long ago as the 1990s, when I was the Lord Justice General. They started with a request, shortly after I entered office, that we should cut our expenditure for that year by 2%. That was an incentive to cut out what was wasteful and we were able to do as we were asked, but it became increasingly difficult to maintain standards as the same request to cut expenditure was made of us year after year. We were being made to do more with less. What was the case for the system in Scotland was also such in England and Wales.
So there is a warning here, which the noble Baroness has issued and I endorse, and that experience needs to be taken very seriously. The fact is that underfunded systems are much less resilient to the kind of shock that was caused by the pandemic. But there is a bright side to this: like all shocks to the system, the pandemic was an impetus for the development and application of new ideas and the acceleration of improvements, some of which were already under way. The aim of this report was to explore what should and could be done as we seek to learn from that experience. The committee looked at the impact of the pandemic across the justice system and it made many recommendations.
The report was published on 30 March last year. The Government’s response, by the then Lord Chancellor, Robert Buckland QC, was issued on 28 May 2021. It was as good a response as we could have hoped for, as it covered the issues that we raised in commendable detail. However, as so often happens with these debates on reports, time has slipped by. Here we are, debating it some nine months after we received the response. This means that some of the information that was given then needs to be updated. I am sure the Minister will want to do that and I very much look forward to what he has to say.
I will concentrate on just a few points—first, managing the backlog. It was inevitable that the business of the courts would be interrupted by the lockdown and especially by the impact of the need for social distancing in the conduct of criminal trials. This impacted the whole handling of business in courts, which are usually attended by many people in close proximity to each other. This meant even more delays in cases coming to trial, even more increases in the time spent on remand, with all that that entails for the detainee, for whom remand is often a miserable existence, and risks to the quality of evidence.
The Government said in their response last May that, given that at that time the courts were still operating within these constraints, their indicators on current levels of timeliness were positive. That was the message we were given then. I conducted a search of the latest edition of Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly, from July to September 2021, which was published in January this year. It shows there was a continuing recovery in some areas, including a timeliness decrease in the magistrates’ courts of 5%.
The position in the Crown Court seems very different. The median age of outstanding cases had increased by 50% on the previous year. Around 23% of cases had been outstanding for a year on more, up from 15% in the third quarter of 2020. The statistics for the last quarter of 2021 are not yet on the website, but it would be helpful if the Minister could bring us up to date. I hope there has been some improvement and that priority has been given to custodial cases to reduce time spent on remand as far as possible.
Secondly, there is the use of remote hearings. A study of the HMCTS website shows that much has been achieved and full advantage has been taken of the available technology. As far as I can see, there is a lot of online guidance now on how to manage the various systems. I also welcome the guidance the Lord Chief Justice recently gave about how to conduct remote attendance by advocates in the Crown Court. This will help to maintain consistency in this area of practice.
But what is being done to help those who do not have access to online guidance—the disadvantaged elderly, the disabled, or those who are less able to understand what is on offer? We noted in our report, at paragraphs 279 to 280, that the then current plans to collect data on the protected characteristics of court users lacked “clear deadlines or targets”. Is that still the case? Are the data, always so crucial to proper planning, being kept up to date?
Then there is the need for more accommodation to reduce the backlog. It is good to see that the number of Nightingale courts is to be expanded by making available 30 more such places spread around the country. Some are being closed, but more are being opened. Can something be said about whether these facilities are enough to cope with the demand and why, as we are being told, they are to be available only until March 2023? Can we be assured that they will be available after that date if the backlog has still not been cleared?
Lastly, there is the question of remote jury trials. The provisions in Part 13 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill—to enable criminal jury trials to take place if the judiciary thinks it acceptable—are controversial, but the report shows that such trials have been taking place in Scotland. It was impossible to accommodate juries in the accommodation that was available in the courtrooms there because of the need for social distancing. Of course, juries in Scotland are 15, not just 12.
Two possible solutions to the problem were rejected, as I believe they were in England and Wales. The first was to dispense with juries altogether during the period of emergency; the other was to reduce their size. It was decided that the jury should sit in a remote location, usually a cinema, while all the other participants, suitably spaced, were in the courtroom. It was decided that the judge should be there in the courtroom and not with the jury. Some people, particularly in this jurisdiction, have objected to this on the ground that the judge and jury should never be separated, but even a judge cannot be in two places at once. The most important thing is for the judge to be in the courtroom, where the witnesses are and where the trial is being conducted by the advocates.
I have been assured by the Lord Justice Clerk, Lady Dorrian, that the Scottish system has been working well, to the satisfaction of all participants. There is no question of the remote trials that the Bill is providing being used other than in exceptional circumstances, but the experience in Scotland is of some assistance. Are the Government continuing to pilot remote trials, as the report recommended in paragraph 220? If so, what conclusions are being drawn? In particular, is attention being paid to the issue that caused some concern of where the judge should sit under the new system, if there is a need to preserve social distancing? As I said, it seemed to work well in Scotland, with the jury sitting remotely from the judge and the judge being in the place where he or she most needed to be.
I am sure the Minister will agree that bringing the courts system under scrutiny, as the committee sought to do in this inquiry, has been beneficial. Of course, there remains the question of whether the system will be given the resources it needs to achieve the level of performance we would all like to see and to give it the resilience that it requires, but that, I suspect, is a matter for another day.
Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and our past, distinguished chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor. I look forward to all contributions in this debate, including from our new chair, the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, who has followed so ably the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, in her task.
I do not want to repeat what is in the report although, on re-reading it after a little time, I have to say that it seems to make some cogent points. It has been excellently summarised by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor. The committee was absolutely right to consider that the effect of Covid on the courts was, and is, a constitutional issue. Why is this so? In civil cases, the ability to bring a case to court within a reasonable time is a critical part of a functioning legal system and thus of the rule of law. In jurisdictions where long delays are endemic, people avoid paying debts, often driving creditors into penury, and can by delays render justice an almost unattainable goal. In criminal law, delays are even more serious, if that is possible—for defendants, some of whom may be in custody, for witnesses and, generally, for the ability to have a fair trial.
Covid took, or seemed to take, the world very much by surprise. It is not, of course, over. Another variant—or even another virus altogether—should, I hope, find our courts system much better prepared. The Minister has already been asked a number of questions and, no doubt, in the rest of the debate will be asked many more. Of course, some are posed by the report itself. Although the problems with the criminal justice system long predate his appointment as a Minister, I know that he will answer questions in his usual careful and informative manner. Can he tell the Grand Committee what preparations have been made in the event of a further outbreak of some sort?
As the committee has pointed out and has been drawn to the attention of the Grand Committee, there was already a substantial backlog. I am sure that the Minister will tell us how the courts system is now coping. We were very critical of the backlog and the response to the pandemic, but I acknowledge, as have previous speakers, the considerable efforts that were made by HMCTS to adapt. What, though, is now the position? What is the average wait in a rape case between charge and trial, or in a fraud case?
The use, albeit limited, of Nightingale courts and remote jurors—even in cinemas, as we heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope—were all attempts to mitigate the backlog but there was no alteration to the fundamental right to trial by jury, a jury of 12 members. The infrastructure and cost of jury trials is considerable. The complications involved in having them in a pandemic cannot be overestimated. We welcomed the greater use of hearings online, which was happening pre the pandemic anyway. We also recommended piloting remote jury trials as having the potential to reduce the backlog.
We considered the question of altering the norm of having juries of 12. There was the possibility that they might be reduced to six or seven, or that defendants with legal representation should be allowed to choose a trial by judge or a panel of judges without a jury. A suggestion was made by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, of two lay people and a judge instead of a jury, while the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips, advocated judge-only trials in response to the pandemic, but only when chosen by the defendant in question. There was also the possibility, ventilated by the Lord Chief Justice, of a judge and two magistrates, which would be much easier to manage than any jury. Labour’s shadow Lord Chancellor suggested having perhaps juries of seven.
There has been precedent for using other than traditional jury trials: in the famous Diplock courts, of course, and during the Second World War. We cover all this at paragraphs 221 to 225 of our report. However, I must point out that, notwithstanding canvassing these options, the committee came to the conclusion that any change to the jury system should take place only after careful consideration by Parliament, with full parliamentary debate preceded by evidence.
Personally—I do not speak for the committee—I think the time has come to think carefully about the future of jury trials. Other countries with mature legal systems do not find them necessary. More than 90% of our criminal cases are, in fact, heard by district judges or trained magistrates assisted by a legally qualified clerk, but for the most serious offences we leave the matter to 12 randomly selected members of the public.
There has inevitably been very little research on what juries think about in how they approach cases, the exception being that of Professor Cheryl Thomas QC. I am happy to assume that the vast majority of jurors approach their task conscientiously and will often come to the right result, or at least a fair result, but we do not know why they convict or acquit. If a judge were to decide the matter, perhaps assisted by magistrates, lay persons or assessors, they would have to give reasons for their decision, which would be capable of analysis on appeal. Appeals in jury cases have to rely on a misdirection by the judge, the admission of some new evidence not available at the trial or a perverse verdict. Incidentally, reasons for a decision are much more compatible with the European Court of Human Rights’ approach, in particular to Article 6.
Let us not forget that all personal injury cases were heard by jurors until relatively recently. That is the biggest volume of civil cases. Until 2013, defamation cases were all tried by juries too. I have not heard it much suggested that justice in these cases has been compromised by the fact that they are decided by judges alone.
Abolishing or reducing the right to trial by jury should certainly not be done without careful consideration by Parliament. Perhaps it could be done incrementally. I suggest that fraud cases would be a good place to start. In 1986, Lord Roskill, a former Lord of Appeal in Ordinary, and his committee made a recommendation along these lines following a number of failed prosecutions in fraud cases. His suggestions were not adopted by the Government, although various other recommendations he made for improvements in criminal procedure were.
We are unfortunately living in a very fraudulent age. The estimated scale of fraud relating to the various financial consequences of Covid grants is quite extraordinary. In the last two weeks the Government introduced the long-awaited economic crime Bill, which recently went through your Lordships’ House. Apparently, economic crime Bill 2 is shortly to be brought to Parliament, with a number of other provisions contained in it. Unfortunately, there is fraud in almost every aspect of society. The Government have set up a kleptocracy unit, while the fallout from sanctions is likely to give rise to a great deal of fraud prosecutions.
It is a feature of fraud cases that the prosecution has to simplify a case to make it digestible for a jury, but it is in the defence’s interest to obfuscate. The question then comes for a jury at the conclusion of a case: “Can you really be sure, in view of this immense complication, of the guilt of the defendant, having regard to all this uncertainty and this huge accumulation of documents?”
Juries, however conscientious they are, are often simply not well equipped to decide these cases. Nor is it—I emphasise this—consistent with the rule of law to wait five or 10 years for a case to come to trial.
I hope that Covid will have the effect of encouraging better investment in our courts system, in the future of the legal profession in the criminal sphere and in the imaginative and creative use of courts, but can it also be a catalyst for thinking seriously about the future of jury trial? The National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office and other agencies are very short of funds and resources, hampering their ability to prosecute cases effectively. The need for a timely and fair prosecution in many of these cases is clear. Covid has exposed the general vulnerability of the criminal justice system. I can only hope that, following the experience of Covid, there will be a general reassessment of what is in the interests of justice and of a better-functioning criminal justice system.
Baroness Drake (Lab)
My Lords, the Constitution Committee applauded the “monumental effort” of those working in the courts to maintain a functioning system during the pandemic, but equally recognised that those efforts could not obscure the scale of the challenge faced. As others have said, the courts system was already struggling with major pre-existing weaknesses so, when Covid hit, rendering courts reliant on remote technologies, those vulnerabilities were exposed. The urgent need for major investment was laid bare.
The 21% decline in court funding over the preceding decade and the failure to deliver a modernisation programme exposed the weakened resilience of the system. Remote proceedings have the potential to enhance access to justice by increasing the number of hearings that can take place, but the delay in the modernisation programme meant that new case-management systems had not been rolled out, common IT systems had not been implemented, the digitisation of court forms was delayed and court data was stored on a range of legacy systems. The courts were ill prepared for the scale of the shift to remote hearings.
That sudden shift was also uneven in its impact. Senior courts and those dealing with commercial cases adapted relatively well. The lower courts, particularly those dealing with criminal and family cases, had a much more difficult time. The evidence revealed the practical challenges facing ordinary people in virtual hearings, including—among other things—limited broadband access, phones or iPads shared between users in a household, no private space, dependency on pay-as-you-go phones and expensive data packages, sensory impairments and limited digital literacy.
The evidence we heard indicated that remote hearings can make it difficult for lawyers and their clients to communicate, frustrate users if they cannot see or understand what is going on and undermine the ability of litigants to engage. On the other hand, there was evidence that court users can benefit from remote proceedings and the speedier conclusion of cases. As has been mentioned, some women who would be frightened of giving evidence in a court where their abuser was also present may prefer the security of a remote hearing. I learned recently of a case of a young mother whose baby was facing end of life. She wanted to be in court when she gave evidence as she wanted people to know that she had done everything she could to protect her child, but wanted to participate remotely on other days so that she did not have to spend time travelling away from the hospital.
It is important to ensure that courts function in an innovative way to meet the demand on the system and deliver speedy and effective justice. However, as a solicitor specialising in children’s law who gave evidence to the Committee commented:
“We need to ensure that there is consultation on good practice for remote hearings to allow the courts that remain open, to hear those cases which for a number of very good reasons may need to be heard in person.”
I look to the Minister on the point that people are looking for assurances that such essential consultation will take place, and that efficiency will not by default trump access to justice.
The Lord Chief Justice described the rapid adoption of new technology during the pandemic as
“the biggest pilot project that the justice system has ever seen”
and an opportunity to
“take the best of this new way of working”.
However, the information to support that opportunity was
“just not available”.
As the Government have acknowledged, the long-standing absence of quality data in the court systems meant that important questions about access and the efficiency of the courts remained partially unanswered. They include questions about the effects of digital technology on non-professional court users and where access to justice is most at risk when remote hearings are deployed. In 2019, the Legal Education Foundation published its report by Dr Byrom, Digital Justice: HMCTS Data Strategy and Delivering Access to Justice. The majority of its recommendations were accepted by the Government. What recent action has been taken to build excellent data systems and what is the timetable for achieving that objective?
During the pandemic, pre-existing backlogs of cases increased to record levels. This month, in his message, “A View from the President’s Chambers”, the President of the Family Division of the High Court, Sir Andrew McFarlane, commented that
“work in the Family Court is at an all-time high”;
that agencies and law firms had to ration their use of resources as demand in some areas has exceeded the capacity to deliver; and that
“there is unacceptable delay in listing cases.”
That resonated with recent evidence taken in a study by the APPG on Kinship Care that some local authorities are now having to prioritise the cases for which they bring childcare proceedings because they know that the courts do not have the capacity to handle all their potential cases, and that those that do are taking longer to complete. Given such rationing in terms of unmet need, the “family court backlog” must be an understatement.
Sir Andrew’s message had the ring of a cri de cœur. The family courts deal with vulnerable children. As the public advisory group of the Family Justice Board observed:
“For children who remain stuck in the middle of the court system, the detriment to them is immeasurable.”
The life of the child goes on while they are stuck, and they may have further negative experiences. Sir Andrew observed on their impacts:
“Backlog and delay in the Family Court are not … static … they have the potential to feed on themselves and grow the longer cases are left without a final resolution.”
The number of children in care is rising. A key driver is children staying in care for longer and not leaving. Children’s social care is inadequately funded and in need of radical reform. Domestic abuse is increasing. A report by the Competition and Markets Authority published just two weeks ago found that some large private providers of fostering services and children’s homes were generating excessive profits. It added:
“The UK has sleepwalked into a dysfunctional children’s social care market … some children are not getting the right care from their placement. Some children are also being placed too far away from where they previously lived or in placements that require them to be separated from their siblings.”
That overstrained care system is now having to operate alongside a family justice system that is far from robust.
I have another example: kinship carers are grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and family friends who voluntarily take on the care of nearly 200,000 vulnerable children who might otherwise be taken into looked-after care. They often take on the children at very short notice following a proverbial knock on the door by a police officer or social worker. Largely unsupported financially or legally, they produce better outcomes for children and save the state millions in costs. I have heard so many of their stories, and many are heroic. But aspects of the justice system reveal a bias against them. During public law care proceedings, kinship carers are often not joined as parties to proceedings, so they can struggle to follow what is happening and understand their options. Many kinship care cases are private law cases, and legal advice and support is even more limited. Carers struggle to get legal aid. They struggle to get access to guidance and advice so that they can make the right court application for the protection of the children, and there appears now to be even less time in the court diary for private law cases.
The backlog of cases is exacerbating that bias to the detriment of children’s interests. Sir Andrew observed that there was
“no single, let alone simple”
answer to the question,
“what is to be done?”,
which is evidently true. But it is sometimes said that we judge the quality of a society by how it treats its old people and its vulnerable children. We have a way to go before our vulnerable children get the access to justice and the care that they deserve.
There are many on the committee and who are following this debate who will want to know what the Government’s commitment is to increasing resources, pushing ahead with the modernisation programme and building in innovation to the court system so that we do not face the problems that were reported in this report in future. Finally, I acknowledge my noble friend Lady Taylor’s excellent chairing of the Constitution Committee in bringing this informed report to the House.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab) [V]
My Lords, I congratulate and thank my noble friend Lady Taylor for her fine chairmanship of the committee and for the way she introduced our report. The committee notes that Covid hit a justice system that was already in trouble. We also noted that the courts rallied impressively to meet the huge challenge of Covid by adapting at speed as best they could to provide remote hearings, operate in improvised premises and keep court users safe.
Access to justice was gravely compromised before the Covid crisis made it worse. The Treasury had been gunning for legal aid since the 1990s, and criminal legal aid fees for solicitors, I understand, had not been increased since 1998. An egregious example of the injustices resulting from Treasury niggardliness was what became known as the “innocence tax”, whereby a defendant refused legal aid after means testing was not reimbursed their legal costs if acquitted. The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 was, however, the biggest assault on access to justice, hitting especially those least able to assert their rights. LASPO largely removed from the scope of legal aid family, employment, welfare benefits, housing, debt, clinical negligence and immigration law.
The Government claimed that austerity necessitated a reduction of legal aid spending by £350 million—an indiscernible fraction of public expenditure but a significant proportion of the legal aid budget. In the event, the cut to legal aid spending between 2010-11 and 2018-19 was worse than that: £1 billion, or 36%. Political hostility to legal aid was part of a wider narrative about scroungers, shirkers and the undeserving poor. The Ministry of Justice said that its aim was to target legal aid on those who needed it most. What actually happened was that those left without essential advice and representation included disabled people, people with impaired mental capacity, carers, victims of sexual exploitation, trafficking and slavery, victims of domestic abuse, people who were homeless or living in substandard accommodation, people in detention and people fleeing persecution.
With this drastic reduction in legal aid, by 2019, more than half of law centres and not-for-profit legal advice services had closed. I declare with pride an interest as a patron of Norfolk Community Law Service. It has defiantly kept going, raising enough funding to provide advice and support to many people—though only a fraction of those who need it.
The MoJ said that another of its intentions in LASPO was to deliver better value for money for the taxpayer, yet it removed funding for early legal advice, which is crucial to prevent problems escalating. In housing law, legal aid for advice on disrepair issues became unavailable until the situation had become serious enough for people’s health to suffer. In family law, legal aid became unavailable until a dispute about a child had escalated to a complex legal battle with even more damaging effects on all concerned. The long-term cost in mental health can only be great. The health—or otherwise—of the justice system is reflected in the health of society. Cuts to the MoJ budget of 27% in 10 years were a false economy, with MoJ costs exported and multiplied in the health service, social security, education, the police and local government.
Between 2010 and 2019, 295 court facilities—a third of the courts estate—were closed, including more than half of magistrates’ courts. A huge backlog of maintenance also developed. When Covid came, posters in courts instructed people to wash their hands but barristers reported that there were no soap or towels. Decent, well-maintained court buildings were once a mark of respect for the law and society. In 2018-19, the Government cut 15,100 court sitting days; they then reinstated just 4,700. At the end of 2019, before the pandemic hit, the backlog in the Crown Court was 37,500 cases.
Plenty of money was found for digitisation, however. In 2016, the Government proclaimed that they would spend £1 billion
“to modernise and upgrade our justice system so that it works even better for everyone.”
Not a lot then happened. There was no public consultation on the principles that should apply in regard to the rule of law and access to justice in the digital realm, although there was the obvious risk that significant numbers of people who were not computer literate would be seriously disadvantaged. This was found to be so in the pandemic. Progress was dilatory in equipping the courts with new technology and training court users. In 2020, when, with Covid, the courts suddenly needed to hold virtual hearings, they were unprepared to do so.
There has developed an unhappy lack of comity between senior Conservatives and the judiciary. As Lord Chancellor, Liz Truss appeared unwilling to defend judges when the Daily Mail attacked them as “enemies of the people”. In January 2020, Suella Braverman launched a remarkable attack in Conservative Home:
“The political has been captured by the legal. Decisions of an executive, legislative and democratic nature have been assumed by our courts … if a small number of unelected, unaccountable judges continue to determine wider public policy, putting them at odds with elected decision-makers, our democracy cannot be said to be representative.”
Shortly afterwards, the Prime Minister appointed her Attorney-General.
Smarting at the decisions of the Supreme Court in the two Miller cases and on the legality of the Prorogation of Parliament, the Government have been meditating on how to clip the wings of the judiciary. Access to justice will not be improved by further limitations on the right of citizens to seek redress by way of judicial review for the improper use of powers by government and its agencies.
What is the Government’s vision for the justice system? The backlog in the Crown Courts is now around 60,000 cases and it is taking up to five years for cases to come to court. In his letter to Peers of 15 March, Dominic Raab expressed some appropriate aspirations, but not since Michael Gove was Lord Chancellor have we heard a fully considered statement of principle or strategy. From time to time, in the face of disaster, small mitigations of LASPO and small additional doses of money have been forthcoming. I recognise that there was a more substantial development last week in the Government’s response to the Bellamy review of criminal legal aid. In the view of the Criminal Bar Association, the additional funding will not be enough to prevent a continuing haemorrhage of criminal advocates. I hope it is wrong.
The MoJ’s post-implementation review of LASPO in 2019 was belated and timid, failing to address the issues of the scope of civil legal aid, means tests, bureaucracy and the supply of services. Its so-called action plan amounted to little more than promises of further research and consultation, and some narrow pilot schemes. The recently approved order for a two-year pilot scheme in Manchester and Middlesbrough to examine whether early advice can produce savings for the public purse is unnecessary: the evidence that it does was set out compellingly in the Pragmatix report. It smacks of Treasury-driven foot-dragging.
We need to look systemically at the whole ecology of justice. The Government need to ensure that proper data are available to enable informed understanding of what is happening. Everything interacts. All parts of the system need to be resourced properly or else deficiency in one area produces damaging pressures elsewhere. The Government can reduce the burden on tribunals and courts by making better administrative decisions in social security and immigration cases—and, of course, by addressing the roots of poverty and crime.
The chronic underfunding of the justice system disrupts society, wreaks misery across the country and violates the principle that, where citizens have a reasonable case but cannot afford justice from their own resources, they should be supported by the state to have their case heard. That was once common ground across the political parties; for decades, we moved towards its fulfilment. It should still be seen as a bedrock principle of the welfare state, our constitution and a liberal society. The Justice Secretary, who is also Lord Chancellor, bound by his oath of office to respect and defend the rule of law, should not tolerate continuing dereliction of this principle. I look forward to the Minister telling us how the Government plan to restore and renew the justice system.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, and her committee on producing an excellent report in this field.
First, I pay tribute to the prison and court staff who kept the court system going through the pandemic to the extent that they could. It was particularly stressful for them because, with the lack of any contingency planning, they had to cope with new ways of working and new technologies. There was no central direction in the days leading up to 23 March 2020. One by one, Crown Court judges had to take individual decisions on whether to allow jury trials to continue based on inconsistent information and advice. There was no governmental risk planning; if there was, it was confined to Exercise Cygnus, which of course dealt with influenza.
In the weeks that followed, piecemeal solutions were put together jurisdiction by jurisdiction and court centre by court centre. It took months before there were any proper co-ordinated approaches. The High Court and the Court of Appeal coped but Crown Courts, where the bulk of the backlog of cases lies, did not. The digital case system in the Crown Court, which could be a brilliant resource to allow cases to be managed and prepared properly, was held back by the problem of getting jury trials up and running at all.
Some high-profile cases were able to go ahead. The trial for the murder of PC Andrew Harper at the Central Criminal Court led the way, but that case required huge resources involving a remote link to defendants in custody elsewhere. Only a tiny number of cases could be handled in that way.
Nightingale courts in a variety of strange locations—cinemas, theatres, hotels and even a football stadium—were a modest success but were limited because they could not deal with custody cases. You could not bring a defendant to court in a custody case. Custody time limits were extended by statutory instrument from six months to eight months to allow for the pandemic but courts routinely extended custody time limits further, beyond that time period, finding that the pandemic was “good and sufficient cause” for an extension. Eventually, the Divisional Court ruled that this should be followed nationwide in a case of judicial review.
The effect of this was that the defendants remained in custody way beyond the statutory time limit because the Crown Courts could not cope and could not put on trials for them. Now, as the courts begin to recover and tackle the backlog, priority must be given to these custody time limit cases. Other cases, often including serious sexual offences, which have such an effect on the victim, are being vacated from the lists as courts try to catch up on cases where an unconvicted defendant is languishing in prison on remand.
Fundamentally, the pandemic has exposed the chronic underfunding of the criminal justice system, as the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, pointed out, supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope. There are not enough judges, nor enough courtrooms, nor enough court staff. Facilities have been shown up as old, defective, inefficient and unkempt; indeed, some were exposed as inadequately clean. Public Health England, which was brought in as part of Exercise Cygnus, was not impressed.
Since the courts resumed, there has been a problem with barristers becoming unwell, just as we in the Lords now find our colleagues falling by the wayside. There is a cohort of experienced criminal juniors who are struggling to cover the work. Some of them are voting with their feet. It is too stressful; the hours are too long and the courts are often not a pleasant working environment.
Paragraph 30 of the report recommends an increase in legal aid to match need. That is a very important finding. The report before us should be read with Sir Christopher Bellamy’s more recent review of criminal legal aid, published last November, which exposed the chronic underfunding that is undermining the profession. The Government have offered to implement at an unspecified point in future the minimum recommendation of the Bellamy review, which is an immediate £135 million investment in criminal legal aid. However, to date, there is no indication of how the money will be spent and the headline figure masks the reality. It is for all parts of the criminal justice system, not just the Crown Courts.
I was impressed by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, a moment ago. He referred to the statutory instrument about legal advice that we debated in this Room not so long ago. Legal advice used to be provided on a green form: legal aid for legal advice was a way in which people could be pointed in the right direction for their problems to be solved. What we had last week or the week before was a statutory instrument to bring about a pilot scheme that will last two years and so cannot come into effect until 2024. That is wholly inadequate. We need to research whether this is required. I remember from my early days that more than 1 million people had legal advice on legal aid without it causing any huge problem.
The criminal Bar has decided that it is too little, too late. On 11 April next, the Criminal Bar Association is going back to a policy of “no returns”; that is, not to provide cover for a barrister who finds himself, by reason of the current deficiencies, listed in two courts at once and has to return his brief to someone else. It is not a strike but a work to rule, and it is planned for next month.
I know that the criminal Bar does not want to damage the system but to improve it. Unhappily, the criminal justice system has not been given sufficient priority in the nation’s recovery from the pandemic—if indeed there is such a recovery as yet.
I heard the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, talk about remote juries in cinemas and the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, talk about whether jury trials should exist at all. I have some experience of juries and of jury trials as an advocate. I do not believe that it is right to put a barrier between a jury and what goes on in court. It is a strange thing, but in the whole of my career, I have had only one case in a jury trial where I thought the jury got it completely wrong. I think juries do get it right and they do understand.
When it comes to special juries, we have heard a lot about that in the past, particularly in relation to financial fraud. I have always thought that I would not have confidence, never mind the broader public, in a jury composed of bankers trying a banker for fraud; it is like a jury of policemen trying a policeman for an assault on a member of the public. The whole thing about the jury system is that people come into the jury box with their various life experiences and sit there and listen. They may not follow every point of law that is put to them, but they are part of it. It is particularly important that juries have the confidence of the people of this country. I can well imagine that, if we were to remove jury trials in serious cases, that confidence would not last very long.
There is some research from a very long time ago on the jury system. The same case—obviously, it was not a real case—was put before various juries, one of 12, another of seven and another of, I think, 15. The research showed that, with a jury of 12, the issues in a case are more distinctly and completely covered than with different numbers. I have every confidence in juries, but it is a topic that I think we shall debate long and hard at some future time.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton for this extremely interesting report. As she said in her introduction, it may be a year old, but it deals with issues which we are still dealing with today, and it addresses the context, if I can put it like that, of the way in which the criminal justice system went into the pandemic. She very fairly gave the historical context of the underinvestment in our criminal justice system.
The speech which I had prepared was to go into the statistics of it all—the backlogs, the appalling statistics particularly for sexual-related offences taking a long time to court—but a number of noble Lords have rehearsed those statistics, so I shall not go through them again now.
I thought I would go through the speeches we have heard and draw out the points that were of particular interest, and offer my experience on those matters. I just remind the Committee that I sit as a magistrate in London and deal with adult, youth and family law matters.
My noble friend talked about the digital challenge, as we went into the pandemic, and the uneven picture between the higher and the lower courts, which did not respond as immediately. I sat as a family magistrate throughout the pandemic. We did not stop. Within a week, I was personally operating from my dining room table, originally doing cases by telephone and then eventually by MS Teams. We found a way of working around the cases.
Just to give a bit more background, I am currently chairman of the Greater London Family Panel of 300 family magistrates in London. The panel responded to the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory report, to which my noble friend referred. I am aware of the shortcomings that that report highlighted. Sir Andrew McFarlane encouraged us to respond and we did so. It is difficult not being defensive, given the shortcomings that were identified, but I will just say that there was no alternative but to hear the cases that we did, because children’s safety was at stake. I literally took children away from their parents by telephone in the early days of the pandemic. I think we did the right thing, although there were shortcomings in the system.
My noble friend went on to say that some aspects of working remotely are beneficial. She cited domestic abuse cases, which is fair. I also deal with domestic abuse cases, in different formats and in different jurisdictions, and it is now part of the working process to think about what is best for each particular case.
I also know about the National Police Chiefs’ Council saying it would stop using remote remand hearings. My understanding is that it is a resourcing issue for the police in police stations, and it is a matter of regret to the court system that we were not able to do remote remand hearings and that prisoners actually had to be brought to court. Literally only a couple of years ago, we were able to deal with remote remand court cases when people were still in police stations.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, also gave some statistics, the experience of Scotland and some historical context, if I can put it like that. The different approaches taken in Scotland were interesting. In my experience of the differences between England, Wales and Scotland, people are very open to looking at alternative ways of working. I occasionally talk to colleagues in Scotland about the way they are addressing similar issues to us.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, spoke very effectively about how Covid in courts is a constitutional issue. I agree. He also said that, for some people in various parts of the criminal justice system, justice seems an unobtainable goal. I agree with that as well. He asked the Minister, and I would be interested in his response, about preparations for a future outbreak, if that were to happen.
The noble Lord then went into a greater exposition, if I can put it that way, about the various alternatives to jury trials that had been considered. I thought it might be worth telling an anecdote, speaking as a magistrate and a Labour Party member, about speaking to the then shadow Justice Secretary, David Lammy, about why the Labour Party was supporting jury trials over the alternatives. His response was simple: he said that people trust jury trials more than any alternative. The second point he made was that disproportionality—the make-up of the people taking the decision—is more likely to be accommodated with 12 people than it would be if there was some alternative arrangement. Those were the two points that David Lammy made to me about why the Labour Party supported jury trials continuing through the pandemic.
I thought an interesting point was made about fraud cases. I realise that is a much bigger debate, which is not really for today.
I was pleased that my noble friend Lady Drake spent some time going into the situation in family courts. She quoted Sir Andrew McFarlane and spoke about her experience on the All-Party Group on Kinship Care, citing the concern that there is effectively a rationing of family courts. The piece of jargon which we sometimes use in the family court system is that the local authorities are encouraged to “hold the risk” within themselves, rather than passing the cases on into the court system. The consequence is that cases which do turn up in the family court system are more serious, more advanced and more difficult to deal with. That is a policy decision and partly resource driven. Nevertheless, it has a very real effect: although the numbers of cases are going up, their actual complexity and seriousness are going up as well.
My noble friend Lady Drake also talked about kinship carers not joined to public law cases. She must be a mind reader. I was in a family court earlier today in Holborn and we were dealing with exactly that issue: whether to join some grandparents in private law proceedings to look after their grandchildren while, in parallel, there was a public law case for the children to be potentially taken away into care. It was a little example of the difficulties that the court faces because, although I was physically sitting in court, we were doing it remotely and the connection was extremely poor. The grandparents were not prepared for the case we were hearing. In fact, it had been wrongly listed in the first place, so it was an administrative problem. It did not work very well; I hope it works better next time.
My noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport gave an awful lot of background. I will not repeat the points that he made, because it was a tour of the horizon. Similarly, I endorse the tribute of the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, to court staff and prison staff. They behaved absolutely heroically, in my experience, and kept things working. I will not go into the other points that the noble Lord made because he made them from a source of greater authority than I would be able to match. However, I will be very interested to hear the Minister’s response to the various questions which have been put to him.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord Wolfson of Tredegar) (Con)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions. This has been an extremely useful debate. I also thank the committee, including its former and new chairs, for its thorough and wide-ranging report, which underpinned today’s discussion. If I noted it down correctly, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, said that it was an excellent report, and I respectfully agree. As a relative newcomer to the House, when I read the report—shortly after it was published some months ago—it was clear that it was a very good example of the detailed and careful work done by committees of the House.
I should say right at the outset that a number of points have been made. Some of them would justify a debate on their own. I hope that the Committee will not find this out of order, but I will seek to respond to the themes, including giving some statistics and data; I will then ask my team to go through the Official Report with me, and I may send a follow-up letter as well. I hope that that will be acceptable.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said that this was a constitutional issue. He referred to both civil and criminal issues. He is absolutely right, of course. The rule of law underpins everything else in society. I led a trade mission to the Gulf last November. The example I gave was that, when you build those wonderful skyscrapers, you do not see the cement once the building is built; however, without that cement, there would be no skyscraper. The rule of law is the cement that holds everything else in our society together.
The justice system is at the heart of everything we do and believe in as a society. There is no doubt that the pandemic had a very significant impact on it. On behalf of the Government, I repeat our thanks to all our partners across the justice system, including solicitors, barristers and the judiciary, but especially—I say this respectfully—court staff, who kept the system running and the wheels of justice turning.
In response to the impact of the pandemic, HMCTS set up national response structures that worked with the wider structures in the Ministry of Justice, other government departments and various external stakeholders. Practical measures were put in place. The estate was made safe by installing Plexiglas screens in more than 450 courtrooms, and 70 courtrooms were reconfigured to hear larger trials. There were a number of discussions with the judiciary to ensure that the most urgent cases could be dealt with if absences went beyond what might reasonably be expected. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, cases were sometimes dealt with in what might be called suboptimal circumstances—but it was better to do that than to do nothing. Sometimes justice just has to be done the best way you can.
That was the situation in the pandemic. The NAO has been referred to, but it is fair to remind the Committee that the NAO praised HMCTS’s response to the pandemic, saying:
“HMCTS responded quickly in the early stages of the pandemic … HMCTS’s evolving governance structures helped it respond quickly and effectively to the operational risks in criminal courts.”
That had a number of effects: domestic abuse victims, who were mentioned earlier, were still able to obtain protection orders; the remand of dangerous suspects could be extended; and, as we have heard, the commercial and family courts continued. We were one of the first countries in the world to resume jury trials; that is an achievement we should be proud of. In turn, that helped us to address the delays caused by the pandemic more quickly than some other jurisdictions.
One of my briefs in the department is the international brief. When I talk to jurisdictions around the world, they see our response to and recovery from the pandemic as extremely good. No doubt there are things we could do better—I will come to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, about how we would face a future pandemic later—but the response was very good. We are recovering pretty well, I think, from what has been a fairly torrid two years.
A lot was said about the funding background. The statistics are set out in the report. Those points were made by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and others. The Government have made significant investment in the justice system to help it recover from the pandemic. The MoJ’s spending review settlement is the largest increase in justice spending in more than a decade. It was a little disappointing that that point was not recognised. It is one thing to focus on cuts in the past, but we should also look at what is happening now.
More than £1 billion has been allocated to boost capacity and accelerate recovery from the pandemic in our courts and tribunals. That includes £477 million to improve waiting times for victims, and to reduce Crown Court backlogs caused by the pandemic from about 60,000 to our aim of 53,000. The figure for the Crown Court going into the pandemic was not out of line with the historical figure if one looks at how many cases are actually waiting to be heard. The key thing, of course, is not actually the backlog; it is throughput and how long it takes a case to get through the system. You could have a lot of people waiting to have a knee replacement, but the real question is not how many people are waiting but how long they are waiting. We are focused on throughput.
Funding secured for the Crown Court will enable it to sit at its maximum capacity. I will come to Nightingale courts, but we do not have an issue with rooms. The main issue is the number of judges; we now have enough rooms. We have set aside £324 million for civil and family courts, and tribunals, and an additional £200 million to complete the flagship £1.3 billion court reform programme.
I think everybody recognised that technology was a necessary response to the pandemic. I suggest that what we saw in the justice system during the pandemic was what we saw in society in a range of areas: the pandemic accelerated change that probably would have happened anyway. Everything in our lives has been disrupted and I am afraid the justice system has not been any different. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, said, it was the impetus for new approaches and some of these have stuck.
The remote hearing provisions in the Coronavirus Act allowed literally thousands of hearings to take place. We now have about 11,000 hearings taking place remotely each week. We rolled out the cloud video platform at pace to keep justice going. We developed guidance to support court users when joining remote hearings. Video remand hearings were vital in our efforts to reduce the risk of Covid transmission, removing the need for prisoners to be transported to court sites.
On that point, I understand that it is effectively a resourcing issue in the police. The police withdrew support for video remand hearings in October 2020. Since then, use has diminished significantly: only three forces continue to operate them. We therefore continue to work with other government departments to find a strategic funding solution to address this issue, because we recognise that video remand hearings had some significant upsides.
As I said, the move to online justice was effective and there were lots of upsides to it. That is why we are in the process of replacing some of these provisions with permanent provisions in the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which is still going through Parliament. I of course recognise that remote hearings might not be suitable for everyone or in all types of case. Therefore, I underline that the mode of hearing will remain a judicial decision and a remote hearing will not take place unless the judge is satisfied that it is in the interest of justice for all parties involved. We have also recently commissioned an evaluation of the implementation and use of the new video hearing services across civil, family and tribunals jurisdictions to ensure we get this right.
I will say a word or two about data. I am afraid that I am a bit of a data freak; I subscribe to the proposition that if you cannot measure it, you do not really know what the problem is, let alone how you are going to respond to it, so please take that point as read. I have had several meetings with Dr Byrom, and she worked closely with the department. We now put out a lot of data. When I write, I will set out some of the datasets that we put out.
I acknowledge that data collection across the court system has historically been challenging and that there is room for improvement. One of the issues—it is a constitutionally proper issue—is that it is not the MoJ which is in charge of every court and every courtroom, in the sense that judges ultimately decide listing, for example. When it comes to collecting data, we have to work with the judiciary to make sure that the data is appropriately captured. Judges, understandably, are very busy, and we have to make sure that we do not divert them and their staff from their main task, but I absolutely acknowledge that we need to do better on data.
One of the benefits of the reform programme is improving data collection: reform will deliver improved data on the way we schedule hearings and use court time, including the use of audio-visual technology. We published the HMCTS Data Strategy in December 2021, which is intended to build on the expanded data available to help transform our services.
We are doing some other things in the data space which I should mention briefly. One of these is making judgments available on the National Archives for the first time. At the moment, if you want to find a judgment you have to pay a private provider for a lot of them. We think that putting them on the National Archives will increase transparency and ensure free access for all. From April this year, that service will also host judicial review rulings, European case law, commercial judgments and many cases of significance from the High Court, the upper tier tribunal and the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court publishes its judgments on its own website.
So far as protected characteristics are concerned, last week HMCTS published the first report summarising responses to the collection of protected characteristics. They were collected for the period between April and September 2021. It is the first time this information has been published, and we hope that that will be a valuable contribution to the dataset. I underline, however, that the survey is voluntary, so the statistics have to be read with that caveat.
Nightingale courts provided much-needed extra capacity. Of course, the problem was that we could not use a lot of our existing courts because they were too small, so we had to have Nightingale courts. Sometimes they heard criminal trials; sometimes they heard other work which freed up other jury trial rooms to hear jury trials. We have now opened two super-courtrooms, in Manchester and Loughborough, which are three times the size of a usual courtroom and allow for trials of up to 12 defendants. I underline that room is not actually the issue at the moment—we have enough rooms. As I said, the issue is the number of judges.
Another thing we have done to help reduce the backlog is increase magistrates’ sentencing powers. I will not say too much about this, because it was not mentioned by anybody else, but I underline that extending magistrates’ court sentencing powers from the current maximum of six months to 12 months’ imprisonment will enable us to bring criminals to justice more quickly by moving sentencing hearings from the Crown Court into the magistrates’ courts. We estimate that this frees up over 1,700 Crown Court sitting days a year. If you translate that into jury trials, that is another 500 jury trials per year. We are also investing more than £1 million in a recruitment campaign. We want a broader range of people to become magistrates and to boost their ranks by 4,000.
That is part of a broader judicial recruitment campaign. We aim to recruit 2,000 new judges over the next two years, which will enable us to have enough capacity to sit at the required levels over the coming years. So we are encouraging fee-paid judges, with a particular focus on recorders, to sit where they can and are needed, and we are raising the maximum number of days that they can sit each year without having to establish a separate business case. So, for the second year in a row, we have increased the maximum number of sitting days for all recorders from 30 to 80 days.
Over and above that, we have increased the statutory mandatory retirement age from 70 to 75 for judicial officeholders, which will enable us to retain an extra 400 judges and tribunal members, and 2,000 magistrates, every year. There has also been a reform to judicial pensions, but, given the time, I will not say more about that now.
I will say a word about online hearings. I underline that there are benefits in addition to getting cases through the courts. We heard about one: domestic violence. You do not have to go in the same room as your abuser. But there are collateral benefits in terms of diversity for lawyers. For example, if you live in Derby, it is much easier to take your children and drop them off at school and then attend a hearing remotely in Exeter. You can do that if it is remote, and there are many advocates who find that extremely helpful.
The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, mentioned family courts. The Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal has been running as a completely remote hearing since the start of the pandemic. This means that families in crisis, often with children with complex needs, can seek justice more quickly and easily. So, although I absolutely accept that, as we move to online justice, we have to be cognisant of those with poor broadband and poor computer skills, and others who need help—I have made this point in the Chamber on a number of Bills and amendments—there are many advantages of online justice and we cannot tell the 98% that they have to wait for the 2%. We need to help the 2% and make sure that everybody has access to justice—I am passionate about that—but, equally, we need to see where justice is going, and justice is going online.
I turn to the backlogs with the caveat, as I said earlier, that the real issue is throughput and not backlog. We have already made significant strides towards recovery. In the magistrates’ courts—I apologise for throwing figures at the Committee—the caseload is close to recovering to pre-Covid levels. At the end of January of this year, the outstanding criminal caseload was 373,000. That was down from 445,000 in July 2020, a reduction of 16%. In the Crown Court, the outstanding caseload is down to 59,000. That is a reduction of about 2,000 cases since June last year. I absolutely accept that there is much further to go, but it shows that measures to tackle the backlog are starting to have an effect.
In the family courts, we have stabilised the outstanding caseload. In public law, the outstanding caseload by child stands at 21,000. We expect to see this start to fall over the course of this year. In private law, we have started to make inroads and the outstanding caseload by child has fallen to 83,000—down from 85,000 in August last year. The President of the Family Division was mentioned. I have very frequent and constructive meetings with him, and he and I are clear that we need a step change in family law, especially in private family law. Far too many private family law cases are going to court when frankly they should not be anywhere near a court. Back in 2015-16, the number of disposals per day was much higher than it is now; there has been a steady decline. That is nothing to do with the pandemic; there are other factors in family law that are going on and, whether it is the fact-finding hearings or other things, we need a real focus, and there will be a real focus, on private family law in particular.
In the civil courts, timeliness has improved. The average time it takes a small claim to reach its first full hearing has come down by three weeks. In the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal, the case load has fallen by 10%. That is down by 3,400 cases, and its timeliness has also improved.
I am conscious of the time but, if the Committee will indulge me, there was quite a lot said about juries so I hope I may respond fairly briefly. We heard from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, that remote juries worked in Scotland. I repeat what I said in the Chamber: we have no plans to introduce remote juries as a matter of course. The provision we put in the Bill is there on an “in case needed, break glass” basis. However, I respectfully suggest to the Committee that, if something is done in Scotland and they regard it as a proper way of doing justice, we perhaps should not find it as radical as some Members of the Committee seemed to see it.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, went further on juries. As he knows, we are consulting in the Human Rights Act consultation on the position of jury trials. It is right to say that when one looks at the Strasbourg jurisprudence and talks to lawyers from other jurisdictions, they find it odd that we have cases decided by people with no legal training who do not have to give reasons. Again, I respectfully ask the Committee to consider whether all the countries around the world which manage to decide their fraud cases without a jury are not operating a justice system. There is a real risk in a justice system that what is familiar becomes the only way of doing justice. I suggest that, ultimately, there are two reasons for why we should think very carefully before we move away from the jury system. However, neither has anything to do with its inherent superiority over other systems.
The two reasons are: first, the system in fact has the overwhelming confidence of the people of this country, and that is critical for a justice system; secondly, when you look at a jury—in particular, a jury of 12 because there are more people—you are more likely to see people like you. This is really tied to the first point, I suppose, but juries can be more representative of the community. This is well above my pay grade, so I will touch on this very briefly. I think it is slightly odd that we still ban research into juries. It is difficult to have any real debate—as in the one we are sort of having now—when, at the same time, the legislation effectively prohibits us finding out what actually goes on. If I say anymore, I might be out of a job, so I will stop there.
The noble Lord, Lord Faulks, also asked about our preparation for a future outbreak. Of course, we have learned from the Covid-19 pandemic. We now have a well-established pandemic-focused contingency plan, and we will also build more robust and tested plans to deal with other national events. We are already improving our readiness and planning for other strategic risks to our justice system.
If I can be indulged for another two minutes, I will turn to legal aid. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, put a gauntlet down about how I will restore and renew the justice system. I am not sure that I can do that on a Wednesday evening. However, I point the Committee to our response to Sir Christopher Bellamy’s report. Also, the means-test review for both criminal and civil legal aid was published at the same time—please do not overlook that. There are a lot of very good ideas and proposals in that means-test review. We think that it brings 3.5 million more people within the scope of criminal legal aid, and 2 million more within the scope of civil legal aid.
Although the Criminal Bar Association is not particularly happy with the Government at the moment, what we said in response to Sir Christopher Bellamy’s report was welcomed broadly by the Bar Council, the Law Society and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives. I say to the leadership of the CBA that the proposed action is ill-judged and unmerited, and I very much hope that they will reconsider. So far as the innocence tax is concerned, when the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, looks at the means-test review, he will see that it is one thing that we are proposing to do away with. It was a matter of a little regret that he did not mention that in his speech.
We also want people to be able to resolve issues without lawyers. For example, with the new online whiplash claims service and the online money claims service, they can do all that without a lawyer. We are running the system hot; there is no limit on sitting days; we are going to hear as many cases as we possibly can.
I underline that it is no part of my approach to clip the wings of the judiciary, but there is a proper constitutional debate to be had about judicial review and the Human Rights Act, and we will have that in due course.
I am conscious that I am trespassing on the Committee’s patience. I say in summary that we acknowledge that there is a lot more to be done. I hope that the Committee sees that we are doing a lot. We are very focused on justice for all. I think that the benefits from the pandemic are that we will emerge from it with a stronger justice system that is really suited to the 21st century.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)
My Lords, I must thank everyone who has contributed to this debate, particularly those members of the Constitution Committee who did so much to aid the production of this report. I think that Members will have realised the breadth of experience on that committee. It is indeed significant. We have the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, with his vast wealth of experience at the centre of the judicial system. We have the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, who likes to be provocative from time to time, as he proved this evening—I think we could have spent the next few hours talking about the jury system, but it is probably as well not to go there. We have the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, who proves her expertise and experience on family matters and the work that she has done in this House and elsewhere on kinship care. And we have the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who joined us again today, giving his clear analysis and overview as I have seen him do on many other committees. I want to thank them and the staff of the committee, who were very important to us in writing that report. I now realise why I miss my Wednesday mornings, because they were stimulating and genuinely informative, and it was well worth going to all those meetings.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, for his comments about the report. I got the feeling when the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, was speaking that perhaps he should have been one of our prime witnesses, because he gave clear examples from his own experience of exactly what we were talking about. It was important that we heard that. We had not discussed it earlier, but I am glad that he took that approach.
I accept that the Minister takes this report seriously and has read it in detail. He covered a wide range of points, and we all share his appreciation of the work done by the courts staff in keeping the show on the road. He mentioned lots of problems, such as what needs to be done on the availability of more judges for more days. What has happened on pensions and on the age change is important. The committee has looked at these issues in the past and will no doubt come back to him, because there are concerns about diversity as well as just numbers and availability.
I am glad that the Minister is a data nerd, if I can put it that way, because that is extremely important. The evidence that we were given showed a great lack of availability of information. He mentioned that the Ministry of Justice is not responsible for every bit of information. That might be why the National Audit Office thought that there was not enough joined-up thinking between the department and the Courts & Tribunals Service.
I agree with him that, as my noble friend said, suboptimal hearings are better than nothing, but I think there is a problem with the backlog. The Minister mentioned throughput, but there is clear evidence of very long delays to very critical cases. That has to be worrying to the victims, their families and a whole range of people. It is another point that we must make.
Overall, we all want to see a court and tribunal system that has more resilience. The Minister mentioned that it has recently had its largest investment in a decade, but I point out that that is the same decade in which the Government made the cuts, so they are just catching up with themselves. But let us put the politics aside. We need resilience and I hope that the Minister will acknowledge that, when we change systems—remote hearings are here to stay—we have to make it work. He said that 98% of people can probably make it work and we should not wait for the 2%. I agree that we should not wait, but I am afraid we are not talking about 2%. We are talking about a much larger group of people who have vulnerabilities, but neither the resources nor the expertise to make best use of that system. We have to take them into account as a priority when we are looking at this.
We are all agreed that the rule of law underpins everything. We need a well-functioning legal system, and a well-functioning court and tribunal system. The recommendations from the committee are intended to be positive and constructive, and I hope the department will take them in that spirit.
House of Lords
Death of a Former Member: Baroness Howe of Idlicote
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, I regret to inform the House of the death of noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, on 22 March. On behalf of the House, I extend our condolences to the noble Baroness’s family and friends.
Veterinary Personnel
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Wigley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with representatives of the veterinary profession about the availability of qualified veterinary personnel following the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and in doing so I draw attention to my relevant registered interests.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)
My Lords, my officials are in regular contact with the veterinary profession, including the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and the British Veterinary Association, concerning veterinary capacity across the UK. We have been made aware that there has been a long shortage of UK-trained veterinary graduates, which began before the UK voted to leave the European Union. Defra has been working with stakeholders to understand the reasons for this shortage and develop potential solutions.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that since the ending of the free movement of people following Brexit, the number of EU-registered vets coming to work in the UK has fallen by 68%, down from over 1,100 in 2019 to just 364 last year? Is this not yet another example of the total disaster that Brexit has been for the UK? So, what additional funding will the Government make available next year to expand the number of UK university places for veterinary students, and how many years will it take to train adequate numbers?
Lord Benyon (Con)
We already have new vets coming into the profession from the University of Surrey scheme, which was brought in a few years ago. Since then, we have new schools appearing at Harper Adams and Keele, the University of Central Lancashire and the Scottish royal colleges, and a collaboration between Aberystwyth University and the Royal Veterinary College. This will bring on stream new vets, trained in this country, to work here, alongside other measures we are bringing in to resolve the shorter-term problems that the noble Lord identified.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
My Lords, have the Government considered some of the allied professions, such as chiropractic, osteopathy and physio- therapy, for the treatment of musculoskeletal problems in animals, especially horses and dogs? All of these professions are well qualified, evidence-based and self-regulated, and this would enormously ease the pressure on veterinary practices.
Lord Benyon (Con)
Some of the practices that my noble friend raises certainly have an impact on animal welfare and dealing with animal illnesses. But the most important thing is that we get more trained professionals in the veterinary profession, which is what the Government are seeking to do, by a range of measures.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the Government already have a shortage of doctors and nurses, and now vets. What are they planning to do to make sure we get the support we need in this country to supply the professionals we need?
Lord Benyon (Con)
There are a lot of different veterinary roles besides general practice—we have to have official veterinarians as part of our products of animal origin process, and in abattoirs. Working with the royal college, we have changed the required language standard, which has resulted in more coming in. We have successfully negotiated with the Home Office to get this profession listed as a shortage profession, which has brought more in. We are also consulting and working in a whole range of ways to get more veterinarians working in this country.
Lord Trees (CB)
My Lords, the reasons for the current shortage of vets are complex, but involve the three Rs—recruitment, retention and, particularly, encouraging returners back to work after career breaks. With reference to recruitment to veterinary schools, nearly one-quarter of veterinary graduates produced by UK vet schools are actually overseas students, mainly Americans, who are unlikely to devote their careers to strengthening the UK workforce but whose high overseas fees are essential to make up for the underfunding of the UK student core grant. Will the Minister press the Government to raise the core funding for band A veterinary students in the UK, which would displace the need to take overseas students and immediately increase very substantially the number of UK students undergoing veterinary training in our universities?
Lord Benyon (Con)
We should all be very grateful to the noble Lord for his involvement in creating the new courses across a number of different universities. I shall certainly take his suggestion away and make sure that, across government, there is an understanding of the very real need to get more veterinary surgeons in this country trained in our universities and functioning in our veterinary profession.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, numbers have fallen sharply, with the number of registered vets from the EU being less than one-third of the expected figure. A large proportion of public health veterinary work was done by vets from European countries. The real problem is not the number of UK students graduating, but the fact that they want to work not in public health but in private clinical practice. What are the Government going to do to rectify that?
Lord Benyon (Con)
Working in an abattoir or assessing the viability of products of animal origin is not necessarily why everyone goes into the veterinary profession, but they are important professions and part of it. We are working with the royal college to make sure that it is a career people want to go into. We are working with the Food Standards Agency, which is now going to recruit 25% of official veterinarians itself, rather than going through a third body, to make sure that we can career-manage them to stay in the profession and prosper in it.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the British Veterinary Association and congratulate my noble friend on the work his department has done. However, on the question of abattoirs, does not he accept that the shortage of veterinary workers is causing the scandal of the backlog? How does he intend to address that?
Lord Benyon (Con)
I think it very important to say that there is no threat to human health resulting from the shortage of official veterinarians working in abattoirs. There is adequate coverage. It is a problem, and we are seeking to address it in a number of ways that I have already stated, and others. I hope we can reassure the public that, while there is a shortage, there is no risk to public health.
Lord Dodds of Duncairn (DUP)
My Lords, officials at the agriculture department in Northern Ireland have indicated that, if and when the so-called grace periods under the protocol end, the number of agri-food certificates needing processing will be close to the number currently processed by the European Union as a whole. It is 20% even as things stand. That would require an enormous number of vets, and the Chief Veterinary Officer has said that he simply does not have them. Apart from the principle that these checks are unacceptable, they simply are not workable in practice. What are the Government doing about it?
Lord Benyon (Con)
The Chief Veterinary Officer for Northern Ireland recently referred to
“available veterinary resource located in Northern Ireland points of entry, delivering efficient controls on sanitary and phytosanitary goods entering Northern Ireland through third countries and Great Britain”.
The veterinary resource remains at 12, and the DAERA Minister has put an embargo on further recruitment to operations in ports. In Northern Ireland, official meat inspection in approved slaughterhouses is delivered by a team of DAERA officials, and Northern Ireland meat-inspection services are currently fully resourced.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, there is a way of ameliorating the problem. Under the trade and co-operation agreement, there is a specialised committee on SPS measures. It has so far met only once, in September last year, but it could be very useful in dealing with this problem. What plans are there for the committee to meet again and discuss this problem?
Lord Benyon (Con)
The noble Lord makes a very good point. That committee could well have a very beneficial effect, and I will go back and ask officials when it is next due to meet and let him know.
Lord Rooker (Lab)
My Lords, all this was exactly predicted by the EU scrutiny committees of this House before and after Brexit. We took evidence and knew what was going to happen. The noble Lord is quite right: the shortage did occur before Brexit; I do not deny that. The last Labour Government started scholarships; this Government started Keele and Harper Adams in particular. However, what we need is food-production animal vets, not companion animal vets. That is the problem and given the current situation of banning people coming here from Europe, I do not see how we are going to solve it. While there is no safety issue in the abattoirs at present, there will be if things carry on like this.
Lord Benyon (Con)
The noble Lord is quite right to point out that this has been a long-running problem. In fact, it is large-animal vets we want to see more of. We want to encourage people into the profession and to go not just for the smaller animal sector, but for farm animals as well. We were, however, successful in negotiating with the Home Office to have this profession listed as a shortage occupation, and that has resulted in more vets coming into this country. We want to see more of that.
Loneliness Strategy
(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Merron
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their loneliness strategy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, the launch of the loneliness strategy in 2018 marked a lasting shift in the Government’s approach to tackling loneliness. Since 2018, the Government and their partners have invested almost £50 million in tackling loneliness, including in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We have reached millions of people through awareness-raising campaigns and have developed a network of more than 150 organisations to join us in this work. Our latest annual report provides further detail on its impact.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Loneliness remains endemic, with the Office for National Statistics reporting that the long-term disabled, widowed homeowners, unmarried middle-agers and young renters are those who are most likely to experience social isolation. While the strategy suggests that it is a government priority, I note that loneliness is no longer featured as a ministerial responsibility on the department’s website. Does the Minister agree that it is more important than ever to keep focused on tackling and preventing loneliness as we emerge from the pandemic? Will the strategy be reviewed, so that no one is left behind as the world continues to open?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
As the noble Baroness said, the pandemic has thrown into relief the importance of tackling loneliness. We were aware of it before the pandemic, and the pandemic made it more urgent. My honourable friend Nigel Huddleston, the Minister responsible, sees himself very much as the lead Minister, but not the only Minister, for it, because this is a cross-government effort. That is the reason for the cross-government strategy, and work has been done in all departments. Of course, we continue to evaluate the work to see how we can do it better.
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, the strategy highlights family well-being as crucial in preventing loneliness and the need to support families. The Children’s Commissioner has just been tasked with reviewing family life, following the finding of the commission on race and ethnic disparities that high rates of family breakdown are a major risk factor in loneliness and are key to outcome disparities. Some 63% of black Caribbean children grow up in a lone-parent household. Will measures to prevent family breakdown be included in her remit?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My noble friend is right to point to the importance of family in tackling loneliness. Of course, family events such as bereavement, becoming a parent and moving house can have an impact. Research also suggests that people of colour are more likely to experience certain barriers, which can cause loneliness for them, including access to community services, harassment, discrimination and feeling disconnected from the community. I will discuss the point about the Children’s Commissioner’s review with my noble friend Lady Barran, who is responsible, as the Minister in the Department for Education, and who of course, as a previous lead Minister for Loneliness, has done so much herself to tackle awareness of this important issue.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, will the Minister take into account the fact that sporting and artistic voluntary groups are almost by definition an answer to this problem? What are the Government doing to allow them to rebuild their capacity after Covid and how far across government does it go?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Lord is right. Community and volunteer groups of all shapes and sizes play an important role. Since April 2020, we have continued to grow the membership of the Tackling Loneliness Network to over 150 members. Last year, we published our Tackling Loneliness Network action plan, setting out actions that members of the network committed to take to tackle loneliness during the pandemic. We will continue to review that and see how that work can be furthered.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
There can be no more lonely experience than that of CFS/ME sufferers, for whom crushing fatigue is just one of a long list of symptoms that interfere with—and I would say prevent—normal social interactions. NICE recently issued guidelines for CFS/ME sufferers. Will the Minister agree to contact NICE to see if it would consider adding a section on loneliness for these particular sufferers—as I understand it, it did not include that issue within its guidelines?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I shall follow up that point with my honourable friend Nigel Huddleston and colleagues at the Department of Health. The noble Baroness is right: we know that people with long-term health conditions are significantly more likely to report feeling lonely. Through our loneliness funding, we have supported groups that work with people with disabilities and long-term health conditions to support them to feel more connected, including Mencap, the National Autistic Society, the British Deaf Association and the RNIB, to name just a few. I will follow up the point that she makes about NICE as well.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, this Question is a tribute to the late Jo Cox MP. It is shocking that 200,000 older people have not had a conversation with a friend or relative for over a month. I am old enough to remember when, in the north-east, most family members lived nearby, in close-knit communities. If I cut my head as a child, my mother would run three doors down the street and consult granny, who would tell her what to do. In a sense, this is the negative side of social mobility. Does the noble Lord agree that, by properly addressing the question of loneliness, we will reduce a burden on the National Health Service?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Lord is absolutely right to remind us of the important contribution made by the late Jo Cox in driving forward cross-party work in this important area. Through our loneliness funding we have supported groups that work with older people to help them connect, including the Alzheimer’s Society and the English Football League Trust. Last year, members of our Tackling Loneliness Network formed a group focused on loneliness among older people to explore the issue further. The group’s recommendations were included as part of the action plan which I mentioned earlier, and an update on progress to deliver that was included in our most recent annual report.
Lord Lang of Monkton (Con)
My Lords, there can be no doubt that the subject of loneliness is very well worth discussion in this House, and we are all grateful that it should be raised. I would like to endorse the comments of my noble friend Lord Farmer when he pointed out the relationship between loneliness and family. Surely the most important unit of all in social policy considerations should be the family. I would like to hear my noble friend endorse that and say that family considerations will be taken into account in all future consideration of social policy.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Family is vital, not just in this area but across so many areas of social policy and the Government’s work. We know that peoples’ family situations can have an impact on their experience of loneliness. We are looking to improve the evidence base to understand the challenges that people face through loneliness, including the impact of their family situation. We have brought together experts and academics in the tackling loneliness evidence group to identify what areas we need to look into further, and what research should be done, to see how we can address the remaining evidence gaps.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, the Government’s idea of a socially connected society is a good one, but do they recognise enough, or recognise at all, the key role that poverty plays in disconnecting society? Has the Minister seen the recent study by UCL and the University of Manchester which found that older people in the poorest sector of the population in England were more than twice as likely to feel isolated as those in the richest, and that this was true both during and before the first lockdown?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The noble Lord makes an important point which links to the Government’s wider work in levelling up to ensure that people of all backgrounds, across the country, have access to the services and the opportunities that they need. The levelling-up White Paper set out clear ambitions to improve peoples’ well-being, their pride in place and sense of community, and to create opportunities across the country. We know that connected communities provide people with opportunities to develop strong social relationships, and this is an important point. We will continue to explore opportunities to embed loneliness in the Government’s thinking on our important work on levelling up.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, have the Government made any assessment of the likely impact of the cost of living crisis, including energy prices and all of that, on family breakdown in this country?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
I am very mindful that my right honourable friend the Chancellor has, in another place, been setting out the Spring Statement, the details of which I have not yet had a chance to acquaint myself with. From what I have seen, I know he is addressing the pressures on public finances and household budgets, including the point made by the right reverend Prelate.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I wish to follow up the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, on people with ME, and to include other long-term conditions. Does the Minister think it possible to give guidance to the new integrated care systems in the health service to develop a local strategy to deal specifically with the issue of loneliness for people with long-term conditions?
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
Local councils, local health systems and voluntary and community sector organisations all have important roles to play in tackling loneliness. I will follow up the point made by the noble Lord, as I will the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, in relation to health.
Covid-19: Vaccines and Further Variants
Lord Blunkett
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the suppliers of COVID-19 vaccines about updating their effectiveness against further variants of the virus, prior to any delivery of a fourth vaccination to the wider population of the United Kingdom later this year.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, we are in regular discussions with vaccine developers about the efficaciousness of their existing vaccines and the variant vaccines that they are working on. Both Moderna and Pfizer are conducting clinical trials for omicron-specific variant vaccines. The contracts that we have signed with Pfizer and Moderna contain flexibilities to ensure that the UK can receive any updated vaccine produced, if production is switched. Having had a booster continues to provide a much-improved level of protection against omicron.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, I am looking forward to my fourth vaccine dose, and to the Government making a decision to have a full rollout in the autumn. It is undoubtedly true that the effectiveness of the vaccine has been to reduce the impact and the great danger, and therefore the knock-on effects on the health service. But it is also true—it is the elephant in the room—that it is not providing immunity. It is very welcome that the noble Baroness has been able to assure us that work is going on, but could this be accelerated on an international basis? This is not just about the UK; this is about a global pandemic which still has not gone away.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
The noble Lord is right: the current vaccines are very effective at protecting against serious disease, hospitalisation and death, but not so much against the transmissibility of the disease. UK scientists are in touch with scientists around the world, and we pool information. The noble Lord will be pleased to know that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are being trialled in the US, and tomorrow, trials start at St George’s in London as well.
Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)
My Lords, we know that Covid is capable of producing endless variants and that seems to be the problem at the moment. What are the Government doing to try to reduce the risk of these variants? Are they working with countries around the world to get some resolution to this?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
As noble Lords will be aware, the best way of reducing the number of variants is to vaccinate as many people in the world as possible. The UK has donated £548 million to COVAX to provide vaccines for people in lower- income countries. We successfully met the PM’s target to donate 30 million vaccines internationally by the end of 2021. We are on track to meet the 100 million target set by the Prime Minister at the G7 last June and have set out a plan to donate 70 million of these. More than 43 million doses have now been delivered, with approximately 38 million having been received by COVAX and 7 million having been delivered directly by the UK to countries in need. These donations have benefited more than 30 countries. I know noble Lords will say that there is more that we can do, and indeed there probably is, but they should rest assured that the Government are working very hard to increase their ability to export these vaccines.
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, we have a virtual contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]
My Lords, despite the Minister’s comments at the beginning of this Question, Nature published a report on 18 March saying that while vaccines protect against the omicron subvariant, their effect really does not last long. Will the Government place an order for the recently approved Evusheld as a pre-exposure prophylaxis drug, which Ministers have promised the very vulnerable since July last year? What steps are the Government taking to protect the severely immunocompromised in the longer term, including in their decision on who will be eligible for free lateral flow tests?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I will do my best to answer the noble Baroness’s question, but it stretches into the health brief somewhat. On protection for the very vulnerable, on Monday we announced the rollout of the programme for the second booster for the vulnerable and the over-75s. It is not possible to predict what the long-term vaccine programme will look like, but undoubtedly there will be another vaccine in the autumn. We already have contracts in place for vaccines that we believe will be effective against any future variants and those trials have already started. Given the way the UK is approving these vaccines, with a rolling programme of research going to the regulatory authority, they can be approved very quickly and could even be introduced by September or October this year.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interests. Is the Minister content that we are retaining sufficient capacity and infrastructure for testing and, in particular, genome sequencing of the virus in positive cases? This will inform a better understanding of the emergence of new variants, which will ultimately inform the development of new vaccines.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
The noble Lord asks a very good question; unfortunately, I do not think I will be able to give him a proper answer. I suggest that I speak to my colleague in the Department of Health and get him a written answer, which we will make available to all noble Lords.
Lord Winston (Lab)
My Lords, do the Government have any information on people who, having had an injection, have a moderate to serious reaction to it? Is there any evidence that this might suggest that there is already some immunity to the disease?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
Again, the noble Lord asks a question which is specifically about the health benefits. This Question was geared more towards manufacturing and the resilience of the UK’s ability to produce vaccines. Again, I suggest that I ask my noble friend in the Department of Health to answer that question in writing.
Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Con)
My Lords, given my noble friend’s earlier commitment to international donation, is it not high time that we made a bilateral donation to Nepal in order to fulfil our duty of care to our 30,000 Gurkha veterans and ensure that they are finally vaccinated? I declare my interest as Deputy Colonel Commandant of the Brigade of Gurkhas.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I acknowledge my noble friend’s particular interest in Nepal and would be very glad to take that request back to the department.
Lord Lennie (Lab)
My Lords, while multivariant vaccines would of course be a big step towards living with Covid, the WHO recently advised that the timeframe for their development is somewhat uncertain. What steps are the Government taking to ensure that emerging variants continue to be tackled individually while multi- variant vaccine development is ongoing?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
That is precisely what Pfizer and Moderna are doing. They are looking at the different variants and our contracts with them will allow their vaccines to be tweaked in order to cope with those variants. Given the way that the regulatory authorities in this country work, they can now be manufactured very quickly and be available to the public within months.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister was so right to say that the best way to fight variants is to defeat the virus worldwide. I am grateful for what she said about donations but, in the scale of things, they are a drop in the ocean. Can she update the House on the Government’s position in the current negotiations at the WTO around the TRIPS waiver and can she say whether, in the negotiations with the drug companies that she referred to, we are using our leverage to ensure that they share their know-how with countries in the global South that could produce generic vaccines for their populations?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I can confirm that all those questions are considered in the round with the vaccine manufacturers we are in discussions with. As to the noble Baroness’s initial question, I shall write.
Lord Lansley (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about the availability of Evusheld for those for whom a vaccine is wholly ineffective or contraindicated. I add that on Monday a study by the Washington University School of Medicine demonstrated that Evusheld was effective in providing protection against all variants of omicron. We as a Government are lagging behind 21 other countries which have entered into contracts for the availability of this for pre-exposure prophylaxis for the severely immunocompromised. Will the Government now act to put that contract in place?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I cannot commit to act but we now have that on the record and I will take it back to the department and make that request directly.
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon (Lab)
My Lords, I understand that due to the lack of sustainability and diversification of supply of the vaccine, still only 10% of people living in lower-income countries are fully vaccinated. What plans do Her Majesty’s Government have to support the TRIPS waiver for lower-income countries to improve the accessibility of vaccines, tests and treatment?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I said to the noble Baroness’s noble friend that I would write about we are doing on the TRIPS waiver, with which I am not familiar. I will endeavour to include the answer to the noble Baroness’s question in the letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, those Members of your Lordships’ House, including me, who have recently had this disease, despite being fully vaccinated and boosted, will know that it is not entirely to be treated lightly, even post vaccination. Does the Minister agree that, while we certainly depend on vaccinations for the future and are hoping that they will evolve and become more widely available both here and elsewhere in the world, high levels of public health messaging about other forms of simple protection against transmission of this disease really need to continue and currently they really are not?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
The noble Baroness makes a very good point. The “hands, face, space” message has seemingly long disappeared from sight. That is a very worthwhile suggestion, which I will be happy to take back to the Department of Health.
P&O Ferries
(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Sikka
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to appoint an independent inquiry to investigate the business practices of P&O Ferries and its parent company.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, the Government have condemned the appalling way that P&O Ferries has treated its staff. These loyal employees have been working tirelessly to keep our country supplied with essential goods, particularly through the pandemic. We wrote to P&O Ferries seeking information on the decisions it took, to determine whether it had breached UK employment law. We are carefully considering its reply, which the Secretary of State and BEIS have just received. If the rules have been broken, we will not hesitate to take further action.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, let us look at the facts. P&O has abused the employment rights of its workers. It took public money while its parent company paid £270 million in dividends. Its UK operating profits are almost wiped out by unexplained administrative expenses. The company is engaged in profit shifting and pays little or no corporation tax. Its 2020 accounts show a pension deficit of £95 million. Any responsible Government would immediately investigate P&O’s abuses. Can the Minister explain why this Government have not begun an independent inquiry?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
We are taking a number of steps. We are engaged with the Insolvency Service regarding the steps P&O Ferries took in this whole restructuring and redundancy exercise. The £15 million received by P&O was part of the furlough scheme and therefore to the benefit of the employees rather than the company. I know that P&O will still be accountable for the deficit in the pension contribution to the Merchant Navy Ratings Pension Fund. The Government are working very hard in a fast-moving situation to get answers to all those questions and to take the appropriate action.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
My Lords, I apologise that I was not here yesterday: my wife had a very bad fall and fractured her head, so we spent two days in the hospital, but I wanted to be here today. I hope noble Lords will bear with me.
The most important thing for everybody in this House —or any house, individuals or otherwise—is your reputation. I am today wearing the tie of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, which goes back nearly 200 years. My predecessor served at the Battle of Trafalgar and, as a matter of interest, my noble friend Lord Lamont is a direct descendant of the first chairman, who was in the Shetland Islands.
What I want to say is this—
Earl Howe (Con)
My Lords, I do not want to be ungracious to my noble friend, but if he could reach his question, that would be helpful.
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
I will issue a statement separately from this, but I wanted to ask this. People from all over the world are deeply upset and concerned about the reputation of a company that has been one of the greatest companies, and of which I have had the honour to be a part for nearly 40-odd years. I stood down in 2005—
Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)
No, I have to say this, because it is very important. Dubai has had the company for 16 years. Does the Minister agree that the way Dubai has handled this is totally unforgivable to its reputation but, most of all, for all those who serve this country?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for reminding the House of his career in P&O, which was one of my first clients in the 1980s, when I joined the shipping department of Bank of America, and I remember him well. The Government are absolutely shocked by the actions of P&O Ferries, and we must make the point here that there is no relationship between P&O Ferries and P&O Cruises, which are entirely separate organisations. We are shocked by its actions over the past week. We have been angered by the lack of empathy and consideration that P&O Ferries has demonstrated towards its employees. The way that these workers were informed was completely unacceptable, especially as P&O Ferries received millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ support through furlough.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, as the Minister knows, multi-divisional companies such as DP World use a legal corporate veil so that they can hide behind the deeds of those subsidiaries. However, there is no moral corporate veil and DP World is morally implicated in the activities of P&O Ferries. How can the Government continue to do business with DP World, how can they continue to give it £50 million in tax breaks and why are they not suspending immediately the involvement of DP World in the two freeports that it has been granted?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
The noble Lord is right and, as Ministers stated in the other place, we are reviewing existing arrangements and working with all government departments to consider what relationships we have with DP World. This includes my honourable friend in another place, Minister Scully, saying that the company should be on notice that it had fundamentally changed the relationship with government, including a £25 million subsidy the company received to help develop London Gateway as a freeport. It needs to realise that the relationship between the companies and the Government has changed as a result of its absolutely callous conduct.
Lord Lennie (Lab)
My Lords, if P&O Ferries’ disgraceful action of sacking its workforce and bringing in agency workers to replace them on £2 an hour, with its ships being re-flagged outside the UK is not illegal, it certainly should be. What happened to taking back control? The Government could have prevented this, had they supported a Labour Private Member’s Bill that would have outlawed such fire and rehire practices. How will the Government stop this ever happening again? Will they now, as the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said, review DP World’s suitability for the £50 million freeport contracts it has recently been awarded?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, I answered the last question with the words of my right honourable friend in the other place. The noble Lord is quite right that there is some truth in Barry Gardiner’s Private Member’s Bill, but I am not sure that it would have helped in this case, given that the fire and rehire may not apply to the replacement of British workers with lower-paid workers from overseas in a maritime context, as their contracts were with Jersey and therefore may not have been subject to UK law. However, we are looking at all these things and working out how we can take this matter forward and stop companies taking advantage of a loophole in the minimum wage legislation as it stands.
Lord Balfe (Con)
My Lords, can the Government take a very strong line on this? Many trade unionists will be looking very carefully to see how strong the government reaction is. Can the Minister take up with the DWP the fact that P&O was in the pension scheme of the Merchant Navy in a “last man standing” scheme, so if there is a deficit in this scheme, it could affect seafarers from all over the seafaring world, far beyond P&O?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I assure my noble friend that P&O is still accountable for its deficits in the pension scheme, particularly in the Merchant Navy ratings reserve fund. Regarding interaction with the trade unions on the situation, we are working closely with them to understand their concerns and act in support of their aims where possible, including to establish the legality—or lack thereof—of the actions of P&O. Minister Courts held a round table with maritime unions last week to discuss how Governments can best support maritime workers. We will continue to engage with unions as appropriate.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I am glad that Her Majesty’s Government are considering changes to the law to prevent this sort of outrage happening in the future. However, one thing is clear. Simply tightening up the loopholes exploited by P&O, or increasing the financial compensation caps, will not be enough with an employer who has long pockets. I suggest three steps which would have real teeth. First, as the Minister has mentioned, Barry Gardiner’s fire and rehire Bill would allow an injunction to compel consultation. Secondly, we should amend the Equalities Act to allow an injunction to prevent what is clearly discrimination on grounds of nationality. Thirdly, trade unions should once again be allowed to take solidarity action.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, we are committed to reviewing and monitoring the impacts of minimum wage legislation—including for seafarers—very closely, to ensure that it meets modern employment practices. Two years ago, the Government pledged to conduct a review of all NMW law in relation to seafarers and a working group was formed to explore this. I am sure that we will be looking at its results in responding to this crisis.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, did I understand the Minister to say that that a company incorporated in Jersey is not subject to UK law? I was under the impression that Jersey was under UK sovereignty. Can she clarify that statement?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
The contracts that the seafarers were subject to were for international waters; land-based employers will still be subject to minimum wage legislation here, but there is a difference between many of the staff. The problem we have is that the 800 who were made redundant have received rather good packages, perhaps more than they would get through a tribunal, so it may be up to them to be supported by their trade unions.
Spring Statement Affordability Test
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps, if any, they took ahead of the Spring Statement to conduct an affordability test on the impact of the rise in cost of living, the reduction in Universal Credit payments of £20 per week and inflation rates for lower income families, and if so, what did it conclude.
Baroness Penn (Con)
The Government take seriously impacts on the cost of living for households, including when considering policies for the Spring Statement, and are providing support worth over £22 billion in 2022-23 to help. Her Majesty’s Treasury has published analysis alongside the Spring Statement, estimating the impact of policies announced, since the spending round 2019, on households. This shows that, in 2024-25, the tax, welfare and spending decisions will have benefited the poorest households the most as a percentage of their income.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend, but this is not 2024-25. What people need now is cash in their pockets, not tax cuts later in the Parliament. Had the Treasury done an assessment—in fact, anyone can do the assessment—it would have concluded that the poorest people in this country simply will not be able to meet their bills, because of the impact of electricity and energy costs, because of food inflation and because CPI does not measure the real inflation rates that are felt by the poorest families in the country. Will my noble friend ask her colleague the Chancellor, whose measures I welcome today, to look again at the recommendation from the Economic Affairs Committee of this House to restore the £20 a week payment for people on universal credit?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the Government absolutely understand that people need support with their household bills now. That is why, previously, we had announced £9 billion to support households with energy costs over the coming year. We consider all recommendations by the Economic Affairs Committee very carefully. Of course, we have provided further support to those on universal credit through cutting the taper rate and increasing the work allowance.
Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)
My Lords, I never thought I would find myself saying this, but I must commend this Question from the noble Lord. It seems to me that it goes to the essence of good government. The Government should try to understand the needs of all sections of our society, particularly those with the greatest needs and the least influence. This morning, we learned that inflation has hit 6.2%—a 30-year high —and is likely to continue climbing. Today’s Spring Statement contained modest changes aimed at working people, but nothing—I repeat: nothing—to ease the very genuine concerns of pensioners and benefit claimants. Those relying on social security face significant real-terms cuts in their payments in just two weeks’ time. Why have the Government chosen, yet again, not to ease the huge cost-of-living pressures faced by some of the most vulnerable in society? Is it because, as individuals, members of the Government cannot envisage the appalling pain of real poverty, and hence believe it does not exist?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I am afraid I disagree with the noble Lord. The measures announced today were not modest; they were significant measures in terms of putting money back into people’s pockets to help them with the cost of living. We have taken significant action before today in the energy support package, in the changes to universal credit, in increasing the national living wage, which is rising by 6.6% in April—worth £1,000 to people on the national living wage who are earning full-time. So I am afraid to say I disagree with the noble Lord. I also disagree with the policy that he advocates of cancelling the health and social care levy to pay for our NHS. I listened carefully to his honourable friend Rachel Reeves’s response to the Statement today, and I did not hear her advocate for any changes to benefit levels.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, this is the third voice, joining the noble Lords, Lord Forsyth and Lord Tunnicliffe. Will the Minister understand that this House is ringing the crisis bell, because it is going to be a crisis for a very large number of people trying to live through this coming year? The OBR forecasts inflation at 9% by the end of the year, and if the Minister takes into account every argument that she has made and every measure produced by the Chancellor, the OBR still says that we will experience
“the largest fall in a single financial year”
in real household disposable incomes
“since ONS records began in 1956-57”.
Is it not extraordinary that, in order to finance a tax cut in 2024, the Chancellor is raising national insurance contributions today? Let us not have shilly-shallying over hypothecation. In fact, he could cancel today’s national insurance contribution rise, use windfall taxes to fill in for the two-year period and come out no worse in 2024. Why does he not do it?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the Government make no apology for the health and social care levy. It is the number one priority of people in this country that their health service is back on track, and we need hypothecated funding to pay for it. The increase in national insurance thresholds means that, even when we take into account that levy, something like 60% of people will still be better off. That is money in their pockets to help them face the cost-of-living crisis that the Government recognise that people are facing this year.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, when the Government were looking forward in relation to food prices, did they take into account the role that food banks now play in our society? Are they budgeted in as something that is part of what we do, which is having to give away free food? We already have 59% of families saying that they are deciding between heating and eating—that horrible expression. Where do the Government stand in terms of helping people with food bills? Does the Minister think that, as chair of Feeding Britain, I should have a growth strategy?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, of course food prices are taken into account alongside fuel prices when we look at inflation and how it flows through to benefit rates. The noble Baroness will be aware that the Government are continuing their support for holiday clubs, including free meals, to ensure that children in families that get support during term time also have that support during the school holidays.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, nobody pretends that the Chancellor has an easy job, and I commend him for many of his policies. However, there has been a geopolitical shift in the past two months which should worry us all. This is the most dangerous period the Minister has ever lived in—indeed, that most of the population of Britain have ever lived in—yet she has completely ignored the fact that we are cutting the Army by 11% and reducing our ships and aircraft and at the same time Putin is running through Ukraine. Will she please go back to the Treasury and say that this is an emergency—an emergency much more important than the cost of living—and we need to spend some money on it?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is right that the situation in Ukraine reminds us about the United Kingdom’s security situation and place in the world, but I have to disagree with him. At the spending review, the defence settlement was not for one or two years but for four years and was the biggest increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War, which rightly reflects the priority that my noble friend seems to give to the matter.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, for the poorest families who have already cut back to the bone, this is an emergency. Will the Minister explain exactly what additional money has been put into their pockets by this morning’s announcement? Will she explain how giving discretionary funds to local authorities, which will give one-off discretionary grants, will compensate for the cut in the real value of benefits to which the noble Lord referred?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, we have helped those families in a number of ways. In fact, with the universal credit changes at the Budget our first priority was giving, effectively, tax breaks to those in lowest income households. We have also extended the household support fund by £500 million a year. That allows local authorities, which are often best placed to identify those families, to give them the right support at this difficult time.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, in the light of the huge inflationary pressures that are on people across the board and with the Government’s plan to use universal credit as a way of recovering £6 billion-worth of historic tax credit debt, what assessment has been made of whether there is the slightest chance of recovering those debts? What assessment has been made of that level of debt?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the Government have done a significant amount of work in helping households manage their debts, for example, through the breathing space programme and the statutory debt repayment programme. It is important that the Government manage public money well and, where possible, ensure that where money may have been overpaid or mispaid it is paid back.
Lord Bridges of Headley (Con)
My Lords, in light of the answers that my noble friend has given, I think we all agree that one of the best ways to help those with low incomes is to give them job security. Can she please explain why the Government are proceeding with this jobs tax—the national insurance rise—on employers, given that the Institute of Directors has said that it
“adds needless complexity to the tax system, encourages self-employment rather than employment, and”—
this is the key point—
“hits hardest the labour-intensive sectors that suffered most from Covid”?
Why are they ploughing ahead with this at the very time when people need job security, not a jobs tax?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I think I have been clear about the health and social care levy, which is being used to fund people’s number one priority, our National Health Service. In good news for my noble friend, I am sure he will have noticed that today we are raising the employment allowance to £5,000. That is a £1,000 tax cut for small businesses, cutting employers’ national insurance bills.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, how does the Minister expect hard-pressed local authorities to divide £500 million between the 11 million families who are dependent on universal credit now? Does she really believe that giving that money to local authorities is preferable to giving people an extra uplift in universal credit?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, as many noble Lords will know, people on universal credit are often in work and earning. They will benefit from the increase in the national insurance threshold and from the increase in the national living wage by 6.6%. They will also benefit from the previously announced cut to the UC taper and work allowance. The Household Support Fund has been in operation for a period of time. As for the extra money going into it, the local authorities have already been managing that money and distributing it, and I am sure they are doing a very good job.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, the original care levy was promoted as solving the social care problem for this country, but it turns out that essentially it is a subsidy for the wealthy in order to prevent them having to sell their homes to pay their care costs. How can it possibly be right that the poorest workers are having to pay to subsidise the well off?
Baroness Penn (Con)
I believe the noble Lord is referring to the care cap that is coming into place. That is a result of previous work by the Dilnot commission, which it builds on. I understand that noble Lords on the other side think that the cap is set at too high a level rather than too low. I think that is not the right characterisation of the Government’s policy.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I refer my noble friend to the admirable question asked by my noble friend Lord Forsyth: did the Government conduct an affordability test on the impact on the cost of living, and, if so, what form did it take?
Baroness Penn (Con)
As I say, my Lords, we have provided analysis in the round of tax and spending decisions taken by the Government since the 2019 spending review. That analysis shows that the combined impact of those decisions is progressive, with the largest burden placed on higher-income households as a proportion of their income.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, 6.2 million people in this country live on an annual income of less than £9,500. Today’s announcement gave them zero. Is that not a badge of shame for the Government? If so, what are they going to do about it?
Baroness Penn (Con)
The announcement today will be worth hundreds of pounds to millions of people across this country and will help them with the cost of living. The Government have a long-term plan to help everyone into work and to progress in work. We are investing nearly £4 billion in skills over the course of this Parliament. We are increasing the national living wage, which will see the lowest paid in this country receive the biggest pay rise since the national living wage was introduced. That is a record that I am proud of.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
Last month a High Court judge ruled that the failure to include ESA and other legacy benefits in the £20 uplift to universal credit was discriminatory against disabled people. Many disabled people face higher energy costs and other living costs, which multiply the effect of the cost-of-living crisis for them. How are the Government going to ensure that disabled people can afford to live in this country?
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right about the increase in living costs that will be faced by disabled people. That is why, as part of our energy support package worth £9 billion, we have provided council tax rebates worth £150 to help people with the cost of energy as well as a discretionary fund to local authorities so that those who will not benefit from the council tax rebates will also share in that support.
Direct Payments to Farmers (Reductions) (England) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Benyon
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 1, 3 and 10 February be approved.
Relevant document: 30th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 March.
Electricity Supplier Payments (Amendment) Regulations 2022
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 7 February be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 March.
Food and Feed Safety (Miscellaneous Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Kamall
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 21 February be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 March.
Commissioner for Patient Safety (Appointment and Operation) (England) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Kamall
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 7 February be approved. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 March.
Sub-Postmasters: Compensation
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, yesterday in the other place the Minister committed to hold those responsible to account. Can the Government confirm that this will extend to the directors of the Post Office who wrongly sanctioned legal action? Last year’s historic shortfall scheme included interim payments specifically for those within that scheme. Can the Government confirm that interim payment will now be offered to the 555 trailblazers?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for his Question. This is a historic injustice as we all know, going back many years. I know that my noble friend the Minister and my right honourable friend Minister Scully in the other place are grateful for the support given to the Government from all sides of both Houses in their efforts to resolve these issues. We must make public exactly what went wrong and ensure that something like this cannot happen again. We have established the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry, chaired by Sir Wyn Williams. As of 11 March, 45% in the historic shortfall scheme have already received initial offers of payment, and we hope to make 95% of initial offers by the end of the year.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, on the face of it, this is belated but good news. We should remind ourselves that this all started when a large international corporation, a huge public service and Government ganged up together to steamroller the lives of ordinary postmasters who were struggling with the Horizon scheme. I get no sense of the same vigour of their campaign on postmasters from that now on Fujitsu, whose product was the root cause of this problem, which went on for decades. Can the Minister please reassure your Lordships’ House that Fujitsu will be pursued with the same energy with which the postmasters and postmistresses of Britain were pursued?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I am sure that view will be expressed by a number of people around the House. The investigation led by Sir Wyn Williams will investigate all aspects of this scandal, including the role of Fujitsu. In the light of his report, we will have the information we need to shape our future relationship with Fujitsu and any future action we take against it for compensation. The UK taxpayer should not pick up the tab for problems caused by others.
Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)
My Lords, will the Minister please pass on to my noble friend Lord Callanan my thanks for the work that he did, along with Minister Scully in the other House, to achieve this excellent result? I come back to the point raised by the Front Benches opposite: will any interim payments be made to the 555 as there were with those whose convictions were overturned?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Callanan is not here to receive those plaudits, but he was suddenly taken ill last night. I hope he will be back tomorrow. The Minister, Paul Scully, is meeting the 555 group next week on 30 March. Interim payments and steps that will be taken to compensate the original 555, the GLO group, will all be discussed at that meeting. I am sure we will bring back more information as a result of those discussions as soon as we can.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, as well as commending the Government on this Statement, so far as it goes, I commend the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom, on his unbelievably consistent campaigning on this issue. The House, the country and the Government all owe him a great debt of honour in this respect. It has always been the case that this issue will not be resolved until all victims of this egregious miscarriage of justice are fully compensated and exonerated. We are well on our way to full compensation, but we are very far behind on exoneration. Fewer than 10% of the 736 people wrongly convicted on Fujitsu’s evidence have been exonerated. It is beyond doubt that a short, two-clause Bill in Parliament could exonerate the rest in a day. What other evidence do the Government need on these wrongful convictions before taking that step, which will be welcomed universally across Parliament?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
The noble Lord makes a very good point. For this third group, 73 of their criminal convictions were overturned, including one yesterday—it could be hundreds, but it depends on individuals taking action to get their convictions overturned. The Post Office has contacted 640 of the 740 it prosecuted, offering help. They have had an interim payment of £100,000. We urgently want to resolve this issue and hope that all will be compensated in the current year.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lords, Lord Arbuthnot and Lord Callanan, on their work in chasing this. I am concerned about the Minister’s answer on the time it will take before anyone in the Post Office or Fujitsu who might be implicated can be brought to task. At the moment, it appears they will all have retired, or worse, before there is any penalty. Presumably in the meantime they will get promoted and do other jobs. Is there no way of speeding this up a bit?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I sense the frustration in the noble Lord’s voice, but the statutory inquiry is in the hands of Sir Wyn Williams. It is for him to decide when it will report. He has announced that he will take evidence until November this year, so we hope that we will at least have a report out within the next 12 months.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
I thank my noble friend for the good news in this Statement, which was welcomed at the meeting of the APPG on Post Offices today, which I attended. What lessons for the future have the Government already learned from this long and deplorable scandal, which the noble Baroness rightly described as an historic injustice?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
There are many lessons to be learned. Everybody is appalled at the ability of so many different factors—from different Governments, to Post Office officials and management —to see this particular demographic of individuals prosecuted in this way, when it was almost certainly obvious to the outside world from the beginning that it was a very odd process. I am sure there will be many lessons to learn. Most of them will probably be highlighted in the report by Sir Wyn Williams, but I do not think we should wait for that report to look at this in detail. I know that my noble friend Lord Callanan and my right honourable friend in the other place will be doing just this within the department.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the public inquiry, but the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, made a point about speed. Does my noble friend know if the Government already have in mind which sanctions are at their disposal to be taken against those who are likely to implicated at the end of this inquiry?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I think I had better write to the noble Baroness on the specifics of what action we can take. Fujitsu is no longer a preferred supplier to the Government; in common with any other company, it can bid for contracts. I envisage that there is much we can do, and I will write with the specifics.
Baroness Altmann (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend join me in commending the work of my noble friend Lord Arbuthnot and extend my gratitude to the Minister in this place—my noble friend Lord Callanan—and Paul Scully in the other place? Can I press my noble friend Lady Bloomfield a bit more on the position of Fujitsu? Can she give the House some idea of what actions the Government could take now for the historic injustices inflicted on these absolutely innocent people, not least to send a message to other corporates that such behaviour is utterly unacceptable and will have expensive consequences?
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
I do not believe I can go further than what I have already said in our action against Fujitsu. Obviously there will be repercussions for it, but I do not want to prejudge what the inquiry will set out. All I can say is that, while it is at liberty to bid for future government contracts, I am sure the history of this sorry saga will be taken into account in that process.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
I will pause a moment before calling the next business.
Health and Care Bill
Wednesday 23rd March 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Health and Care Act 2022 View all Health and Care Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 132-I Marshalled list for Third Reading - (22 Mar 2022)
Baroness Thornton
Member’s explanatory statement
This is a technical amendment necessary to remove a defective reference to a non-existent Clause (Cap on care costs for charging purposes), following its removal at Report stage.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
On behalf of my noble friend Lady Wheeler, I will move Amendment 1 and speak to Amendment 2, which are grouped together. This should not take very long, as we speed the Bill on its way to the Commons.
I just want to say one thing: we entered lockdown two years ago today, and I stood here for the next two days, helping to put through the emergency legislation. Some 186,000 deaths later, we are not finished yet. Now is not the time to discuss this, but I just note that that is what happened. I can hear an alarm—I thank the noble Earl for turning it off. I thought that it was mine for a moment, but that is not the noise mine makes.
Amendment 1 is a technical amendment—I thank the Public Bill Office for sorting us all out on this—necessary to remove a defective reference to a non-existent clause, “Cap on care costs for charging purposes”, following its removal on Report.
Amendment 2 leaves out Schedule 6. This is also a technical amendment, necessary to remove Schedule 6, “Intervention powers over the reconfiguration of NHS services”. It was previously introduced by Clause 40 of the Bill as introduced, “Reconfiguration of services: intervention powers”; again, this was removed on Report. I beg to move Amendment 1.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)
My Lords, the Government will not oppose the minor and technical amendments tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Wheeler and Lady Thornton. We respect the fact that both amendments are necessary to reflect, and are consequential on, the removal of the care-cap metering clause and the reconfigurations clause, respectively, even though the Government are disappointed that noble Lords chose to remove these clauses from the Bill.
Baroness Thornton
Member’s explanatory statement
This is a technical amendment necessary to remove Schedule 6 (Intervention powers over the reconfiguration of NHS services). It was previously introduced by Clause 40 (Reconfiguration of services: intervention powers), which was removed at Report stage.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
The Question is that the Bill do now pass. As many as are of that opinion will say, “Content”—
Baroness Penn (Con)
I think that noble Lords may want to make a few remarks before we reach the Question.
Lord Kamall (Con)
As noble Lords know, I am still learning. I will take a moment to mark the end of the Bill’s passage through your Lordships’ House. Its size reflects the Government’s ambitious agenda for change and the NHS’s requests to help to deliver this change. The Bill intends to strip out needless bureaucracy, improve accountability and enhance integration, and it will form the bedrock for the NHS to build on in years to come.
I will express some words of gratitude. In many ways, the many meetings, the debates and even the late nights during the passage of the Bill have, I believe, shown this House at its best—informed, collaborative and considered. I am grateful to all noble Lords for their intense scrutiny over the nine days of Committee and four days of Report.
I pay tribute to the willingness of noble Lords, right across the House, on all Benches, to engage with me and my officials to find ways to improve the Bill. As well as being grateful to the Labour and Liberal Democrat Front Benches for at times challenging us and at other times agreeing and co-operating, I thank a number of Cross-Bench Peers, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, Lady Watkins of Tavistock and Lady Hollins, and the noble Lords, Lord Stevens of Birmingham and Lord Patel—who sends his apologies—for their always constructive contributions. I should perhaps also thank noble Lords on the Benches behind me and reflect that the challenge was sometimes from them.
As a relatively new Minister, thrown in at the deep end—your Lordships can see how new I still am from my asking, “Am I on yet?”—I also thank my colleagues on the Government Benches, who have assisted, advised and, I have to admit, consoled me at times throughout the passage of the Bill. I pay tribute to the kind support and advice of my noble friends Lord Howe, Lady Penn and Lady Chisholm of Owlpen.
I also put on record my thanks to the wide range of stakeholders which have engaged with me and many noble Lords, including the NHS Confederation, NHS Providers, the King’s Fund, the Nuffield Trust, the Health Foundation, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and the Local Government Association, for their sustained and constructive engagement over several years. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that the Bill is better for all their work.
It would be remiss of me not to pay tribute to the work of colleagues across the NHS, government and the devolved Administrations, who have worked so hard behind the scenes. In particular, I thank my fantastic Bill team and the departmental policy teams supporting them, all of whom have been assiduous, helpful and uncomplaining at all times, despite very long hours. Perhaps I should give a special shout-out to 10 month-old Teddy Povey, son of the Bill team manager. You say that you are getting old when the policemen look younger, but I must say that I felt very old on seeing that the policy officials are getting younger. I pay a special tribute there, on his early introduction to politics.
I thank officials across government, including the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Education, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the Ministry of Justice, the Cabinet Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. That shows the sort of cross-government dimension to this Bill.
There is no doubt that your Lordships have improved the Bill. I hope that noble Lords across the Chamber will recognise that the Government have listened, considered and responded positively to suggestions where we were able to. However, I also recognise that there are some areas still to be resolved and where, to use my oft-used phrase one more time, we were unable to close the gap between our positions, including on social care, workforce planning and reconfigurations, on which the House of Commons will want to make its voice heard—and to which we may return in debate. But the areas of disagreement should not overshadow the improvement that all noble Lords have made to the Bill. Together, as a House, we have banned hymenoplasty; introduced a power to create a licensing regime for non-surgical cosmetic procedures; extended the gamete and embryo storage limits; made important commitments to safeguarding children; and strengthened the NHS’s commitment to net zero. On a subject close to my heart and that of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State, we have included specific references to tackling inequalities.
We send to the other place a Health and Care Bill that is improved with its three underpinning principles reinforced: embedding integration, cutting bureaucracy and boosting accountability. I beg to move.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I was rather hoping that we would do one of these. I agree with the Minister that we have improved the Bill; it is a much-improved Bill that we are sending back to the Commons, and I hope that they have the good sense to accept all the wise amendments that this House has made.
I also say to the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, that this is his first Bill, and it has been a baptism of fire for him. It is a very large Bill to cut your teeth on. I think that he has had a bit of a masterclass on legislation and legislative processes, but I compliment him on how he has risen to the occasion and thank the whole ministerial team, including the noble Earl and the noble Baroness, Lady Penn; I was about to call her Baroness Jo-Jo, sorry. I also observe that this is a three-baby Bill. The leader of the Bill team and the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, have had babies, and our adviser who started out on the Bill, Rhian, has also had a baby. That is probably quite unusual in your Lordships’ House.
I say thank you, of course, to my wonderful colleagues, my noble friends Lady Wheeler and Lady Merron, and also to the Labour team behind me, particularly my noble friend Lord Hunt, who has been especially active on the Bill—and very welcome that has been, too. We have worked very well across the House, and we have been very pleased to work with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, at a distance, and with many colleagues on the Cross Benches. If I start listing them, I know that I shall forget someone, but I need to mention the noble Lord, Lord Patel. He has not been with us for as much of the Bill as he would have liked, but of course his wisdom has been with us all the way through the Bill.
We are sending the Bill back to the other place, and I suspect that we are all going to be busy when it starts pinging and ponging back.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, this Bill is of great significance to the NHS, care services and, in particular, patients and residents in the care system. As the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, and the Minister have said, it has been improved by your Lordships’ usual scrutiny.
I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and the other two Ministers working on the Bill. By my calculations, the Government have given us either changes or reassurances on 13 different areas in this Bill. It certainly shows that the ministerial team and the Bill team—to which I am also grateful—have been listening. They have devoted an enormous amount of time to hearing our concerns and responding to them. I thank them for that.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, I hate myself for this, but I forgot two people. Half way through the Bill, we acquired a new advisor, Liz Cronin, who has done an excellent job, and there is Richard Bourne, who has been sat by my side, right through the Lansley Bill and this one. They have my thanks.
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)
From these Benches, I very briefly thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, the noble Earl, Lord Howe, the whole Bill team and all the officials who have worked with them for the way that they have listened—repeatedly listened—as we made our points over and again and as they sought sometimes to try to understand what we were trying to get across and why. I also thank everyone across the House, on all the Opposition Benches, the Cross Benches and the Government Benches, who have worked with us as Cross-Benchers in a very collaborative way and made their own offices available for background support to all of us.
I echo the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton: this Bill leaves us better. It has been a genuine pleasure to work on it. Some of us have worked on previous Bills, and I have to say that this was a more enjoyable and rewarding experience because the dialogue involved a better interchange at many points.
We have made some points of great significance, one of which was over palliative care, which has been dear to my heart. Palliative care has come of age. I think the House will be pleased to know that, on Friday morning, the annual meeting of the Association for Palliative Medicine has a specific session dedicated to understanding the changes and what it now needs to do in the light of those. The word goes fast from here, and that is very welcome.
I hope that I have not forgotten anybody in my thanks, which are open and sincerely expressed.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I rise very briefly, with the Green group having made quite a large contribution—certainly in hours—to this Bill.
This House has improved the Bill, but I feel I need to say that I have received in the last few days a significant number of emails. They are not part of a co-ordinated campaign; they are cries from the heart, many from long-term NHS campaigners who I have known for a long while. I quote just one of these, which says that:
“The Bill is still not in the interests of the public or indeed of the NHS itself as a comprehensive, universal public service”.
That is an expression of feeling that I am hearing very strongly. I hope that the Minister will listen to that and understand that there are very grave concerns out there among the public about the direction of the NHS.
The improvements that we have at least delivered, as other noble Lords have said, should stay, but the Government really need to safeguard this universal public service.
Elections Bill
Wednesday 23rd March 2022
(2 years, 1 month 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-V Fifth marshalled list for Committee - (21 Mar 2022)
“Addresses of candidates at parliamentary electionsHome address form: statement of local authority area
(1) Schedule 1 to RPA 1983 (Parliamentary elections rules) is amended as follows.(2) In rule 6 (nomination of candidates)—(a) in paragraph (5)(b), for the words from “state” to the end substitute “—(i) where the candidate’s home address is in the United Kingdom, state the constituency or the relevant area within which that address is situated;(ii) where the candidate’s home address is outside the United Kingdom, state the country within which that address is situated.”;(b) after paragraph (5) insert—“(6) In paragraph (5)(b)(i), “relevant area” means—(a) in relation to a home address in England— (i) if the address is within a district for which there is a district council, that district; (ii) if the address is within a county in which there are no districts with councils, that county;(iii) if the address is within a London borough, that London borough;(iv) if the address is within the City of London (including the Inner and Middle Temples), the City of London;(v) if the address is within the Isles of Scilly, the Isles of Scilly;(b) in relation to a home address in Wales—(i) if the address is within a county, that county;(ii) if the address is within a county borough, that county borough;(c) in relation to a home address in Scotland, the local government area in which the address is situated;(d) in relation to a home address in Northern Ireland, the local government district in which the address is situated.”(3) In the Appendix of forms, in the Form of Front of Ballot Paper, for the address after “Catherine Angelina Smith” substitute “(address in [relevant area])”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment amends Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983 to give candidates at parliamentary elections the option of stating the name of the local authority area in which their home address is located on the home address form required by rule 6(4) of that Schedule.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, government Amendment 121 concerns the details about candidates that appear on ballot papers at parliamentary elections. We are bringing forward this amendment in response to concerns raised by Members in the other place.
Currently, candidates at parliamentary elections are required to disclose on the ballot paper either their home address in full or the name of the constituency in which the home address is located. The original purpose of requiring candidates to provide information about their address was so that electors could identify them as specific individuals. Given that MPs are elected on an individual basis, they need to be identifiable, even if many electors may make choices by party affiliation. The current requirements were introduced by the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 and give candidates the option of having just the constituency they reside in recited on the ballot paper instead of their home address. This was intended to provide security and privacy for candidates, while still ensuring electors can see if a candidate has a local connection to where they are standing.
We have listened to concerns raised in the other House that there should be a further option for candidates who wish to indicate in a more commonly understood description where they live, without sharing their full address, so that their security can be better protected. The amendment intends to enable candidates to use the local authority area in which their home address is located as the address they give. We consider that the local authority will be a familiar and comprehensible indication of locality to most people. I beg to move.
Amendment 121A (to Amendment 121)
Lord Scriven
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I am a little perplexed and confused. Many noble Lords will ask how that is different from my normal state, but the reason I am confused is this. I am looking at this from the perspective of a potential voter at a parliamentary election. Many noble Lords will probably argue later in Committee that the link between the MP and the constituency, particularly for voting, is strong and must be maintained. Most people, when they vote, look at the link of the candidates to the constituency they are standing in, not necessarily the local authority area, as those can be very big.
Let me give an example. In my home city of Sheffield, there are five and a half constituencies: the half is because one half of the constituency is in Barnsley and the other half is in Sheffield. Sheffield is quite large: it is 367.9 kilometres squared. If you live in the north of Sheffield, it is highly unlikely that you have a link with the south-west of Sheffield. You would not go shopping there; you probably do not work there; you probably do not go to the parks there. People living in south-west Sheffield probably do not have a link with the north of Sheffield. There are many constituencies across the country like that. Therefore, just having the name of a local authority does not necessarily mean that the candidate has a link with the constituency. I agree with the Minister on the importance of the security of candidates, but that has to be balanced with the need for information for the potential constituents and voters to be able to ascertain how local the candidate is and what link they have with a particular constituency.
There are 650 constituencies in the UK and 398 councils, as laid down in the Government’s amendment. That means that there are 252 more constituencies than councils. I am not going to become a geek and tell you what the square kilometres of those are, but the number is quite large. When the Minister responds, will he say whether there has been any evaluation done about the exact amount of extra security and safety that will be afforded to candidates if we move from constituency to council area? That is key. If not, we potentially lose the link between the candidates and the constituency in which they are standing. That is the main reason for my amendments, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply, particularly his answer to that question about what evaluation has been done and what level of extra safety and security will be afforded if the Government’s amendment is implemented. I beg to move.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, government Amendment 121 relates to election candidates and the location which they state on their ballot paper and elsewhere. We on these Benches fully agree with the Minister’s comments about concerns held by Members of the other place. At present, there are two options available to candidates: they may state either their full address or the name of their constituency. Police forces and other authorities have often advised candidates that the first option can be unwise. Elected politicians and candidates are often subject to extensive abuse, so making their full address publicly available can increase the risk that such abuse will lead to violence or intimidation. For this reason, it is often appropriate for candidates to select the second option and instead list their constituency.
At times, this can be problematic, because the names of constituencies often do not accurately describe or reflect their location. It therefore makes sense that a candidate may instead list their local authority, but I am concerned by a few unintended consequences. In particular, there is a possibility that candidates will use this option to mask the fact that they live far away from the constituency. Many rural local authorities such as Cornwall, Shropshire and Northumberland are well above 1,000 square miles, a point which the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, made in relation to Sheffield.
In these examples, a candidate may now list their local authority to obscure the fact that they live close to two hours away. Does the Minister accept that this amendment might have the unintended consequence of hindering transparency? In addition to this, I am concerned that some local authorities may not accurately describe their locations. Will the Minister consider expanding this to include local authority wards? I look forward to hearing his response and thoughts on these points.
Lord True (Con)
I am grateful to those who have spoken, and I will think about the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Khan. This is a balanced proposal which has come from concerns from Members in another place; we all know of recent sad events. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, says about people seeking to pass off where they live. This is a democracy, and I have been in politics for quite a long time, and if someone does not live very close to their ward or constituency, a leaflet comes pretty fast through the door—usually from the Liberal Democrats—with lots of big arrows over it, claiming, not always correctly, that they live somewhere on Mars. I think that democratic challenge would offer a control. The Government hope that there would not be unintended consequences.
We are suggesting a further option and, as the noble Lord, Lord Khan, said, sometimes the local authority’s name is closer to people’s understanding than the name of the constituency. While I understand what the noble Lords are saying, one would not want this to be abused in any way to deceive electors. I point out to your Lordships that it is an option already available to candidates at local and mayoral elections, so we consider it appropriate to extend the option to candidates at parliamentary elections. Although I listened carefully to what was said by both noble Lords, the Government believe on balance that this is an appropriate move to make in present circumstances, and in light of this I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, will withdraw his amendment and the House will be able to support this very small change, which brings parliamentary elections into line with local and mayoral elections.
Lord Scriven (LD)
I thank the Minister for that response. I am now perplexed but not confused, so at least he has helped with the confusion. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Khan, for reiterating the issue of unintended consequences. Having listened to the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
(1A) For the purposes of paragraph (1)(b), “relevant provision” means—(a) where the person is or will be registered in a register of local electors in Northern Ireland, section 10(4A)(b), 10A(1A)(b) or 13A(2A)(b) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (as applied by Schedule 1 to the Elected Authorities (Northern Ireland) Act 1989), and(b) where the person is or will be registered in a register of local government electors in Great Britain and does not also fall within sub-paragraph (a), paragraph 9(1) of Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order 1985.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment clarifies the requirement relating to preparation of date of birth lists for polling stations in Northern Ireland, so far as that requirement relates to date of birth lists for proxy voters.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendment in Lord True’s name at page 116, line 30.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment leaves out paragraph (c) from inserted paragraph 27(3A) of Schedule 9 to the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962.
“(d) obtains or attempts to obtain information, in the circumstances mentioned in sub-paragraph (3AA), as to the candidate for whom a person voting by post at a local election (“V”) is about to vote or has voted; or(e) communicates at any time to any other person information obtained in contravention of paragraph (d).(3AA) The circumstances referred to in sub-paragraph (3A)(d) are where V is about to mark, is in the process of marking, or has just marked, a ballot paper sent to V for voting by post at the election.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment inserts, in substitution for paragraph (d) of inserted paragraph 27(3A) of Schedule 9 to the Electoral Law Act (Northern Ireland) 1962, provision clarifying the scope of the prohibition on obtaining or communicating information about the candidate for whom a postal voter has voted in a local election in Northern Ireland.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment updates cross-references in consequence of the amendment in Lord True’s name at page 126, lines 23 to 26.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment updates cross-references in consequence of the amendment in Lord True’s name at page 126, lines 23 to 26.
“(3BA) Sub-paragraph (3A)(d) and (e) does not apply where the purpose (or main purpose) for which the information is sought or communicated is its use for the purposes of—(a) a published statement relating to the way in which voters intend to vote or have voted at the election, or(b) a published forecast as to the result of that election which is based on information given by voters.(3BB) In sub-paragraph (3BA)—(a) “forecast” includes estimate;(b) “published” means made available to the public at large or to any section of the public, in whatever form and by whatever means;(c) the reference to the result of the election is a reference to the result of the election either as a whole or so far as any particular candidate or candidates at the election is or are concerned.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that no criminal liability arises where information is sought from, or given by, a postal voter at a local election in Northern Ireland for the purposes of an opinion poll or exit poll.
“34A_ In the table, for the entry relating to section 115 of RPA 1983 substitute—
“Section 114A (undue influence)”” |
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendment in Lord True’s name at page 116, line 30.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the amendment in Lord True’s name at page 116, line 30.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment takes account of the possibility of a person being appointed as a proxy for an elector, at a particular election to the Northern Ireland Assembly, under section 8(7) of the Representation of the People Act (as applied to Assembly elections).
Baroness Hayman of Ullock
“(6A) Subsections (1) to (6) expire 10 days after the next elections for Mayor of London after this Act is passed.”Member’s explanatory statement
This probing amendment would mean that the simple majority system is only used for the next Mayor of London election.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I have a number of amendments in this group. The first two, Amendments 134 and 135, are designed to probe the fact that the Government have changed the voting system for the next Mayor of London election and other mayoral elections—my amendment specifically uses that example—and for police and crime commissioner elections. I want to probe the reasons why the Government have decided to make these changes and why they were included so late during the progress of the Bill. I look forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, when he speaks further on this although I will make my own comments on our concerns more broadly about Clause 11.
Clause 11 was inserted, as I am sure noble Lords are aware, during Committee stage in the House of Commons and proposes changing the voting system for all PCCs, combined authority and local authority mayoral, and London mayoral elections to a first past the post system. It was not included when the Bill Committee took evidence on the Bill. In fact, my honourable friend Cat Smith MP actually made a point of order to the chair during the committee’s evidence sessions to ask whether the committee could take evidence from witnesses on the issue of electoral systems. The chair was very clear in saying that that was out of the scope of the Bill and so committee members were not able to take evidence on electoral systems.
The Government’s intention to include this change, despite this, was announced in a Written Ministerial Statement after the then Minister, Chloe Smith MP, had given her oral evidence to PACAC; this was after evidence to PACAC and after evidence to the Bill Committee. PACAC then received correspondence from several combined authority mayors who made it crystal clear that the inclusion of this change to the electoral system in the Elections Bill came as a complete surprise to them and they felt that they and their local communities had not been consulted properly on the proposed changes.
For example, Dan Jarvis, mayor of South Yorkshire, said:
“The government has not consulted with local communities on this major change, even though the last time a government proposed a reform of the electoral system they put it to a referendum. Greater local consultation would have been carried out for a mid-sized infrastructure project than they have offered for a major constitutional change.”
Similarly, Jamie Driscoll, mayor of North of Tyne Combined Authority, expressed concern about the topdown way this change was being made. He said:
“As a matter of principle major constitutional changes should not be imposed on local areas without full consultation and without taking into account local preferences. To do otherwise runs directly counter to the principle of local control which devolution is meant to enshrine, and inevitably fuels cynicism and growing loss of trust in our democracy.”
Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester Combined Authority, disagreed with the Government’s assertion that voters are confused by the current supplementary system. He further stated:
“The Government has also argued that it wants to bring these elections in line with other English or UK-wide elections. However, the comparison between Mayoral elections and those of MPs or local councillors is a false one. As Mayor, I am elected as an individual executive decision-maker, not to be part of a wider legislature. That difference is important and drives the need for a different electoral system.”
The view that the supplementary vote system was a positive one for the role of mayor was also expressed by Dan Norris, mayor of the West of England Combined Authority. He believes it is important that the present supplementary voting method allows voters to express a second preference if no candidate receives 50% of the vote because
“this ensures that a candidate must have a larger base of support to win”
and is
“more helpful to the democratic process”.
The London mayor is also concerned. He is particularly concerned because the moves in this Bill would overturn the 1998 Greater London Authority referendum result which specifically described the supplementary vote system that Londoners voted overwhelmingly in favour of. All previous London mayors won more votes than any other candidate in the first round, so the mayor is also not convinced that changing to first past the past would have given different results.
The conclusion in PACAC’s report said:
“Regardless of the benefits or disadvantages of the changes made by the Bill to the electoral system for those offices, the manner in which the proposed legislative change was brought about is unsatisfactory. Making changes such as this after the Bill has been introduced and debated at Second Reading is disrespectful to the House.”
It is disappointing that the Government’s response to PACAC’s report did not address this comment. I know that the Minister is a decent person. Does he agree that the way these changes were introduced was disrespectful to the House? Does he agree that this disrespectful attitude is compounded by the fact that this is an elections Bill—a Bill of constitutional importance that requires those in power to behave with the highest respect for due process in order to protect our democracy and trust in government.
The Minister may well say this is a manifesto commitment, as was said in the other place. Yet while the manifesto includes commitments to strengthen the accountability of elected police and crime commissioners and to continue to support first past the post, it does in fact reverse the 2017 manifesto pledge to impose first past the post in elections that currently use proportional systems. So that was a previous manifesto pledge, from 2017, overturned in 2019.
Amendment 144D in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, would enable returning officers to provide for early voting where they believe it would improve participation. I note that the Welsh Government have developed flexible voting pilot schemes that will take place at the local government elections, in four areas in Wales, this coming May. It will be interesting to read the Electoral Commission’s independent evaluation of the impact and effectiveness of these schemes, which I understand is due to be published in August 2022. I look forward to hearing further from the noble Lord, Lord Mann, on that amendment, and to the Minister’s response to my questions. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is taking part remotely, and I now invite him to speak.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]
My Lords, this is a particularly difficult issue for me. I strongly support the deletion of Clause 11; it is no more than an attempt to abolish an electoral system that has stood the test of time so as to secure an electoral advantage for the Conservatives. The Government are effectively seeking to corrupt a system that is fair and, in the absence of full proportional representation, more proportionally reflects the opinion of the wider electorate.
The Conservatives have always opposed the supplementary vote system since its birth as it challenges the Conservative bias built into the first past the post electoral system—nothing more and nothing less than that. They have opposed it for over 20 years. I know, because I designed it, researched it, named it, wrote the original paper advocating it, gave evidence to the Plant commission advising its introduction, and saw it through to its introduction by the Labour Government. I brought in Professor Patrick Dunleavy from the London School of Economics—a world-renowned academic known for his independence of mind—to approve it as it developed. At every stage, to validate it, we did thousands of runs under different scenarios on a computer in the House of Commons Library when I was an MP. We spent 12 months working on it; Patrick Dunleavy gave it the academic approval and credibility that I lacked.
The driver behind all the work was that any system that totally ignores the centre vote in British politics, essentially a Liberal Democrat vote, will inevitably favour the minority right. First past the post helps in the election of Conservative Governments. If the Conservatives thought for one moment that there was some electoral advantage in AV, SV, AMS, STV or any form of this system, I believe they would support reform of the electoral system.
There was a very interesting article in a recent issue of Prospect magazine on mayoral elections by Stephen Fisher, associate professor in political sociology at Trinity College, Oxford. He carried out research into the use of the supplementary vote. He noted first that 41% of the people in England now live in areas where SV is now in use for one election or another.
Lord Kerslake (CB)
It is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, with his passion and analysis, which was evident even through the screen.
I speak to support Clause 11 not standing part of the Bill. In doing so, I declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and an adviser to a number of metro mayors and mayors, as set out in my entry in the register of interests.
In support of my view that the clause should not stand part, I shall speak about three issues. First, this proposed change cannot be regarded as a manifesto commitment; secondly, there is the lack of any meaningful consultation on the change; and thirdly, a proportional voting system is right for these particular posts, regardless of whether you support proportional representation in general or for local elections. I apologise in advance that this will be a longer Committee speech than is perhaps normal. However, the issues at stake here are so fundamental to the way we do business in a properly functioning democracy that they need to be set out at length.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
Can the noble Lord enlighten the House by telling us how many results of mayoral elections would have had a different result had they been held under first past the post?
Lord Kerslake (CB)
The noble Lord had better ask the Minister; I do not have those figures, but I am happy to dig them out. The point I make still applies. As in London, I am sure there is scope for better systems to improve the design of the papers and reduce rejected numbers.
The last of the Government’s arguments is consistency. Those in favour of PR might argue that the way to achieve consistency would be to move all elections over to PR. You do not need to go that far; as I explained earlier, people are perfectly able to live with different electoral systems.
I think the real reason the Government have done this, as has already been alluded to, is the results of the elections themselves. Out of the 15 directly elected mayors, none represents the government party; out of the 10 metro mayors, including the Mayor of London, only two represent the government party. I can understand why the Government find that a disappointing result, but I do not think that is a good reason for taking forward a major constitutional change to an electoral system without meaningful consultation.
Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, I put my name to this stand part debate. When I was in journalism, people used to say of me, “He may be no good, but at least he is quick.” I will try to follow that precept this afternoon.
The first thing I wanted to say will cheer the Minister. Like him, I do not think much of single transferable votes—I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours on that. The immense defect of STV compared to its obvious alternative—the alternative vote, which is an exhaustive ballot—is that it does not produce a candidate who commands a majority of the electorate. AV infallibly does, which is why we so sensibly use it for the election of hereditary Peers. It seems very basic that, for mayors in particular, and perhaps police commissioners too, we want somebody who commands a majority of the electorate, and that STV does not do.
The second thing I want to say is about haste. More than 20 years ago, on the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform chaired by the late Lord Jenkins, we were as quick as we possibly could be. People who have served under Lord Jenkins as chair know he was not a man who permitted excess words or allowed discussions to meander. Even so, it took us about 12 months to come to a conclusion. It may or may not have been right, but it took us 12 months to get there. The complexities are enormous. At that time, I could have distinguished between three varieties of Sainte-Laguë system for the distribution of majorities, but now I can hardly remember the words, and I certainly cannot remember what those were. But these are immensely complicated matters of immense importance, and they can affect the results of elections, which are the expression of our democracy. To do this by introducing an unheralded amendment in Committee in the other place is, to use a word much used by my old boss Tony Crosland, frivolous.
The third thing is that different places need different electoral systems. It does not follow that because first past the post may be felt by some to be right for the House of Commons it is right for every election. It clearly is not. Parliament legislated for different systems in Scotland and Wales—the AMS system. A whole set of desiderata attached to electoral systems apply differently in different elections, and this is a very poor reason for having first past the post.
It is particularly poor because the winner can have a very tiny share of the vote, not much more than 20%; I can cheer the Government up for a moment by citing one such perverse result in an East Anglia PCC election in 2012. The winner on the first ballot was one John Prescott, known to many in this House. John Prescott’s lead—he had just over 20% of the first ballot votes—was soon got rid of, and his votes transferred, to elect Matthew Grove. Where is Matthew Grove now?
We cannot openly countenance a system where candidates with 20% of the vote rule over our big cities and order our police. I use the word again: this is a frivolous approach to constitutional reform in general and to electoral reform in particular. This House should have nothing to do with it.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, my name is on some amendments in this group. As Members of the Committee will know, I am extremely disturbed by this Bill as a whole and by the way it has been introduced. Of all its provisions, I think Clause 11 is the least justifiable, introduced as it was after a Written Statement by a middle-range Minister last September after the Bill had already begun its Committee stage in the House of Commons, and pushed through for clearly partisan reasons.
On Monday, the Minister was asking us to look at the practice on voter ID in other countries as a justification for what the Government propose. I am sure he recognises that in the Irish and Danish constitutions, any change in the voting system is a constitutional amendment and therefore has to go through exceptional procedures. That is also true in a number of other countries. In this respect, of course, he will probably say that we should pay no attention to other countries. I deeply respect that, privately, the Minister knows this clause is impossible to defend, and I recognise that he nevertheless has to stand up for it as best he can in the circumstances that this was a Conservative pledge in 2017 and someone up there has not forgotten that.
Yesterday, I read a very good article in the Political Quarterly of 2019 entitled “The UK Politics of Overseas Voting” by Susan Collard; I will return to it when we get on to overseas voting. One of the things that struck me about the introduction was that it talked about the package of measures that might have been agreed among the parties in 2016-17 about voting reform. It was discussed among the parties in the Commons that we could have moved towards automatic voter registration to reduce the number of people not on the register—by and large, the young and the marginal. We could have had a major effort at citizen engagement to encourage people to go to the polls. We could also have included votes at 16, which would almost definitely have helped the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and others. In that context, overseas voting and the extension of overseas voting would have been part of the same package. That could have been negotiated as part of a—
Lord Lexden (Con)
Were these official interparty discussions or informal exchanges?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
These were exchanges on and off the Floor of the House of Commons.
That would have been a major set of changes to voting rights that might even have included some form of examination of our voting system. I draw attention to Amendment 140, which suggests that we need a citizens’ assembly on methods of voting for different elections in this country. That would be highly desirable, encouraging an intelligent approach and taking out of the control of parties the question of whose advantage is most looked to in this respect.
This Government have mucked about with local government over an extended period. I am not a great fan of metro mayors—certainly not metro mayors without the scrutiny of elected assemblies—but the Government have them. The Government have reduced the number of local councillors, and now they want to muck about with the system, partly because what Michael Gove and other enthusiasts thought they wanted—independently minded people like we saw in New York and Chicago—has not yet emerged very strongly. But some of those who emerged are rather good, or not so good, Labour candidates, who do not please the Government. Be that as it may, we have a current system for elected mayors.
The only argument, in effect, that the Government can make in defence of this change is that the voters of London and other cities are not as intelligent as their counterparts in Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere and are not capable of understanding a complicated system such as the supplementary vote and therefore we have to go back to the first past the post. That is not a good argument, and I look forward to hearing what alternative argument the Minister may wish to produce.
One of the problems with the first past the post system is that it works really well only when there is a clear two-party system and the two-party system has broken down in almost all democratic countries in recent years, except for the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United Kingdom and the United States, factionalism within both major parties has almost wrecked our politics, partly because the extremists —or less moderate—in both major parties have done their best to take over their party rather than going off and forming their own.
I was very struck by an argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, during our previous day in Committee, which was that you need to be very careful about how the selection process for candidates works because in most constituencies in Britain the selection process decides who will be the MP. The attraction of any form of alternative voting, supplementary voting or proportional representation is that it gives the voter some choice among candidates.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
In European elections, for example, if you are top of your party’s list, it is pretty close to being a safe seat.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
The noble Lord and I will have conversations about list systems and non-list systems off the Floor of the House.
On Amendment 144C on proportional representation in local elections, I recall very clearly many years ago that the borough of Rochdale had all-out local elections and thus required three candidates for each ward rather than one. What was most striking was that that was the point at which Rochdale ceased to have overwhelmingly white male councillors because if the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives each had to choose three candidates, they tended to choose one white man, one woman and one Asian. That gave people a choice and in some wards people voted for the woman or the Asian in greater numbers than they did for the Labour or Conservative candidate, which you might think is not a bad thing as a matter of choice in elections.
I remind the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who is deeply committed to the idea of the constituency, that until the first five years of my life the tried-and-tested constituency system in the United Kingdom included a large number of multi-Member constituencies. The last double-Member constituencies were abolished in 1945. I know I am older than him and that was not in his lifetime. We had a number of three and four-Member constituencies in counties and large boroughs, so if we are talking about things that are un-English, English history—the tried-and-tested systems referred to by the noble Lord, Lord True—includes multi-Member constituencies and different forms of voting in return.
Now is not the time to have a full debate on methods of voting, but I commend to the Committee the idea that we should move towards a citizens’ assembly. I hope that whoever makes up the next Government will indeed move forward on this, but I also say as strongly as I can that now is not the time to introduce into a Bill at a late stage, as Clause 11 does, a proposal that the Government have introduced solely because they think it will advance the Conservative Party and disadvantage others.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I will allow the noble Lord on my right to speak first.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I know he will interrupt me anyway.
I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and one of the rare people who has been elected under a proportional system to the London Assembly and under first past the post to a council. It has always struck me that I was told by Conservative voters in both areas that they voted for me rather than a Labour or Liberal Democrat person. Under both systems, they realised that there were options other than voting for the person that they might first vote for.
I know the Tory party struggles with the future and does not like modernisation, except when it really suits it, and proportional representation is the future. It is obvious that other democracies—I am not even sure that this country is a democracy any more, but I will grant us that status—have been using proportional representation for years.
There is more grumbling on the Labour Benches about what I am saying and I really wish they would do it quietly so that I could not hear them.
Proportional representation is the future. First past the post is a relic of the past when small groups of landowning gentlemen would gather in a small room to cast their votes to put another landowning gentleman into a room to represent their interests to the monarch. That is really not a system that we want to continue. As the franchise has expanded to include women and non-landowning men and the population has grown, so the number of voters is many times what it once was and social diversity has increased massively. We are now at a point when first past the post simply is no longer an appropriate system. The idea that winner takes all leaves many millions of people unrepresented in Parliament and in councils.
It seems to benefit the two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives. They are apparently content to take turns to run the country. Sometimes they do well and are handed a substantial majority in spite of the fact that they do not have a majority of voters behind them, and sometimes they suffer and end up in opposition. However, it does not suit Labour as well as it thinks it does. In the previous century the Conservatives won 20 elections and the Labour Party only nine. Labour does not benefit from first past the post. If Labour wants to form more Governments—we see this reported endlessly—it will have to appeal to more voters, which means to people like me, who might give them a vote if my preferred candidate is not able to carry a majority. We need PR, and that means real democratic reform, such as the amendments in this group, which I support; I will be happy to vote for any of them. If they throw in a new, real green new deal, that would improve the odds of Labour forming a new Government a lot.
First past the post feeds into the overly confrontational system we have at the moment. The nature of British politics is not very attractive. The parties are forced to fight viciously by the very nature of the electoral system. In the other place and here, we confront each other across the Chamber. It is very unhealthy in terms of being able to work together and find any sort of consensus. The first past the post voting system is designed to create conflict and opposition and it enables a small bunch of right-wing politicians to run a corrupt and uncaring Government on a mandate given by fewer than half the voters. Consensus building in politics is the future and will help us to claw our way out of the climate crisis.
You have to ask: do the general public like the way things are run? No, they do not—they will tell you that they do not like the constant fighting and braying that they see in Parliament, and they wonder why politicians cannot work better together. They wonder why campaigns are run with dirty tricks and character assassinations, and they wonder why politics and politicians—us—cannot be better. These are all reasons why we need to change the voting system, to transform our democracy into something really democratic and to allow people to be represented by the politicians who most closely align with their values, opinions and hopes for their future—to stop people being forced to choose the lesser evil.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, arguing for consensual politics in a characteristically aggressive speech—and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, as well. There must be a misprint on the Marshalled List, because the noble Lord told us that he did not want to discuss proportional representation. But there is an amendment tabled here, with his as the lead name, proposing a new clause with the heading, “Proportional representation for elections to the House of Commons”. I do not know whether he wants to discuss that—
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
I said “at length”. I assure the noble Lord that I can discuss proportional representation at very great length, but I fear that might tire the Committee.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
I shall certainly follow the injunction not to speak at length, but I cannot resist responding to arguments about proportional representation. Oddly enough, I think I am the first the noble Lord so far to speak passionately in favour of first past the post, which shows once again how unrepresentative this House can be of British public opinion. On two specific occasions, it has been the subject that dare not speak its name. There are two issues that have not been mentioned, either by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace—and I do not blame him—or by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. One is the small matter of an opinion poll, and I shall call it that to be a little contentious, held in 2011, which consisted of 19.2 million voters, who the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has told us probably represent something that is dying out and departing. That opinion poll was in a referendum which the Liberal party made a condition of its membership of the coalition—and at any stage, if the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, wants to interrupt, of course he can. He was a Minister in that Government.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
I thank the noble Lord for the invitation. He will remember that this was the first occasion on which Dominic Cummings managed very successfully to make the argument that it would be much too costly to change the electoral system and that the money would be much better spent on the National Health Service instead—an argument that he also used in the Brexit referendum. In neither case was the money spent on the NHS.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
Well, to bring Dominic Cummings into it sounds like a good argument to a point that I was not discussing and do not intend to discuss.
The referendum was a condition of the Liberal Democrats’ membership of the coalition Government; they said that there should be a referendum on the voting system in this country. Some 19.2 million votes were cast, 6 million in favour of the alternative vote system and 13 million for first past the post, as specifically referred to. There was a 2:1 majority for first past the post, and a widely held debate right across the country. I am pretty shocked that, having demanded that referendum and having rejected the result, which is not an unusual characteristic, the noble Lord wants, by means of an amendment to a Bill, to change the electoral system away from first past the post, not by another referendum—because referendums keep giving him the result that he does not want—but by an amendment to a Bill. I find that a very unsatisfactory way of proceeding, but I am afraid that it has become a behaviour pattern. I am sorry, because I agree with the Liberal Democrats on a lot of aspects of this Bill, but not on this. It is a very similar pattern to what was followed in relation to the European referendum, whereby they voted for the referendum, did not like the result but knew that it was too big a risk to put it back to the people—so, instead of having another referendum, they proposed to change it without one and back to the original situation.
I am afraid that this approach of no compromise with the electorate that seems to be being offered by one party to this discussion is really not a satisfactory way for democrats to proceed. Of course, people can change their mind; people might decide, at some future date, that they want to change the electoral system. But, again, I have noticed—and this is why I both enjoy but am frustrated by discussions about the voting system—that one thing that people who are in favour of changing from first past the post always manage to do, whenever you criticise them for anything that they are proposing, is to say, “Oh, that’s not the kind of proportional representation that I’m in favour of—it’s completely different.” In fact, of course, they will even argue, although it was more proportional, that the proposal in the 2011 referendum, which was for the alternative vote system, was not proper proportional representation. It is not, but it is much more proportional —and I am quite certain that they see the electoral systems for mayors, police commissioners and everything else just as a stepping-stone towards proportional representation.
I am the first noble Lord to mention the referendum. The other thing that proponents of proportional representation always avoid mentioning is the test bed that we had for quite a long time—thankfully, no longer —for elections to the European Parliament. They were done on the basis of proportional representation. I remind supporters of the system of the arguments that are tediously repeated about the great merits of proportional representation, the principal point of which is that it reaches parts of the electorate that are ignored at present. It is said that there are tens of thousands of Labour voters, say, in the south of England and tens of thousands of Conservative voters in the north of England who never have their voices represented, and that if you released all that potential by proportional representation, the public would be energised.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
How does the noble Lord explain the fact that, when you have a PR system—it does not matter in which country—you get loads of Greens elected? Does not that sound as though there is an unexpressed need under first past the post for Greens? I do not know why noble Lords are all laughing: there are three out of 25 on the London Assembly.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
I was listening carefully to the noble Baroness’s speech, and she seemed to be suggesting that quite a lot of votes were not votes for Greens at all but votes for her personally. I have never kidded myself about that, with regard to elections that I have fought, because I have lost too many—I cannot afford to say that.
I have said that the standard argument is that proportional representation energises people. But the turnout for European elections in 2009 was 35%, which is lower than in local government elections, generally. In 2014, it was 36% and in 2019 it went up to 37%, but that was because large numbers of people were voting for a party to scrap the European Union, as we know. So let us please hear from any proponents of PR who happen to emerge during this debate an explanation as to why they do not attach any significance whatever to a referendum held on the subject, and precisely why it is, when a PR system has been tried in this country, it has not involved large numbers of people turning out to the polls. In fact, although admittedly it is for general elections, good old first past the post is the one that continues to attract far and away the biggest turnout of any of the other fancy electoral systems on offer.
Finally, I will mention an important point: PR kills the link between an MP and a constituency. That is the heart of it. I speak as a former MP—there are many others in this House—in saying that, whenever MPs are accused of getting out of touch with the electorate, the answer is always the same, and it is true: if you hold surgeries every weekend and have meetings—
Lord Kerslake (CB)
Could the noble Lord perhaps address the point I made in my contribution? Whatever your views about disconnection during a general election between the vote and the person holding the seat, that does not apply to metro mayors in the way it works. Similarly, the noble Lord talks of countering the referendum, but we are here changing the voting system—we are not adding PR but reducing the current use of the system—without consultation at all.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
I am the wrong person to ask about directly elected mayors or police and crime commissioners because I have always been opposed to both. On the method whereby they are elected, I prefer a parliamentary system in local and national government —namely, a system whereby whoever holds executive power is subject to constant control, management or association with the people who decide who should be in the Executive. Some of my best friends are elected mayors or police and crime commissioners, but the system—certainly that for police and crime commissioners —is not worth having a great debate about. I repeat: the link between an MP and a constituency keeps the feet on the ground.
Finally, I think the proponents of PR call it “fair votes”—I tend to think of it as “unfair votes” because it certainly results in unfair power. It effectively means that the third most popular party of the three major national parties is the one pretty permanently in office. Nick Clegg would no doubt still be Deputy Prime Minister—there is a thought for you—almost for life, because it is always a question of which of the two main parties the third party will associate itself with. That leads to disproportionate power and influence for the smallest of the parties, which is not a system to be defended. Let us at least agree that the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, can either be not moved—he does not seem keen to debate it—or, preferably, defeated.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, with whom I completely agree. I will speak mainly on the opposition to Clause 11 standing part, which is in this group, but I do not support any of the amendments in it. I listened very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, said—he was clearly much too modest to say that he actually invented the supplementary vote system, back in 1989, so what we heard was some rather over- protective parenthood trying to keep that system going.
Our electoral system has had first past the post at its heart for a very long time—and very successfully. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, referred to the referendum in 2011, when the British people were quite conclusive in their view: they did not want the alternative vote system. I accept that it is not the same as the supplementary vote system, but it showed that the British public had no appetite to change from the first past the post system.
The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, who is unfortunately not in his place, described the supplementary vote system, in 2015, as “one of the worst” electoral systems, and I agree with that. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, described it in 2014 as the “oddest” electoral system—I thought I was going to find a second thing that I could agree with him on this week, but he may have been using that as a compliment. I do not think anyone has mentioned that, in 2016, the Home Affairs Committee in the other place recommended that it be abandoned for PCC elections.
The supplementary vote system is used hardly anywhere outside England, with very good reason. The noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, helpfully gave the statistics for the 2021 London mayoral and PCC elections. He tried to blame that on the ballot paper, but I just do not buy that: there is a very significant difference between the number of spoilt ballot papers in the—
Baroness Noakes (Con)
I hear what the noble Lord has said, but the difference between the spoilt ballot papers in the local elections at that time and the PCC and London mayoral elections is too great to be laid wholly at the door of the shape or design of the ballot paper.
The British people understand the first past the post system, which is why they supported it in 2011. It gives a clear result to the candidate with the most votes, and that is the heart of accountability. If that candidate does not perform to the electorate’s will or expectation, they can boot him out; they can vote him out at subsequent elections. That is the key advantage of the first past the post system: it gives a very clear result.
Lord Scriven (LD)
Is the logic of what the noble Baroness is saying that electors in Northern Ireland and Scotland who use STV, or people in South Yorkshire who elect their mayor, cannot vote their officeholders out because of the voting system?
Baroness Noakes (Con)
They can vote them out, but it is much more obscure—the link is much less direct. The supplementary vote system, which is what we are talking about replacing, clearly allows weaker candidates, with fewer first preference votes, to get through the system because of second preference votes, which have the same value as first preference ones—that does not seem right.
My only regret about the Bill is that it does not get rid of the even more confusing additional member system for the London Assembly. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, we fortunately no longer have the proportional representation system for the EU elections, which resulted in MEPs being distant and certainly not accountable to electorates. I would personally look again at the systems used in Scotland and Wales, but I shall stick to my normal practice in your Lordships’ House of not getting involved in devolved matters. It is time for our electoral systems in England to return to their roots and for the first past the post system to be the default for national elections and all English elections.
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have been affected by the debate this evening. I was intending to speak—if I was going to speak at all—in a rather different way, because I have anxieties about the way that the Government introduced this legislation, at the point when they brought in all the material about the form of election. But I have been stirred by the other side of the argument, because something that I feared has definitely now come about: the people arguing against the Bill are really trying to bring back proportional representation, as a much wider piece of argument, into the whole of our public life and our electoral system—
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I did not argue in my speech for bringing proportional representation forward at all.
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
I thank the noble Baroness for that and accept what she says. I am thinking more widely of the debate—
Lord Kerslake (CB)
Does the noble Lord agree that I also made no argument to extend proportional representation? My specific concern was about this change and it being made without consultation.
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
I listened closely to the noble Lord’s speech, and it is perfectly true that he made a very long and important argument about the specifics, but he also expressed a general preference for proportional representation.
I wish to make a very simple point, which I think came across very well in what the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said. He described how, even under the strict chairmanship of Lord Jenkins, it took 12 months of what he called “immense complication” to look at these issues. That is precisely the problem with all this. It is dangerous to confess to ignorance in this very learned and expert House, but despite covering politics in various ways for 40 years, I have never been able fully to understand or explain all the different voting systems that clever people keep coming up with, and that is an argument against them. If somebody who is paid a salary to try to understand these things still finds them complicated, there is something wrong with them. All right, I am stupid, but I make the point that it is very important for the buy-in of a democracy that people can understand what is being said, what is being offered and how to perform the operation they are invited to perform. They can do so under first past the post, but under proportional representation they cannot, broadly speaking. Therefore, I oppose these amendments and support the Bill.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I used to be a full supporter of first past the post, very much in the spirit of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, in relation to accountability. However, over recent years I have started to see a problem that I wanted to raise—I am not just doing this as counselling. Because of the whole of Clause 11, we have been invited, in a way, by the Government to discuss electoral systems, and that is one of the problems with the way it has emerged. I would not be discussing it if they had not brought it in, but now that everyone else is discussing it, I will join in.
I was minded to support Amendment 136 until I realised that it was an amendment that would overturn a referendum, which struck me as not a good idea and not likely to fit in with my general position on these things. It is perhaps ironic to those people in this Committee arguing for proportional representation that I was elected using that method in the European elections and came top of the list. I do not know if people think that was a fully democratic system, because a lot of people did not think that I should have been there at all, or elected in that way, when I stood only for very particular reasons, as we know.
These are the problems with first past the post in 2022 that I cannot get my head around. Through this Bill, we want to reassure voters that elections are watertight in terms of fairness and that they represent what they want as voters. In a number of debates, we have discussed our worries about different clauses that might be seen to be disenfranchising voters—sometimes I think these are overwrought worries, but they are worries none the less. It seems to me, however, that first past the post, in lots of ways, makes many people’s votes redundant and represents a frustration with what is happening politically.
I remember that before the 2016 referendum I was invited to a think tank gathering at which most of the people were supporters of remaining in the European Union. They assumed that I was as well, because that is what nice think-tankers did. They said that one problem they had was that the referendum would not be taken seriously if they did not get a big turnout, so what could they do to get a big turnout? The consensus in the room was that it must be emphasised that a vote in the 2016 referendum was a once-in-a-lifetime vote where, for once, every single person’s vote would count. They went out and argued that very successfully and the nation said, “My goodness, for once my vote really will count.” As a consequence, people took it seriously that they were being asked to make a big constitutional decision and that this was one election where every individual vote meant something. In the build-up to the referendum, it led to grass-roots discussion groups being set up around the country, family conferences and people getting together with their research. People took the whole thing extremely seriously and there was an atmosphere of vibrancy and buzz, with people saying, “What should we do?” as they assessed the pros and cons. People rose to the challenge that their vote counted, an idea which I think really resonated.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I rise to speak on behalf of my noble friend Lord Shipley, who has Amendment 144C in his name, but he is in Grand Committee and unfortunately cannot be here to speak to it. In so doing, I declare my interest as laid down in the register, both as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as a trustee of Make Votes Count.
The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Shipley would implement PR in local government—not a system for proportional against the whole district, but a system for each ward based on the one-two-three model. This keeps the ward as the basis of the representative district but makes sure that the system is more representative of the majority views of the electorate.
That would avoid councils being heavily dominated by one party that secures less than 50% of the poll, in the vast majority of seats. At least each councillor would have the support of 50% plus one after the transfers at second preference. If I apply that to my own city of Sheffield, 29 seats were up for election in 2021 but in only seven of them did someone get more than 50% of the vote in the ward. The figure for the candidate who got elected with the smallest percentage of votes was 31.7%. That happened to be a Liberal Democrat, so this is not a political issue; as a matter of principle, I do not think a system is fair when 29 seats are up for election but only seven of them are elected on the basis of the majority of people who decide to go out and vote. So I support the amendment in my noble friend’s name.
I turn to the wider argument about how Clause 11 came about. Having listened to the last hour and a half, I say to those noble Lords who are not normally invited to Liberal Democrat ward meetings that it has sounded a bit like a Liberal Democrat ward meeting. Some people in this Chamber who are not Liberal Democrats seem far more technical and geeky than some Liberal Democrats on voting systems. I have heard many arguments about why we are talking about voting systems. Let me be clear: we would not be talking about voting systems at all if the Government had not tried to push through this clause as they did in the House of Commons.
It is quite insulting for an elector back in South Yorkshire, who has voted for a metro mayor, who was asked whether we wanted one and then told what the voting system would be—or at least we were asked about how we wanted a mayor and a voting system—to be told now that that voting system is somehow too complicated for us or not relevant to our local area. This has been pushed through without any consultation at all with the areas that have metro mayors. We have had no say back in our regions about whether we want this change. That is not the way to bring about change. It is for that reason more than anything else that I do not think Clause 11 should stand part.
I turn to some of the other arguments. I have to point out very gently to some noble Lords that this is not 2011; we are now in 2021.
Lord Scriven (LD)
Sorry, 2022. It feels as if this debate started last year.
The YouGov tracker looks at a number of issues. One issue that it has been tracking for 10 years is people’s perceptions of voting and voting systems. The question it asks is:
“Some people support a change in the British voting system to proportional representation, where the number of MPs a party wins more closely reflects the share of the vote they receive. Other people support retaining our present voting system, First Past the Post, which is more likely to give one party an overall majority in the House of Commons and avoid a hung Parliament. Which voting system would you prefer?”
In March 2022, the latest figure—and this has been a trend for over 10 years—the vast majority of people who give a preference support PR, with 44% in favour of PR and 27% in favour of first past the post. Among Liberal Democrat voters, 62% support a PR system while 21% are in favour of first past the post. The party with the highest number of people who support first past the post is the Labour Party; 64% support PR and 13% support first past the post. I accept that among Conservative voters there is a small majority for first past the post.
We should look at the Red Wall seats. This is really important because a lot of people really feel that their vote does not count, that they do not have a voice and that in some constituencies there are MPs for life. In certain parts where I come from, people say, “No matter who you put up, if they wear a certain colour of rosette then they will get elected.” This is not a middle-class or a southern debate; in the north, 43% support PR and 28% do not.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
Could the noble Lord remind us of his sample size? Mine was 19.2 million.
Lord Scriven (LD)
That was 11 years ago. I am trying to point out to the noble Lord that people’s views change. I am not prepared to accept that 2011 is still how the public feel.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
Could the noble Lord answer the second question, which was: what type of PR was wanted? That is the problem. It is not just about saying “We like PR.” There is a huge gamut of options. Unless you are clear about what is actually being offered to people, you will get that answer but then, when they have to make a choice, first past the post comes back to the front.
Lord Scriven (LD)
I support Amendment 140, which is about setting up a citizens’ assembly to go through this question so that citizens can come to a view about the best voting system that they would wish to see if we moved to a PR system. I would therefore like to leave it to a citizens’ assembly rather than dictating it. I have my own personal preference, which is STV, but I do not think it should be about my personal preference; I think it should be down to a citizens’ assembly.
I do not think the British public are stuck back in 2011. I think we have moved forward and people feel that PR is the future. That goes across all parties and social demographics—apart from the Conservative Party voters who support first past the post—and all regions of the UK.
The way that Clause 11, regarding mayors and police and crime commissioners, was introduced by the Government in the other place, and the very fact that those people who were offered a mayor on a system of voting that was not first past the post have not been asked, is not levelling up; it is pushing us down and completely ignoring the voice of the people back in those regions who now have a metro mayor.
Lord Kilclooney (CB)
My Lords, back in the middle of the last century when I was Minister of State for Home Affairs in the old parliament in Northern Ireland, I had the task of reforming the local government system in Northern Ireland, which was then first past the post. This meant that in the west all the councillors were Irish nationalists and in the east all the councillors were Ulster unionists. Against some opposition from my own party, I introduced a Bill that included STV for local government. This resulted in the unionists in the west, who are the 40% minority, having representation for the first time, and they have it still today. Likewise, the Irish nationalists gained seats in the east that they would not have had under first past the post. So there was fair representation of Catholics and Irish nationalists in the eastern part of Northern Ireland and fair representation of unionists and protestants in the western part.
When it comes to UK elections, of course we still have first past the post because that is the UK law. What does that result in? It results in Sinn Féin/IRA winning many seats where they get less than 50% of the votes cast in their constituencies, and the result of that election is that they boycott the House of Commons. If we had STV or some other kind of proportional representation system in UK elections in Northern Ireland, I think we would have very few Sinn Féin MPs in the House of Commons.
Lord Framlingham (Con)
My Lords, I want to make one very simple point related to what we are talking about. I agree entirely with the words of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and my noble friend Lady Noakes. I really believe that first past the post has stood the test of time. I think that all the other ideas are more complex and more difficult, and that if the general public were asked and thought it through again, they would still vote for first past the post. What worries me is this. If it is true that most people out there still want first past the post, but the general feeling in here is that they should not have it, we ought to think very carefully about what that says about your Lordships’ House.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
I should confess to having been a supporter of electoral reform for many years—since the 1970s, when I was working for the Labour Government. The reason I became a supporter of electoral reform was that I felt our society was becoming very dysfunctional, our way of government was very dysfunction, and the Labour party was essentially two parties forced together into one and was not really working in the best interests of the country.
The essay question I would love to debate with the noble Lord, Lord Moore, and that has to be addressed, is this: in the post-war period, particularly given the troubles we have been through in the last 10 years, has Britain had a more satisfactory system of governance than Germany? Germany has been so successful, with its proportional representation and federal system—a system, incidentally, in which British advisers and British politicians played a very important part in ensuring in the democratic part of Germany after 1945. For me, that is the big essay question. I know what I think about it, but it would be worthy of debate.
However, we are not debating that general question this evening; we are debating the specifics of whether the supplementary vote system should be changed. I have been sitting for an hour and 43 minutes through this debate, and I should think that less than a third of it has addressed that specific point, and so I do not want to detain the Committee for long. I accept all the arguments that have been made about the undesirability of this proposal emerging at a very late stage in this Bill. I do not think changes in electoral systems should be introduced in an arbitrary way, or as my noble friend Lord Lipsey said, as Tony Crosland would have said, in a frivolous way; they ought to be seriously considered.
It is possible to have different electoral systems for different purposes; we do not have to have the same electoral system for everything. We now have a great variety of electoral systems. I am quite interested to know why the noble Lord, Lord True, thinks it is desirable to go back to first past the post for the Mayor of London elections but to retain the proportionally elected London Assembly. It seems to me that if, as a result of that action, the mayor’s political base is significantly lower than it is under the present system, then there is the possibility of real dysfunctional government when agreeing budgets and other questions where the London Assembly has a say. That is a very serious point.
I think that devolution has been a success, certainly in Scotland and Wales. I even think that what the noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, said about Northern Ireland was very interesting. The success of devolution has depended on a proportional system, and on the additional member system in Scotland and Wales. Look at how support for devolution has grown, particularly in Wales, since it came about in the late 1990s. It would be difficult for the Government—even this Government—to try to abolish Welsh and Scottish devolution. One of the reasons it has such strong support is because it is seen to be very representative across the community. There is an understanding between Plaid Cymru and the Labour Party in Wales. Similarly, despite disliking the thought of an SNP Government, they do show that a proportional system enables change to happen. Labour showed great foresight in devolution, in agreeing to a proportional system. For that purpose, it has been very successful.
On the question of the supplementary vote, particularly for mayors, one of the arguments—as I remember it from when I was in No. 10—for introducing this arrangement was that we wanted to encourage the possibility of diverse and independent candidates coming forward who might challenge the established parties. That is quite a good argument.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My noble friend did not say that at the time.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
It was said in the councils of which I was part that it would be a good idea to shake up conventional politics at the local level. That was the argument.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
I do not normally draw attention to this but my noble friend and I were both working in No. 10 at the same time. I would say two things: first, if that was ever discussed, I never heard it; and, secondly, if I had heard it, I would have been ferociously opposed to it.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
I have no doubt about that; that is why we would not have mentioned it to my noble friend. I am trying to make the point that there is an argument for something that opens up politics a bit more.
In the case of mayors, it is not like voting for an MP, where you are basically voting for who you want to be Prime Minister or which political party you support. It is very much about who you want to govern your local area, and they should have the widest possible base of support.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure always to follow my noble friend Lord Liddle, even though I would not agree with an awful lot of what he said; it is a great pleasure to follow him, nevertheless.
I absolutely think that there is no case at the moment for changing the electoral system for police commissioners. We have no directly elected mayors in Wales but we have police commissioners. There is a very strong case for trying to increase the turnout and the interest in elections for police commissioners. I am reminded of the fact that, in the very first election for police commissioners in Gwent, my own county, there was one notorious ward in the city of Newport where not a single person turned up to vote—no one at all. We are deluded if we think that changing the electoral system will improve interest. We look forward with great interest to the Minister telling us why we need to change the system.
I refer now to Amendment 136, and the very interesting debate we have had on first past the post versus proportional representation. This is not a wide debate—it would take days, weeks and months to do that—but rather one on the nature of the amendment we have been asked to consider. The amendment says that the House of Commons should be elected by PR, full stop. My noble friend Lord Grocott, in a fine speech, referred to the fact that these things cannot be changed unless there is a referendum on them. It is a rather unusual argument to suggest that because we had one in 2011 it is no longer relevant. Of course it is relevant, in the sense that we should have another referendum if that is required and should not change things unless the people are asked.
In my political lifetime, I have fought 11 elections. I served as an elected representative for 49 years, 28 of them in the other place. The great advantage of our system is that there is a marvellous link between the elected representative and the people whom he or she represents. It is unique. I was always referred to as “my MP” or “our MP” in the possessive case because they thought that. The contrast, for example, with the change that took place when we altered our electoral system for the European Parliament was immense.
Of course, the constituencies for Europe were very large—grotesquely large in some senses—but I bet your bottom dollar that people knew who their Member of the European Parliament was. I bet your bottom dollar, too, that they did not when the new system came in. I did not know who mine was, and I was an MP for the area towards the end of that system. We completely lost that link between the elected representatives and the people whom they represented. That is the greatest aspect of our system, which we must not do away with.
Of course, we have different systems in different parts of the United Kingdom. I was partly instrumental in bringing about the system in Northern Ireland. The noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, was right. He was very advanced and forward-looking when he made that change all those years ago. The only way that the partisanship in Northern Ireland could be destroyed was to have that system changed. It is very different there from the rest of the United Kingdom. It is not the same as Wales or Scotland or England because, by voting the way they do in Northern Ireland, they express a very different view from that expressed by the rest of the United Kingdom. That was a very significant change indeed. The Assembly is elected by STV; local government is elected by STV, but, of course, the MPs in the United Kingdom Parliament are elected by first past the post.
Scotland and Wales are different. They have top- up systems, known as AMSs. They are entirely incomprehensible to the voter. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moore, that if the voter cannot understand what they are voting for, it is a very poor system. Indeed, in Wales, a commission has been set up to investigate changing to a different system, although I do not think they will change completely to first past the post. There is some merit in having different systems in different parts of the country—in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland for their own assemblies—but they have to be comprehensible to the voters who use them. At the moment, that is not the case.
The biggest flaw, of course, in this amendment is that it does not seek proper legitimacy for the change. It is not just the 2011 referendum, but in every case—in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland—referendums were held for the new systems of government, and that included the way those Governments and Assemblies were elected in every single case. In Wales, of course, when they wanted extra powers some years ago, they went for another referendum to get that legitimacy which lies behind every change. So, for me, the great weakness of this amendment is not just that I do not agree with PR, but rather my belief that the way in which the change would be introduced has to be done by asking the people. If you ask the people, you must also say to them: “Do you understand what it is you are voting for?”
Lord Hacking (Lab)
My Lords, as a very new Member of the House, I had not intended to take part in Committee on this important Bill. However, I need to do so to make a confession. Under the hereditary by-elections, in which I participated quite recently, the process is one entirely of proportional representation. That will open up my noble friend Lord Grocott to argue that this is a further reason why the hereditary Peers’ elections should not take place. He might add that it is a further reason why we should not be here at all.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I want to make a brief contribution on Amendment 144C in the name of my noble friend Lord Shipley, relating to proportional representation in local government. My noble friend Lord Scriven, the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, and others have spoken on it as well. I want to pick up one remark made by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, that the problem with, for instance, the European elections and the nature of the voting system for them was that those elected were too distant from the electors. I will make a couple of points relating to local government, which I think might be relevant.
Last May, in the local elections, 3.2 million people voted Conservative but still found themselves in a local authority that had no Conservative councillors at all; 40,000 of those were in Manchester, the neighbouring authority to my authority of Stockport. Those 40,000 people voted Conservative, but they did not get one Conservative councillor elected in Manchester. In fact, there has not been a Conservative elected to Manchester City Council since 1992. There are actually a large number of local authorities where one or the other of the two big parties does not have any representatives at all in that area.
The Conservatives have no councillors elected in Newcastle, Norwich, Newham, Oxford or Cambridge. There is a list, but I will not go on any further than that. Conversely, of course, there are plenty of Labour voters who are not represented at all by a councillor in the authority in which they reside: 5.8 million Labour votes were cast for candidates in local authorities where no Labour councillor at all was elected. When it comes to being distant from the electors, we need to bear in mind the very polarising effect of first past the post in quite a number of our local authorities.
One place where Labour has no councillors is the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in London. Labour had 36% of the national share of the vote at the last round of elections but no Labour councillor was elected. That was a Liberal Democrat stronghold, but in Harrogate, 23.4% of people voted for Labour candidates, but none was elected. That is a Conservative stronghold.
It is not just whether people have representation at all in a local authority; it is whether they have appropriate representation, depending on the strength of the electorate who supported them. I picked out just one local authority—not completely at random—the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, where in 2018, 78,491 votes were cast for Conservative candidates, and that resulted in the election of 11 councillors. In fact, they lost 28 seats as a result of that. They should, in fact, have had 20 seats, had there been a more proportional system.
I will not detain the Committee any further on that but point out simply that this amendment would introduce a change to local government in England which would be very much to the benefit of local democracy and the fair representation of people. It would give people a voice or a channel of communication, at least, for their point of view in practically every town hall in the country.
On the much wider debate that has opened up, I say simply to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that in 2010, when he stood for election on the Labour manifesto, he stood on a commitment to introduce the alternative vote. Indeed, I remember, as one of those who took part in the negotiations with the other parties in the start-up of the coalition Government, having a discussion with senior members of his party about that proposition.
Lord Grocott (Lab)
If I heard aright, the noble Lord said that I stood in the election of 2010, but I am afraid that I was in the House of Lords by that stage.
Lord Stunell (LD)
How very wise the noble Lord was to miss that particular commitment, is all I can say. A number of his colleagues were blessed by that promise.
To return to the substance of Clause 11 and the amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord True, I remind the Committee that the Law Commission said that there should be a comprehensive overhaul of election legislation brought forward in a proper Bill. The Committee on Standards in Public Life produced 47 recommendations for change. Both those ideas have been rejected by the Government on the grounds that there has not been enough time, it needs more consideration and there would have to be wide consultation before they could be brought in. Finding that this proposition has been dumped into the Bill is inconsistent with that view against having a comprehensive reform of electoral law, along the basis that independent sources strongly recommend.
I was impressed by what the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, said about the views of the Mayor of Greater Manchester and his reasoning. That struck me, as someone who lives in the area over which the mayor casts his eye, more powerfully than it probably did other noble Lords. There is no element of self-interest in what the Mayor of Greater Manchester said. It grieves me to say that in the May mayoral election, Andy Burnham, the mayor, won a plurality of votes in every ward in every borough in Greater Manchester, including all those which at the same time returned Tory, Liberal Democrat and, in one or two cases, independent councillors. There was a clear view from the electorate that they wanted this personality as the Mayor of Greater Manchester. Whether we like to believe it or not, it clearly transcended people’s normal political convictions to say, “In this case, I am voting for this person.” That characteristic of the mayoral election frankly surprised me, because I am not a supporter of mayoral systems, but I must admit there was a powerful advert for it in that election.
There is also a powerful advert there for the retention of a first and second choice. It was not called into play in Greater Manchester so we do not know what the figures would have been, but we know the result in those places where it has been called into play, and people have quite easily adopted the idea that they have a preferred candidate but, if it cannot be that one, there is another who would do as their second best. That development of an overall mandate is a powerful benefit of the present system, whatever its authorship might be. It might well be the first time that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and I have been on the same side of any discussion.
I strongly support the view that we should delete Clause 11 and retain the current system of electing our mayors in the big cities.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, it has been a lengthy debate. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that I have not presented any amendment. I am presenting to your Lordships’ House a Bill which has been passed by the elected House, and your Lordships are expressing opinions on it. It is certainly not the Government who have sought to Christmas-tree the Bill with a generalised debate on proportional representation. The actors in that are elsewhere than at the Dispatch Box.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the amendment which was introduced in the Commons and is now Clause 11 was a Christmas-tree addition to the Bill by the Government.
Lord True (Con)
I will come to that, my Lords. If the Committee will be indulgent, I think it has heard quite a lot of debate on this subject and I will try to come to the point. As I see it, this very lengthy debate boiled down to two things. First, do we like first past the post? Regrettably, a lot of your Lordships who spoke do not seem to like it, although, like the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, having fought a few elections myself, it seems pretty simple and clear for electors to stick a cross on a piece of paper and get a result. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, was not impressed by that, but the simplicity and clarity of first past the post has a lot to say for it. The second issue in the debate was: should we do this now, in this Bill and in these particular elections? I shall seek to address both of them.
It is irresistible to contemplate the thought of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, poring over his opinion polls about how popular PR is. I remind him that, before the referendum in 2011—you can look it up on Wikipedia if you like—the opinion polls said how rapturously enthusiastic the majority of the British public were about PR. When the actual argument came along and it was put, they voted for first past the post by—I cannot remember the figure, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said it was 68%. I would not advise the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, to put too much faith in his opinion polls, although it is a characteristic of that party.
Lord Scriven (LD)
I just make one point of clarification. It is not an opinion poll but a tracker of opinion over time. If the public should be asked about changing the system, will the Government ask the people in the areas with police and crime commissioners and metro mayors to have a referendum to see whether we want to change the system that we already have?
Lord True
My Lords, whether it is a poll or a tracker, the noble Lord is welcome to look at it. I will persist with my remarks, which will address the point he just made.
Another argument put by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was that new parties could not arise. A very great new party arose under the present system: it is called the Labour Party. It supplanted the other party, and it did so because it was popular. As we will see on a later group, one problem is that the parties that want to make the change are those that are not popular, or generally less popular.
That is what the debate was about. I listened with great respect and persistence to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake —he spoke for nearly 20 minutes. It could have boiled down to one sentence: he did not like first past the post and he wanted your Lordships to stop this proposition. I will now try to address both those points.
Lord Kerslake (CB)
If you make a comment about what somebody said, you need them to be able to come back and say you have got it wrong. The precise point I was making in my speech was not that I favoured PR—although I happen to—but that, irrespective of whether you support PR, the way the Government are doing this and what they are doing is wrong. That is exactly the argument I am making. It is really important not to distort what people are saying in their speeches.
Lord True (Con)
One might have thought, listening to the noble Lord, that he was talking about his liking for PR, but I will read very carefully what he said in those 17 minutes.
There is one specific amendment that I should like to address, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, spoke on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Mann. Although he is not in his place, a specific question was asked on Amendment 144D. That amendment would allow returning officers to establish polling stations for five days ahead of the day of a poll. Although advance in-person voting is not available in the UK, voters are already able to cast their vote in advance of the poll by post. The amendment would pose significant logistical challenges for returning officers, including the need to prevent double voting, and could create an inconsistency across the country as to when and where people were able to vote in person, so I would not be able to accept that amendment in this group.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
The noble Lord is characterising my vote. It was against the alternative vote system and not for first past the post. We voted on an alternative vote system. That is not what the Minister is suggesting the vote was on.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I do not know whether the noble Lord has been here all through the debate, but I maintain the position that the Electoral Commission has reported. I have given the facts to the Committee on the problems that arose under the supplementary vote system.
Lord Kerslake (CB)
My Lords, with respect, the Minister partially reported what the Electoral Commission said. It pointed to the fact that the level of rejections in the 2016 election was 1.9%. It said the single biggest issue in the 2021 election was the design of the form. Those are critical factors in forming a judgment about the voting system.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord says let us have a look at 2016. The noble Lord also said not to pay any attention to the 2017 Conservative Party manifesto which is explicit on this point before the Committee. He wants to go back to 2016 for one thing and not back to 2017 for another. I think the noble Lord is rather picking and choosing his arguments. I wish to make progress—
Lord Liddle (Lab)
The Minister made an important point in his argument about the 2011 referendum. That was on first past the post for Westminster elections. Is the Government’s contention that they want to see first past the post for all elections in the UK, including the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments and the London Assembly? If that is so, why have they not introduced that in this Bill? Why pick on this particular electoral choice?
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I am speaking to what is before the Committee at the moment. As far as the Scottish and Welsh elections are concerned, the noble Lord knows very well that there is devolution, which this Government respect.
I will respond to what the noble Lord said about the London Assembly. It involves rather more complex issues in terms of the Assembly’s potential make-up. We will be considering further how these principles could be applied to the London Assembly and perhaps promoting the use of first past the post, but we are open to representations on how that could be implemented. For the moment, the proposition is on these specific elections, against the background I have described: the Government committed to first past the post, the Elections Bill and the evidence of problems in 2021.
I turn to the broader amendments—which I must because they are before the Committee—from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. It is always the less popular parties which clamour for PR. They want to introduce a new clause abolishing the use of first past the post at parliamentary general elections held more than six months after the passage of the Bill. For the reasons I have already discussed, we cannot accept that. First past the post ensures a clear link between elected representatives and constituents in a manner that other voting systems do not. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, was compelling on that point.
The new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is not clear even on what sort of electoral system he wants to introduce—that is the most bizarre thing about the amendment that he is asking your Lordships to agree with. He wants to get rid of the present system within two years, but he does not say what would happen if an election came along before that or in the period where there was uncertainty because a new system would require further primary legislation to enact it. There is a real risk, if we went down the road proposed by the noble Lord, that we might not have an established legal method as to how Members of the other place were elected. To be confronted with this question mark of an amendment when the Government are charged with being frivolous—I think the proponents of this amendment are frivolous. All we know from the noble Lord’s amendment is that he wants a system that would have had, over the past five parliamentary general elections, a mean average Gallagher proportionality index of less than 10—that will get them jumping around in the pubs in Saltaire and Moulsecoomb, I am sure.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
I am sure that the Minister knows that this is copied from the SNP amendment in the Commons. One may talk about umpteen different proportional systems—and no electoral system is perfect, of course—but there is a choice to be made, putting it simply, between the Irish and the Scottish and Welsh systems. I prefer the Irish, but I think it would be appropriate to have some consultation among parties before a decision was finally taken. The point that a number of us have been making throughout the Bill is that, on constitutional matters such as this, it would be appropriate to aim for some consensus among the parties, rather than have each party—as in our aggressive two-party system—changing the rules to favour itself.
Lord True (Con)
The noble Lord has completely failed to answer the core question. He has thought about this amendment and tabled it, it is here on the list and in it he says:
“The simple majority system must not be used for any Parliamentary general election after the end of the period of six months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed.”
Who knows when the end of the Session will be, but let us say that this Act is fortunate enough to get on to the statute book, that means that for any election in 2023 or 2024, we would not be allowed to use first past the post—if your Lordships agreed to the amendment that the Liberal Democrats have put before the Committee, supported by the Green group—but would have to flounder around to find some other system, which the noble Lord will not specify, which would have a mean average Gallagher proportionality index of less than 10.
I am accused—the Government are accused—of coming to this Dispatch Box arguing for first past the post, which people understand, while the people on the other side come forward with a kind of canard of nonsense, such as in the noble Lord’s amendment. We are also asked for citizens’ assemblies, but I can only repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott said, with much greater eloquence than mine, that we did have a big citizens’ assembly of nearly 20 million people who decided this in 2011.
I am not convinced by the arguments that I have heard on proportional representation; I do not believe that this is the appropriate Bill in which to try to change our system from first past the post within six months, as is proposed. But, returning to the core of the question, I do believe that it is reasonable to have a simpler system than the system that proved so confusing and led to so many wasted votes in the London elections and that we should go for first past the post, as the Government have maintained very clearly. I ask the House to reject the amendments that have been tabled.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I do not want to get into any discussion at all about what sort of electoral system is best because, to me, that is not what this clause is about. It is about changing the system without any consultation at all. Much of this Bill has had no consultation or pre-legislative scrutiny. Our concern—my big concern—is that lack of consultation, working with local people about the proposals. With the changes to the mayoral system and the PCCs, but the mayoral system in particular, it is extremely disappointing that the Government decided to bring these in—very, very late and after they had been told originally that it was out of scope. That, to me, is the big problem with Clause 11. I am disappointed that the Minister did not address my concerns around the fact that it was disrespectful to the House and that an Elections Bill should have more consideration.
Lord True (Con)
I am sorry that the noble Baroness—for whom I have the greatest possible respect, as she knows—feels that way. The House of Commons did not seem to regard it as disrespectful. I have submitted that there is nothing novel or unusual about first past the post. It is not one of the kinds of systems that is suggested. The Government have made it clear to the electorate that they wish to maintain and support first past the post. We have an Elections Bill, we have the evidence of the difficulties caused in the London mayoral elections, and I think it is reasonable for the Government to seek to address that. Others may have different opinions, but I think Parliament would be remiss in not considering whether there is a better system than that which led to hundreds of thousands of wasted votes in the London elections last spring.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I have the greatest respect for the Minister but—with the greatest respect—that really did not address the issue. However, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
“Voting from age 16 in parliamentary elections
(1) The Representation of the People Act 1983 is amended as follows.(2) In section 1(1)(d) (definition of voting age for parliamentary elections), for “18” substitute “16”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would lower the voting age to 16 in UK parliamentary elections.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, Amendments 137 and 138 are grouped with Amendment 143 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, who will undoubtedly want to speak to that amendment.
We have just had a long debate on voting systems because the Bill contains a clause that intends to change part of our voting system. The Bill also has a number of clauses that add somewhere between 1 million and 4 million extra voters to the electorate by extending the overseas electorate. I declare an interest as I have two sisters who have lived abroad for 50 years who would now be able to vote in British elections, not to mention a niece born in Britain, so I am conscious of the problems with that.
That means that the discussion as to whether or not the electorate might also be extended to include those between the ages of 16 and 18 is within scope of the Bill. As I mentioned in my earlier speech, it would have been appropriate for that to have been considered together with the question of whether to extend the electorate by increasing the opportunities for overseas voters to register. I do not intend to rehearse all the arguments for voting at 16. I say merely that I was converted to this by going round schools and learning about, first, the lack of citizenship education; secondly, the lack of engagement by young people in politics; and, thirdly, our failure to get young people to register.
The proportion of people aged 18 to 25 on the register is, in some areas, as low as 40%. That is an extremely poor failure within our electoral system. It is also very bad for our politics that we have an increasingly elderly electorate, which votes. Parties recognise this and therefore produce policies that appeal to older voters. Young people do not vote, which therefore means that the parties tend not to produce policies that they think are particularly important for younger voters. Again, I declare an interest, as I have twice led the manifesto process for my own party and I can remember, in 1996-97, people saying, “William, that’s not terribly important; we have to produce policies that appeal to people in their 40s, 50s and 60s, not those in their 20s and 30s, because those are the people who really care about this.”
The two amendments on which I am speaking are for parliamentary and local elections. I raise these as probing amendments. I suggest that the Government ought at least to be open to the idea of opening voting in local elections to young people aged 16, because it would involve them in discussing local democracy. It would therefore help to educate them about local democracy and that is very important for the future of our country.
I will make just one further remark. The last debate was remarkably English, with the exception of the contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Kilclooney. We have had proportional representation in the United Kingdom in two different forms in Northern Ireland and in Scotland and Wales. I am now talking about the problem of young people throughout the United Kingdom. I hope the Minister will at least address the problem of how we engage young people in politics. How do we get citizenship education back into our schools? How do we make sure the young do not switch off from politics, as there is substantial evidence that they have? I beg to move.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I support Amendments 137 and 138, to which I have added my name, and oppose Amendment 143. Last November, the eminent professor of politics at Cambridge University, David Runciman, published an extended article arguing that children should be allowed to vote from the age of six. He cited a new book by John Wall which makes the case for no lower age limit on voting rights in the name of true democracy, and which addresses objections such as those based on competency. Wall suggests that parents and guardians should be able to cast proxy votes until such time as a child feels ready to vote on their own behalf. Runciman argued that
“if societies want to be truly democratic, they need to overcome their engrained biases and embrace the whole human community”.
I cite these examples not to make that argument but to show how modest and unradical the growing call for votes at 16 is. It is a step already taken by our sister Parliaments in Holyrood and Cardiff. Nevertheless, I acknowledge there is not a consensus in favour, as was clear from the evidence presented to the Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement, of which I was a member and which was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts.
Indeed, children and young people themselves are not unanimously in support, as I discovered in research I undertook into young people’s transitions to citizenship some years ago. The main reason given against the idea in that research and elsewhere was that the young people did not feel they had sufficient knowledge and understanding of politics to vote wisely. To my mind, the very fact they think that indicates a greater thoughtfulness about voting than some adults show.
That underlines the importance, as has already been mentioned, of citizenship education. As we said in our Select Committee report,
“Citizenship education is a crucial piece of the puzzle for thinking about the age at which people can vote.”
We noted that
“The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that if the UK should choose to lower its voting age it should ensure it is supported by ‘active citizenship and human rights education’.”
Unfortunately, the committee found the state of citizenship education to be pretty woeful, and I do not have reason to believe that it has improved much, if at all. But that is not a reason for not extending the vote to 16 year-olds; rather, it is an argument for giving much higher priority to decent citizenship education, as recommended by the committee.
There are instrumental arguments in favour of extending the franchise to 16. With decent citizenship education, 16 and 17-year-olds could be much better prepared for voting than older voters. They could be more likely to vote and then to keep voting as they get older. If they had the vote and used it, politicians might pay more attention to their needs and concerns, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, has argued.
For me, the overwhelming argument is that so many in this age group are already acting as citizens and have been taking the lead on crucial issues such as the climate emergency. In the study I carried out, those who wanted a reduction in the voting age felt that without it they were not being listened to or respected, and that the vote would help them feel that they belonged and that they had a say as full and proper citizens
In the same vein, the Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement heard from the young people we met that the lack of the vote was “a sore point”. Even if votes at 16 are not young people’s top priority, they pointed out to us that
“the Make Your Mark campaign coordinated by the UK Youth Parliament included … votes at 16 one of their core campaigns”,
voted for by over 950,000 young people. What better way to recognise these young people as full citizens than to extend the vote to them?
It is because of the implications for citizenship that I oppose Amendment 143, as tying the vote to employment and income tax status would create two classes of citizenship. In doing so, it would be divisive and exclusionary, which is the very opposite of what citizenship should be about and what we want to achieve by extending the franchise. From a practical point of view, it would be subject to annual decisions about the level of the tax threshold so young people on low incomes could find their right to vote fluctuating like a yo-yo, which is not conducive to them turning out to vote.
In the Commons, two Oral Questions on votes at 16 were met with a one-word answer: “No.” I have no doubt these amendments will be rejected also, but I hope not in similar peremptory fashion. I hope that the Minister will first give serious consideration to the case made, which is gaining more and more support.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I follow the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, with pleasure. I will speak to Amendments 137 and 138, to which I have attached my name. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Lister—I am sorry we have not heard from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and are yet to hear his case—I oppose Amendment 143 on the basis that it assumes that contribution to society can somehow be measured by income. In fact, we know that many of the people who contribute most to our society, whether they be carers—there are many young carers in our society—or people involved in the community, are huge parts of their community without receiving any income for that.
I will speak chiefly to Amendments 137 and 138. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, in introducing this, reflected on the previous group being very English in its debate. That is particularly relevant to this group, as Scotland and Wales have votes at 16—the former having had it since 2015—with full cross-party support, including enthusiastic support from the former Scottish Tory leader and now Member of your Lordships’ House, the noble Baroness, Lady Davidson. It is a pity she is not with us today; I hope she might join us to share her thoughts on this on Report because that would be interesting and informative.
The success of the policy north of the English border has been very obvious, with very high turnout among 16 and 17 year-olds—a higher turnout than for 18 to 24 year-olds, with 75% voting and 97% saying they would vote in future elections. It is also worth noting that research shows they got their information from a wider range of sources than voters of older age groups. There is very strong evidence that people who vote in their first possible election are far more likely to keep voting. We have lost generations of people who have not voted in their first election. If we have votes at 16 and 17, we can see from the Scottish example that people are more likely to vote and keep voting.
I often speak to young people in formal and informal settings. I will insert a little advert here, for Members of your Lordships’ House who are not involved in it, for the Learn with the Lords programme, which is a great way to have contact with young people from a wide range of audiences.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 143, which has received such wholesome support from other Members of Your Lordships’ House. I can sum it up in four words: no taxation without representation.
I do not suggest for one moment that other contributions are not valid. The clause says nothing on that. I do not suggest anything to the wider debate; that has been well laid out. It is a clause set out in extremely simple terms on an incredibly specific point: the disfranchised 16 to 18-year-olds who currently can work and go to war cannot vote for how those taxes are spent and cannot vote for the Government who send them to war. Nothing more, nothing less than that.
I do not decry wider issues; it is simply a point on that specific group of people which is currently disfranchised. The Minister may wish to consider one possible solution: taking the 16 to 18-year-olds out of taxation completely. Amendment 143 offers an alternative solution, where they can be represented. I accept entirely the point of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, on the complexities in previous years, but what one can now do with digital tax and real-time tax data would overcome those points. It is a simple amendment for a specific group of people, and a cry which has gone through democracies for centuries: no taxation without representation.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. I would have pre-empted him, but I am so glad that I did not. With respect, some noble Lords wrongly anticipated an incredibly creative and clever probing amendment. He has made the point about no taxation without representation through Amendment 143. I would not like to see it on the statute book because I do not want to return to the link between property, earnings or wealth and the franchise, but he has made a brilliant point very succinctly and incredibly well.
I will not torture Ministers further with my views on this subject. I have tortured Ministers of both stripes with my support for votes at 16 for some years. The poor Minister was tortured a while ago by my noble friend Lord Adonis, who is not in his place. We rehearsed this, and I commend to the Committee that extensive debate that we had one Friday, three years ago or five minutes ago; I forget which. It was five minutes ago. I do not support votes at six. I accept that any age of majority is slightly arbitrary because people mature differently. We must pick an age in law.
I rather think that we should be coalescing around 16, not only for voting but for criminal responsibility. The disparity between suffrage and criminal responsibility, in addition to taxation, I find very troubling. The noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, made his point so well. Of course, taxation is not just for people who are earning and paying taxes. There are sales taxes and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, people who are doing unpaid work and keeping families and small businesses going. However, Ministers have human rights too, and I would like them to get a comfort break and some supper quite soon.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, I am afraid that I am going to strike a discordant note because I invite my noble friend to reject these amendments, and certainly Amendments 137 and 138. I follow what the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said about Amendment 143. It is an interesting idea but highly complex and probably not practical.
The Committee will recognise that I am committed to a vibrant civil society. I have spoken about it, I have moved amendments about it, and I think that it is a very important part of our democratic system, because it maximises people’s ability to participate, collectively or individually.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who is not in his place, referred to lowering the voting age in order to increase citizenship education, which seemed to be the wrong way around; citizenship education would lead to improved understanding of what voting is all about. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. That was a central theme of our cross-party review on citizenship for civic engagement. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, as a member of the Liaison Committee, for having backed the idea of a follow-up, since when we have gone sideways, if not backwards. I am pleased to be able to say to him and the noble Baroness that the revised report will be published on Monday and out in the wider world on Tuesday, to probably no effect whatever but at least we will have some benchmarks.
During the committee, we had two issues from which the chairman has scars. The first was about British values. What were they, or were there any? The second was the voting age.
I shall quote a couple of sentences from our report, because they summarise some of the issues that lie behind these two amendments and which mean that I personally do not support them. Paragraph 319 of the report states:
“However, the issue has divided our witnesses. There is no consensus on whether the age should be lowered to 16 or whether it should remain at 18. Proponents of the change listed being able to marry and become a member of the armed forces as a reason for considering that 16 year olds are sufficiently responsible to vote. However this raises questions of whether it is right for people to be trusted as responsible enough to vote whilst not being responsible enough to ‘buy a beer or cigarettes or even drive to their friends or buy a firework’”.
That was what Professor Jon Tonge, professor of politics at the University of Liverpool, said in evidence to us. He and Dr Mycock have been doing some more research on this whole area. As the noble Baroness said, there was obviously a fierce discussion about the pressure for democratic backing for the change. Professor Tonge told our committee that he thought young people were almost evenly divided, though he said that some of that data was quite old.
The noble Baroness referred to the Make Your Mark campaign, but I am not sure she gave the full picture of what we were told. To quote from paragraph 321,
“the Make Your Mark campaign coordinated by the UK Youth Parliament included the votes of over 950,000 young people”,
which the noble Baroness referred to,
“who had voted to make votes at 16 one of their core campaigns.”
However, an analysis of the votes done by our staff showed that
“it received 101,041 votes”—
only one in nine—
“and came 5th out of 10 topics. This suggests that young people care more about other topics than about votes at 16.”
Interestingly, the topic that received the most votes was “A curriculum to prepare us for life”, which in turn suggests support for a radical overhaul of the whole area of citizenship education and involvement. As Professor Tonge said:
“You would not let people go out on the road and drive a car without giving them some lessons first, yet we expect them—particularly if we lower the voting age to 16—to go out and vote without giving them any training in what our political systems are about. It seems perverse.”
To summarise, my view is that unless the case for making a fundamental change is overwhelmingly made, we should not make the change. I do not think that case has been overwhelmingly made. It certainly was not made before our committee and that is why I hope my noble friend will reject these amendments.
I shall dare to trespass on the Committee’s time for a further moment, ending with not a discordant but a sour note. In the debate on voter ID in the last meeting of the Committee, my noble friend on the Front Bench took a lot of heavy punishment about how it was being introduced to try to benefit the Conservative Party. He rejected that, rightly in my view. Would I be wrong to say that there might be some advantages for other parties in the House in young people voting and that that may be why it is being so enthusiastically supported?
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
Would the noble Lord agree that young people look at what their interests are? Maybe if the Conservative Party did more to represent the interests of young people, more of them would vote for it.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
I am not saying anything about that. I am just saying that I do not think the case has been made for the change. Where we go from there is another matter.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I take the noble Lord’s point, because there are all sorts of polls and this is in the Library briefing, but I can honestly say that I have debated this issue in the past with Labour Ministers who were not for votes at 16 at the time. I think we are getting to a stage in thinking about sophistication and education where we have to coalesce around an arbitrary age. I go back to the criminal responsibility point. The noble Lord speaks very eloquently. He argues “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and that we should not make a radical change without a great deal of consensus. He did not speak like that when he was talking about radically overhauling the refugee convention on another Bill.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, I simply venture to suggest that, at the moment, the priority should be to assist and encourage as many of our young people who are already entitled to vote at the age of 18 to get on the registers. We do not have nearly enough of them on the registers. The Government have a number of important initiatives in hand to encourage more of those aged 18 and immediately above to register to vote. My noble friend might be able tell us briefly about some of those important initiatives when he comes to reply.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I will try to be brief. The Labour Party has supported and continues to support lowering the voting age. I would just say to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that the last time we were in government and lowered the voting age, we lost the subsequent election. That was in 1970.
On civic education, in many of my contributions, I have mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and his committee’s report. It is excellent and worth rereading. He is absolutely right about the Government’s failure to respond properly to it. But citizenship education in schools and lowering the voting age are not mutually exclusive. Speaking from personal experience, I joined the Labour Party in 1970, partly because we had organised a mock election in my school. As a consequence of standing as a Labour candidate in that mock election, I went out and campaigned for Harold Wilson, even though I did not have the right to vote. I joined the Labour Party at the age of 15—noble Lords can now calculate how old I am.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
Well, there you go. I am still below the average age—just. The important point is that they are not mutually exclusive. This is about how we encourage people to participate in democracy and, as the noble Lord said, participation is not simply about voting. We want people to properly engage in civic society. That includes other groups which campaign and organise, because that is what influences our politics. Young people are certainly doing that, which is why we are very strongly in favour of this.
Of course, we have the evidence. Scotland and Wales now have a lower voting age, but they are not the only places. The Isle of Man and Jersey have it, as do Guernsey, Brazil and Austria, and it applies to some elections in Germany, Malta and Norway. There is strong evidence of how it can encourage participation and build this in, because when people start voting at a young age, they continue to vote. That is a really important point.
Picking up the point that I think the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, made, the noble Baroness, Lady Davidson of Lundin Links, changed her mind through her experience in the referendum campaign. I read an article that she wrote for the Tory Reform Group as a consequence of that experience in 2016. She said:
“Those in favour of the status quo argue that while the referendum offered a clear, unambiguous choice, parliamentary elections present a more muddied, multi-layered decision which require a more mature electorate.
But having watched and debated in front of 16 and 17-year-olds throughout the referendum, I have found myself unable to agree. My position has changed. We deem 16-year-olds adult enough to join the army, to have sex, get married, leave home and work full-time. The evidence of the referendum suggests that, clearly, they are old enough to vote too.”
I agree with her. We should do this.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I fear I cannot accept these amendments, although, having been mildly disobliging on the previous group about those against first past the post, I will open with an area of agreement. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, my noble friend Lord Lexden and the party opposite that we must do more—as much as we can—to engage young people in civic education and understanding what it is to be a future citizen. We are also having other discussions on trying, we hope, to persuade more young people to vote. There is strong agreement there.
We cannot accept these amendments because the Government, having reflected on the matter, simply do not believe that a reduction to 16 is the correct course. My noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts made a very strong speech on this. There are many difficult questions, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, about what constitutes full adulthood, which society has to wrestle with. We think, in common with most countries in the world—although not, I acknowledge, the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales—that the current position is correct.
We made that very clear to the electorate; we were not trying to hide it, because it was and is a subject of discussion between the parties. We have been criticised for our manifesto not being clear, but it was absolutely clear on this point:
“We will maintain the voting age at 18—the age at which one gains full citizenship.”
That was very explicitly stated. You may not agree with that, but it is the position. I hope the Committee will respect that. Eighteen is widely recognised in the vast majority of democratic countries as the right age at which to enfranchise young people.
There are difficulties. For example, the very radical proposal by the Liberal Democrats to legalise cannabis was not for people below 18 because they were not mature before that age. In 2010, the party opposite raised the age for using sunbeds to 18. Other examples have been given on some more fundamental and difficult questions of peace and war. With respect to the arguments I have heard, the Government believe that the settled, present position is correct, in common with most other democratic countries.
My noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond’s amendment seeks to lower the voting age to 16 and 17 year-olds by linking the franchise to taxation. I fear I must disappoint him; taxation has never been the basis of democratic representation in this country. For example, an American citizen of voting age who works and pays taxes in the United Kingdom does not have the right to vote in parliamentary elections simply by virtue of tax. However, a British citizen of voting age who pays no income tax, such as a student, rightly retains the right to vote, as do those earning less than the tax-free allowance. In council tax there is a class S exemption—I think it is called that; it was in my day—for households of 16 and 17 year-olds precisely so that they should not pay council tax. The mixing of taxation and voting rights raises difficult problems. It would also potentially disfranchise people who could, for a range of reasons, be unable to work or find work or who may be working but not earning enough to pay taxes.
With respect to those who have a different opinion, the Government have reflected on this. Engagement is important; I was very proud when I was leader of a local authority—I know many other local authorities do the same—of the UK Youth Parliament and youth engagement through schools. I have similar recollections to the noble Lord opposite. These things are important. Let us work together across parties to try to do that, but I cannot recommend that the House adopts this principle in the Bill. I forecast to the Committee that, if it were proposed, because it was a manifesto commitment by the Government to maintain the present position, it would not find favour in the other place. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, in withdrawing this amendment, I point out that, if we are saying that there is a problem—which the Minister has admitted, but has said that this is not the answer—then the question of how we manage to get more young people on the register, which we will come to on automatic voter registration, is important. The very near collapse of citizenship education in our state schools is an urgent matter, which we should all address on a cross-party basis. I look forward to the Minister returning to that. I hope he will take back to his colleagues in the Department for Education how important many of us feel this to be.
I merely remark to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that the extensive coverage in this Bill of the extension of overseas voting is there because Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Conservatives Abroad and the Conservative Party’s international office decided that this would be to the Conservatives’ advantage. Surveys in the mid-2000s suggested that 68% of those voting overseas were voting for the Conservative Party. I was suggesting earlier that a little bit of balance and cross-party agreement on how one extends the electorate might be desirable. Sadly, I do not think this Government are in the mood for that. That is one of the many things I regret about the way this Bill has been introduced and is being handled. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2022
(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Davies of Brixton
That this House regrets that the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2022, and the decision by Her Majesty’s Government to suspend the triple lock on pensions, will result in benefit increases of 3.1 per cent in April 2022, compared to the Bank of England forecast of a 7¼ per cent increase in the Consumer Price Index for that month, and that this will result in a basic state pension for a single pensioner that will be worth £296 less in real terms compared to 2021/22, and £475 less for a couple.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, this debate has been a little time coming but I make no apology for making sure it takes place. Unfortunately, I was unable to take part when the order came before Grand Committee as I was active in the Chamber at the same time. However, I was happy to adopt the Government Whips’ idea of this separate debate on the regret Motion.
In the event, this has the advantage that we now know a lot more about where we are with the increase in social security benefits that will take place in two weeks’ time. The new information is not good. Inflation in February was higher than expected, at 6.2%, and is certain to be even higher at the beginning of April when the benefit increase comes into effect. The effect is spelled out—this is why it is good to have the debate today—in today’s economic and fiscal outlook from the OBR. This states that, because of lags in the CPI uprating of welfare benefits, benefits will fall by almost 5% in real terms. To be clear, the poorest in our society are facing a 5% reduction in their income when they are already in poverty.
Further, the OBR report states that £12 billion is being taken away from poor people and that it will take up to 18 months fully to catch up with that reduction. I could speak at length about what this means for individuals in human terms, but I will simply refer the Minister to the heartfelt contributions made in the Opposition day debate in the Commons yesterday. I urge her to take the time to read that debate if she has not already done so. That is the human cost.
I want to make three additional points, to which I invite the Minister to respond. I shall not dwell too much on the Labour Party’s position on the uprating—I look forward to my noble friend’s contribution from the Front Bench.
First, does the Minister recognise that it is no consolation to people who are already in poverty and suffering a further cut in their real income to be told that it all averages out over time? We are told, in effect, that the loss of income they are facing, and from which they will suffer in the coming year, is not that important because at some point in the future—the OBR estimates it to be in 18 months’ time—they will receive an increase that will make good the shortfall. They are already in poverty, and they will have to endure 18 months of even greater poverty because of a defect in our benefits system. For people in poverty that is simply not good enough. Eighteen months is too late, as even in the subsequent better year they will remain in poverty. They have already suffered the effect of poverty on their lives and they simply lack the resources to even out their income over the years.
The question is what can be done about it. The Minister told the Grand Committee that
“It is not possible to undertake the uprating exercise any later than currently timetabled.”
But she also told the Committee that
“All benefit uprating since April 1987 has been based on the increase in the relevant price inflation index in the 12 months to the previous September.”—[Official Report, 9/3/22; col. GC 484.]
In truth, the seven-month delay goes back even longer. I recall discussing this with the relevant department back in the 1970s. I find this less than impressive. Seven months is too long when inflation can change so rapidly. Despite all the advances there have been in handling and processing data in the past 35 years, it appears that we still cannot do any better.
I quite understand the department’s resistance to making any change, but faced with the suffering caused for the poorest in our society, we must find some way to achieve a closer alignment of increases in prices and benefits. For sure the index we use could be more up to date, and I refuse to believe that this cannot be done through greater use of modern technology. The department simply needs to invest more in computerising its records. I also suggest, more radically, that where an increase falls short, an adjustment should be made during the course of the year when it becomes apparent, plus provision for back pay to cover the gap that has arisen because of the shortfall increase.
My second point is that the resources are there in the National Insurance Fund to pay higher pension increases. We have the advantage on this occasion of the welcome report by the Government Actuary that is attached to the draft order. This tells us that, for the next five fiscal years, the balance in the National Insurance Fund will increase from £53 billion at present to £76 billion in 2027. In percentage terms, that is an increase when expressed as a percentage of benefit outgo from 48% to 55%. It is worth comparing those figures with the 16.7% that the Government Actuary recommends as the minimum fund balance. It is also worth emphasising that that is without allowing for the possible Treasury grant, which is an integral part of national insurance as originally conceived. This can amount to 17% of benefit payments. It is simply untrue to say that the money is not available. It is not that the money is not there; it is that there is a political choice not to pay.
I had the benefit of a letter this morning from the Treasury Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook—the other Baroness Scott—referring to the Government Actuary’s quinquennial review, which was presented to Parliament last week. In her letter, she states:
“Increasing spending on today’s pensioners would pass the costs onto future generations of taxpayers.”
Well, I would welcome an opportunity to discuss the quinquennial review, and perhaps the Government Whips would provide the time. However, given the limited time available this evening, I say simply that the review, while commendable, tells us only part of the story. Taking the figures from the OBR, along with those from the Government Actuary, there will be the resources available in 2085 for everyone to be better off, even if national insurance contributions reach the level suggested in the Government Actuary’s report.
My final point relates to the triple lock. How much credence can we give to the Government’s repeated promises to keep to the triple lock for the basic state pension and the new state pension? On Monday in the Commons, after some confusion on the part of the Secretary of State, she said:
“I am again happy to put on record that the triple lock will be honoured in the future”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/3/22; col. 99.]
But she said the same thing back in 2020, and subsequently broke the promise. The Minister here made a similar commitment in Grand Committee. The truth is that we already know that this Government are prepared to break their promise to maintain the triple lock, which was given voluntarily in the election manifesto and subsequently repeated by the Prime Minister.
The explanation given by the Minister here when this was discussed in Grand Committee was that
“setting aside the earnings link in the state pension triple lock for the year 2022-23 … was in response to exceptional circumstances”.—[Official Report, 9/3/22; col. GC 475.]
The problem is that we do not know what counts as the exceptional circumstances in which this Government will break their promise again. On this occasion, with the current uprating that we are talking about, we are told that the exceptional circumstances are the effect that coming out of the Covid measures has had on the earnings index.
So the question is not whether the Government will break their promise. We know that they are capable of breaking their promises. What we do not know about is the possibility that they will break their promise for further exceptional circumstances.
We simply cannot rule out the possibility that, come next November, when a decision is taken on next year’s uprating, it will be decided that this coming September’s CPI index is exceptional or anomalous. To be honest, with the prospect of it being more than 8%, according to the OBR, I hope that it is exceptional. I return to the OBR report and the nice graph—I cannot show it to noble Lords because that is against the conventions of the House—in which there is a leap up to the September figure, when it could be in excess of 9%, which is exceptional. What promise can the Government give that they will not say that these are again exceptional circumstances?
To conclude, can the Minister give us an unequivocal commitment, now, that whatever the CPI increase in September—8% or 9%—this will be applied to the 2023 increases?
Lord Sikka (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton, who spoke with great passion and eloquence to put the Government to shame for the plight of our senior citizens, who continue to be treated very badly.
The state pension is the main or only source of income for the majority of our senior citizens—they rely upon it. The Government introduced the triple lock but, despite it, pensioner poverty has actually increased; it has not decreased. The statistics show that many of our pensioners continue to suffer. From next month, the pension will rise by 3.1%. Pensioners and others face RPI, not CPI: try buying broadband and you will be told that the price will increase by RPI-plus, not CPI. People face increases in line with RPI, which is already about 8%. Last October’s Treasury Red Book showed that by suspending the triple lock the Government were denying retirees £30.5 billion over the next five years. That is a vast sum. They will never be able to catch up or make good the lost purchasing power.
The Government do not treat our senior citizens with any equity or respect. The winter fuel payment has been unchanged since 2011. Even before the current rises that are coming our way, the winter fuel payment would have had to double simply to cope with price rises and rates of inflation—the Government never increased it. A Christmas bonus was the grand sum of £10 in 1972. If it had kept pace with inflation, it be about £150; it is still exactly £10. The Government removed the free TV licence from the over-75s. It is no good saying that there are some who will still qualify for it if they negotiate the bureaucratic maze; many will simply not be able to and will either pay or volunteer to go to prison, because the Government want to criminalise avoidance of the TV licence fee. At least some of our senior citizens will get warmth and some food there, and some may well take up that particular option.
The Government still do not like people getting old. There are no prescription charges in Scotland, but the Government here are raising the free prescription age from 60 to 66. Why England has to be an outlier, I do not know.
In the last Budget, the Government handed £4 billion of tax cuts to banks. They took money away from pensioners and instead gave it to banks, which are absolutely awash with cash. Banks offer you a measly 1% interest on your savings and charge you 40% on your overdraft, but they are bailed out by the state, which acts as a lender of last resort. If that were not enough, it also handed £895 billion of quantitative easing to speculators, including banks, which made vast profits from that. But the Government do not want to pay our senior citizens a decent pension. That is a huge wealth transfer, which tells us something about the Government’s value system.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton for tabling this regret Motion, and it is very well-timed given that today was the Spring Statement.
The Chancellor promised that he would stand by people in the face of the cost-of-living crisis, but it seems that this promise does not extend to parents struggling on social security benefits. Instead, I fear it is an attitude of “Let them stand on their own two feet”, and wait a year for “smoothing”, as benefits catch up with inflation—a year when some parents could go under with the strain. For all the talk of “security” in the Chancellor’s speech, there is nothing to address the insecurity experienced by social security recipients. Additional assistance to local authorities for discretionary help is no compensation for the security provided by weekly benefits that meet people’s needs. As the Women’s Budget Group points out in its very quickly produced Spring Statement analysis,
“The Chancellor has left women in the lurch”,
and raising social security would have done much more for those on low incomes than raising the national insurance threshold.
Since we debated the uprating order in Grand Committee two weeks ago—it feels like a lifetime, but it was two weeks ago—three research reports have been published that reinforce the arguments I put then for an additional uprating to match the inflation rate. I am not going to go over everything I said then, but the Trussell Trust pointed to a
“crisis of our social security system, which is failing to support people to keep their heads above water.”
A recent Carers UK survey found that, among carers in receipt of carers allowance or the UC carer element, nine out of 10 are already stressed and anxious about their finances, and generally carers’ financial situation has worsened considerably over the six months since it last did the survey. The findings of a new Covid Realities report published this week was summed up in the conclusion that
“‘There is nothing left to cut back’ - people have reached the limits of their budgeting practices and resourcefulness.”
with implications for their physical and mental health. The report commented on the
“disbelief at the perceived lack of understanding among policy-makers of the scale and severity of the difficulties people were facing.”
I am afraid we have seen all too many examples of this in the last few weeks. When, in an OQ last week, I asked the Minister’s colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, what are parents on benefit, who have already cut back to the bone, supposed to do if benefits are uprated at a fraction of the inflation rate, in response she intoned what the Government are spending in total on benefits but did not answer the question. Following the very disappointing Spring Statement, I ask again: when there is nothing left to cut back, what are parents struggling on an inadequate benefit supposed to do over the coming year? How are they supposed to get by?
I believe that this Minister does understand, to some degree, the difficulties faced, and she cares. Unfortunately, she can do no more, it appears, than take messages back to the department and the Treasury. But she can at least today answer the question. Indeed, I ask her to tell us: what would she do if she had to get by on inadequate benefits that are being eaten away by inflation?
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for his regret Motion, which I agree with.
It is estimated that one in five pensioners in the UK is living in poverty, that 1.3 million retirees are undernourished and that 25,000 pensioners die each year due to cold weather. As we know, the cost of energy has doubled, and older people are more susceptible to the cold, particularly if they are housebound or suffering from a disabling illness.
The Government failed to accept that inflation was going to rise at an alarming rate when benefits and the state pension were uprated for this April. They insisted on basing the uprating on September’s inflation figure of 3.1%, as usual. The Motion of the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, quotes the Bank of England’s prediction of 7.25%, but that is now being fast overtaken by events, and a figure of nearer 10% is now forecast during the year. It is unthinkable that poor pensioners, at the end of their lives, should have to experience such a sudden change in circumstances. Up to now, they have been protected by the triple lock but, because of what was seen as a one-off adjustment in incomes as a result of a recovery from the pandemic, the Government abandoned the triple lock. Had it still been in place, a rise of 8% would have equalled the predicted rate of inflation in April, when the uprating comes into effect.
Age UK has estimated that soaring energy prices will plunge 150,000 older households into fuel poverty this winter. It has said that the number of fuel poor older households could reach more than 1.1 million by the spring, unless the Government take urgent action.
We have one of the least generous state pensions of any country in Europe, and it is still below its 1979 value. The triple lock was introduced in 2010 in the light of a hugely devalued state pension. Some recovery has taken place since then, but the state pension still does not provide enough support to keep 2.1 million pensioners out of poverty.
For women pensioners, the situation continues to get worse, with one in five now in poverty. Analysis of government figures shows that, in 2012-13, 14% of female pensioners across the UK were living in relative poverty—that is, they were living in households with less than 60% of median average household income, after housing costs. By 2019-20, this had increased to about 20%. That increase comes despite increases in women’s state pension age, meaning that the number of female pensioners in the UK has fallen by about 800,000 since 2012-13.
On these Benches, we think it is essential to protect the poorest pensioners who depend on the state pension and that it is crucial to bring the value of the state pension to a realistic level in relation to earnings and living costs. It is vital to make sure that those already in poverty and dependent on benefits do not become poorer than they already are. As has been said, it is not enough to claim that an upward adjustment will be made next year, because the problem exists now.
Lord Hendy (Lab)
My Lords, I rise to make a short point. Noble Lords have set out the human cost of the cut to social security earlier in the year, the failure to uprate it and to maintain the triple lock on pensions. As I understand it, the Treasury has saved £12 billion in so doing. The Minister will correct me if that figure is wrong but, whatever it is, billions have been saved.
I want to look at the other side of the equation. Those billions that have not gone to the poor people who have been described this evening is money that would otherwise have been spent, because poor people spend everything they receive: on food, on heating, on rent, and so forth. None of it is sorted away in the Cayman Islands; it is all spent money, and spent in the places where poor people live.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, for the second time today I am substituting for my noble friend Lady Sherlock, whose expertise in these matters is well known to the House. I will do my best to convey our position.
When the Social Security (Uprating of Benefits) Bill, now Act, was debated in this place last year by my noble friend Lady Sherlock, she highlighted how the suspension of the earnings element of the triple lock for the upcoming tax year would impact millions. This point has been made several times since. I share her concerns, those of my noble friend Lord Davies, and the concerns of others who have spoken in tonight’s debate.
Over the last decade, this Government have failed pensioners. The last Labour Government reduced pensioner poverty by over a million people. In the 12 years since, the number and rate of pensioners living in poverty has soared. In 2010, 14% of pensioners, totalling 1.6 million, lived in poverty. In the year before the pandemic, it was 18%. Some areas are far worse than others. Here in London, over one in four pensioners lives in poverty, totalling almost 300,000 people. Other regions, such as the East Midlands, the north-east, the north-west and the West Midlands, have poverty rates of over 19% among the over-65s. Therefore, of course, the number of pensioners in debt has risen too, by over half a million since 2010, so far.
Things have got harder since these pre-pandemic numbers, and pensions are one part of this. Following the uprating order being made last week, the increase to state pensions and benefits signed into law is 3.1% from next month. The basic pension rises from £141.85 a week for a single pension or £226.85 for a couple. The full rate of the new state pension will rise to £185.15 a week but, with earnings rising at 8.3%, the Government keeping their manifesto promise and maintaining the triple lock would have meant that the basic state pension would instead be rising to £149 for individuals, £238.30 for couples, and the full rate of the new state pension to £194.50. For an individual on the basic state pension, this is a difference of approximately £370, almost £600 for a couple, and close to £485 for those on the full rate of the new state pension—even higher than the difference with the Bank of England’s CPI uplift that my noble friend has highlighted already, which is expected to peak around 7.25% in April 2022 when the uprating takes effect.
What is undeniable is that the cost of living has increased by far more than 3.1%, and the Government breaking their promise has made it harder for pensioners. This hit for pensioners comes on top of several other factors, either caused or not addressed by this Government, that have made life harder for those struggling to get by.
On a related note, the Government continue to act too slowly to repay state pension underpayments to over 100,000 older women, leaving many thousands of them without the pension they deserve and barely enough to live on. At any time, pensioners who have worked hard their entire life should expect to be paid what they are owed at the right time but, with compounding difficulties, the impact is even more severe.
The main thing making things harder for pensioners at this time is the cost of living crisis and energy prices. Age UK warned that rising energy prices will lead to some of the poorest pensioners, for whom the cold could be particularly dangerous, rationing their heating. There was no mention today by the Chancellor of energy prices for heating oil, for example, in the spring Statement—but then it is an unregulated sector of the energy market. Cold weather payments and the warm home discount scheme fail to reach those who need them because they are not claiming pension credit.
As a result, three-quarters of older people in the UK—almost 10 million people—are worried about this cost of living crisis. Over half of those surveyed by Age UK said they will have to heat their home less, a quarter said they would have to choose between heating their home and the food they buy if their energy bills continue to go up, and two in five are having to cut back. What can they do other than go into debt or simply not pay their bill?
What is more, the £20 uplift to universal credit being stopped will continue to impact couples where only one is at state pension age. There are around 1.3 million working pensioners who will be asked to pay the poorly thought-out health and social care levy. Pension credit is another area of concern, with 850,000 eligible families missing out on almost £2,000 per year on average, and the number of eligible couples falling dramatically between 2019 and 2020 from the number the Government told us to expect.
While I have drifted away from the pensions uprating, my point is that the Government’s broken promise is not just a broken promise but one more burden on millions of pensioners at a time when it is simply the last thing that they need. The consequences will not be small; they will be pensioners unable to heat their homes, struggling to put food on the table, and managing increased debt in their efforts to prevent that. While this order has already passed, this does not have to be the fate for pensioners. I recognise the Minister’s sincerity, as noted by my noble friend Lady Lister, but I hope she will follow by setting out the steps the Government will be taking to avoid these outcomes.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, I would like to re-emphasise what happened today in the spring Statement. The Chancellor announced an additional £500 million for the household support fund from April 2022 to help households, including pensioners, with the cost of essentials such as food, clothing and utilities. This is in addition to the £500 million we have already provided since October, bringing the total funding to £1 billion. The Chancellor also announced a cut in fuel duty at 5p per litre. Customers will benefit from savings worth over £5 billion over the next year compared to uprating fuel duty in 2022-23. This will save average car drivers, many of whom are pensioners, around £100. I confirm that the Government will continue to keep the situation under review, recognising the high level of current uncertainty, including monitoring the ongoing impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on the economy, and will be ready to take further steps if needed to support households.
I thank all noble Lords for their contributions and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, for moving the Motion. I also thank him for agreeing that this Motion could be debated after 9 March, when we debated the uprating order. A number of important points were raised, which I will now try to deal with. He made the point that averaging over time is no consolation. Uprating in April 2023 will take into account the rate of inflation this September, but we recognise the short-term pressures, which is why we have introduced a package worth more than £9 billion.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, raised the issue of the cost of living and what the Government are doing to help pensioners. The Government spend more than £129 billion on pensioner benefits, which is 5.6% of GDP. In cash terms, from April, the full yearly amount of the basic state pension will be over £2,300 higher than in 2010. Over the last two years, the basic state and new state pension will have increased by more than 5.6%. Eligible pensioners will also receive support through free bus passes, free prescriptions, free TV licences, winter fuel payments, the warm home discount scheme, and cold weather payments.
The noble Lord asked about the opportunity to discuss the quinquennial review. I will write to the Government Actuary’s Department to see if it will do that with him. It is not something that is appropriate or sensible for me to do.
The noble Lord also raised the issue of the triple lock. We are not ending the triple lock. The suspension of the earnings link this year is a one-year response to exceptional circumstances and the Government remain committed to implementing the triple lock in the usual way for the remainder of the Parliament. I can confirm my Secretary of State’s statement on Monday evening that the triple lock will apply for the rest of this Parliament.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, talked about using the National Insurance Fund to fund the triple-lock earnings increase, as did the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. The National Insurance Fund matches expected receipts to the predicted spending on contributory pensions and benefits over the medium term. There is no surplus in the fund that can simply be drawn on without consequences either for the ability to pay future liabilities or for the need for higher contributions in the future. It is therefore inaccurate to suggest that there is a surplus in the fund that can simply be drawn on. Increasing spending on today’s pensioners would pass the cost on to future generations of taxpayers.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, raised the point that the national insurance system is regressive. This is a matter for the Chancellor and the noble Lord has made his views on the subject very clear today.
The noble Lord also raised the issue of the cost of living, as did other noble Lords. Over the last two years we have delivered an increase of more than 5.6% to the basic and new state pension. As well as the winter fuel payment, pensioners receive a guarantee of pension credit and qualify automatically for the £140 rebate off their winter energy bill from suppliers participating in the warm home discount scheme. I will come to pension credit later in my remarks.
Older people can also benefit from the £9.1 billion that the Government will spend this year on extra measures to protect people from energy price spikes, such as the £200 energy rebate, the £150 council tax rebate and the £144 million discretionary fund available through local councils.
Pension credit came up so let me deal with that now. Pension credit would help people but, as noble Lords have said, people do not apply for it. We have to redouble our efforts to make sure that people apply for pension credit and receive it where it is due. We have undertaken a range of actions to raise awareness of pension credit, encourage pensioners to check their eligibility and make a claim. This includes the media day of action in June last year and we continue to use opportunities to promote pension credit, using proactive press activity and social media to reach potential recipients, their families and friends.
On Monday, the Minister for Pensions wrote a letter to editors of local newspapers across England, Scotland and Wales urging any readers who think they or a family member may be eligible to make a claim. There will be another day of action in June and the Pensions Minister will write to key stakeholders to seek their support for this. As well as these communication activities, we set up the pension credit working group with a range of stakeholders. It is tasked with identifying new practical initiatives that we can work on together to help pension credit take-up.
Over the last two months, more than 11 million pensioners in Great Britain will have received information about pension credit in the leaflet accompanying their annual uprating letter. It includes a prominent message that highlights that an award of pension credit not only tops up their state pension but can provide access to help with housing, heating and NHS costs and, for those over 75, a free TV licence.
Lord Sikka (Lab)
I raised a point about equality, although perhaps the Minister was coming to it; I am not sure. The Government have equalised the state pension age for men and women, but women’s state pension languishes behind men’s. Why is it not equalised? Can she undertake to give a date by which that will happen?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I cannot undertake to say if and when that will happen, but I will write to the noble Lord and place a copy in the Library with any updated information that I can glean.
The noble Lords, Lord Sikka and Lord Shipley, raised a point about pensioner poverty. Absolute pensioner poverty, both before and after housing costs, has fallen by 200,000 since 2009.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
Most academics would use the relative poverty rate these days, so could the Minister give us that?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I do not have the relative rate in front of me because the Government are using the absolute rate, but I will find out and write to the noble Baroness. The Government prefer to look at absolute poverty over relative poverty because the latter can provide counterintuitive results. Relative poverty is likely to fall during recessions due to falling median incomes. Under this measure, poverty can decrease even if people are getting poorer. For example, some think tanks have projected that relative poverty fell sharply in 2021, during the pandemic.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, asked why we did not recycle savings in the pandemic. This Government locked down the economy to a large extent to protect our older people. That came at an enormous cost, and I therefore cannot agree with the noble Lord that the Government have not invested to protect their senior citizens.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, raised the issue of women and state pensions. Reforms to the state pension have put measures in place to improve state pension outcomes for most women. Over 3 million women stand to receive an average of £550 more by 2030 as a result of recent reforms.
The noble Lord, Lord Sikka, raised the point about linking the state pension to the national living wage. The national living wage and the state pension are two very different things; the national living wage is designed to protect low-income workers and provide an incentive to work by ensuring that all workers benefit from as generous a wage as possible, and the state pension is supported by further measures for older people, which I outlined earlier in my remarks.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, again raised the issue of fuel poverty. We know that low-income households in homes with a low energy-efficiency rating will find it harder to heat their homes, as energy costs rise. We are addressing the energy efficiency of homes to tackle fuel poverty in the long term. Right now, measures are in place to protect consumers and mitigate the effects of debt. We are providing support with energy bills this winter through the warm home discount, winter fuel payments and cold weather payments. The noble Lord asked how we were supporting pensioners with fuel poverty. As I have read out this evening, it is through the warm home discount scheme, winter fuel payments and cold weather payments.
The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, is passionate about support for parents, and has raised the point. Although we are talking about pensions in particular, I shall say, as I have said many times before, that the best way to help people out of poverty is to help them into work. Our changes to universal credit are designed to achieve that. There is also more support for childcare costs than in the tax credits system that the universal credit system replaced. Of course, there is no requirement to seek work for those with very young children.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
I accept that not everybody out of work is required to seek work or able to seek work, whether because of their caring responsibilities, or whatever. I asked a very specific question. The evidence is that parents and others on benefits—and this is an uprating order about benefits as well as pensions—are already cutting back to the bone and do not know how they are going to cut back further. What are they supposed to do? That is the question that I asked, and which I asked the other day in Oral Questions of the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and I still do not have an answer.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
The noble Baroness is right to point out that there are those on low incomes who are unable to work, and I shall talk to my noble friend Lady Scott and write with actions that the Government are taking. I do not have that information to hand.
The noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, raised the point that we are making savings at the expense of pensioners. We have increased most state pensions by 2.5% this year, when CPI in the relevant period was 0.5%. We made primary legislation to make sure that that happened, and we locked down the economy precisely to protect our older people. I cannot therefore recognise the points made by the noble Lord and the noble Baroness.
The noble Baroness rightly raised the issue of state pension underpayments. That should not happen, and we have apologised unreservedly, but I can confirm that the department has a dedicated team working on the correction activity. Sufficient additional staffing resources have been allocated to progress this activity, and further resources are being allocated through 2022-23. The Government are fully committed to ensuring that these historical errors made by successive Governments are addressed as quickly as possible to ensure that individuals receive the state pension that they are rightfully due in law.
The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, raised the issue of pensioner poverty for women. Reforms to the state pension have put measures in place to improve state pension outcomes for most women, and over 3 million women stand to receive an average of £550 per year more by 2030.
On the state pension underpayments, the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, asked, understandably, how we are prioritising cases. Resolving these errors is a priority for the department, as I have already said, and we are committed to doing so as quickly as possible. We have started reviewing cases when the individual is alive; in doing so, we are initially focusing available resources on older cases and those who we believe are most likely to be vulnerable.
I am conscious of the time. I have mentioned many things—but I hope that noble Lords will be reassured that the Government are fully aware of the concerns that people have over rising prices, and we have taken action, where possible, to help. I finish by again thanking the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for giving me the opportunity to set out the Government’s position.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Lords, this has been a worthwhile debate. I am conscious of the time: I could spend a lot of time rehashing all the arguments, but I am sure we will return to them. I feel this is the first of what may well become an annual event, and I look forward to future occasions. I thank my noble friends Lord Sikka, Lady Lister, Lord Hendy and Lady Wilcox, and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, for their contributions. If the House were in a position to take a vote, the Motion would certainly be carried, but it would be meaningless in current circumstances.
I conclude by saying that I am sure the Minister had to mention the Spring Statement, but the truth is that the Spring Statement did nothing for the poorest pensioners. The whole debate has been about the poorest pensioners; there was nothing material in the Spring Statement for them. In fact, it made them worse off, by giving a further little upward shift to inflation. I thank the Minister very much for her reply, and I am sure we will continue the debate. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Elections Bill
Wednesday 23rd March 2022
(2 years, 1 month 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-V Fifth marshalled list for Committee - (21 Mar 2022)
Lord Thomas of Gresford
“Voting by convicted persons sentenced to terms of 12 months or less
In section 3(1A) (exceptions to the disenfranchisement of prisoners) of the Representation of the People Act 1983, after “Scotland” insert “or a parliamentary election”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would allow prisoners serving a sentence of 12 months or less to vote in UK parliamentary elections.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, perhaps I may be forgiven for my second intrusion into the Committee by all those who are toiling so hard on it day after day.
It may be a bit trite, but in a democracy, all citizens are presumed to have the right to vote. That is the way by which they have a say in making the laws that govern them: demokratia. The Joint Committee of both Houses appointed to consider the draft voting eligibility (prisoners) Bill in 2013 concluded that the vote is a right, not a privilege. It does not have to be earned, and its removal without good reason undermines democratic legitimacy.
In the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the purposes of sentencing are said to be
“the punishment of offenders … the reduction of crime … the reform and rehabilitation of offenders … the protection of the public, and … the making of reparation by offenders to persons affected by their offences.”
Where does the disfranchisement of a prisoner come within those aims? It obviously has nothing to do with the reduction of crime, the protection of the public or the making of reparations. If it is regarded as an act of retribution, part of the punishment of offenders, it is doubtful that the prisoner thinks it significant in any way, compared with his loss of liberty.
This does not concern itself with proportionality: a prisoner loses the vote by the act of imprisonment, not by the nature of his crime. A person imprisoned for dangerous driving is in exactly the same position as a person serving a life sentence for rape or murder. Of course, unconvicted prisoners, convicted prisoners awaiting sentence and people imprisoned for either contempt of court or debt, remain eligible to vote.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I support the amendment, to which I have added my name and which has been so well introduced by the noble Lord. The House of Commons Library briefing note on prisoners’ votes details the sorry tale, as has the noble Lord, of how the issue has been kicked into the long grass without a satisfactory resolution, following the ECHR ruling that an indiscriminate ban on all serving prisoners contravened the European Convention on Human Rights and subsequent calls from the Council of Europe. The result has been, in the words of one expert commentator, “minimalist compliance”. When it comes to prisoners’ votes, it is a question of “out of sight, out of mind”, just as prisoners themselves are.
The recent prisons White Paper included, in a section on the purposes of prisons, the need to
“promote rehabilitation and reform to reduce reoffending.”
It would be facile to suggest that, of itself, giving short-term prisoners the vote would lead to rehabilitation. But to withhold the right to vote from them, together with some of the things said by Ministers when it was a live issue—the noble Lord quoted David Cameron on the subject, in particular—indicates a punitive rather than a rehabilitative view of the role of prisons. On Thursday, my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti argued powerfully for the right to vote as a fundamental civil and political right. It is a basic right of citizenship. To withhold this right from short-term prisoners is in effect to say that they are not citizens. As the noble Lord said, it has been described as a state of civic death, one which affects black and minority ethnic groups disproportionately, according to the Prison Reform Trust.
Of course, as Governments of all hues like to emphasise, citizenship is about responsibilities as well as rights. My noble friend described it as an “ethical duty”. What better way to instil a sense of civic responsibility in prisoners than to encourage them to see themselves as fellow citizens with a stake in the country and the right and responsibility to express their views through the vote. As Conservative MP Peter Bottomley once argued,
“Ex-offenders and ex-prisoners should be active, responsible citizens. Voting in prison can be a useful first step to engaging in society.”
The Electoral Commission has in the past considered the practicalities involved and concluded that they are perfectly feasible. As has been said, the UK is one of only a handful of European countries which automatically disenfranchises sentenced prisoners. All the amendment would do is extend the vote to those sentenced to 12 months or less, which is a very modest step, but one it is high time we took. It may not be popular, but few people will have heard the case for it, given that most politicians have been so against it. In the name of citizenship and fundamental rights, it is time that a Government had the courage to take this modest step.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is again my great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister of Burtersett, and agree with everything she has said. I offer Green Party support for Amendment 139. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, said in introducing the amendment, this is a long-term situation where the UK has not complied with its human rights obligations. This is an occasion where I am not going to hold this Government solely responsible; the Labour Government had five years to remedy the situation and the coalition Government had five years to fix it, yet here we still are.
The Green Party policy, as is the case in many things, would go rather further than the amendment. Our policy is that all prisoners should have the right to vote except where the sentencing judge, taking into account the nature of the offence, decides to make the loss of the vote explicitly part of the penalty. The obvious cases where that might happen would be in a case of electoral fraud, for example, or perhaps where an oligarch who has used some of their ill-gotten gains to attempt to buy a political party or a certain political outcome.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, the question is what prisons are for when it comes to more standard types of offences. Are we cutting people off from society, further reinforcing social exclusion and distancing them from the norms and values that we are hoping they will absorb before they go out into society? After all, nearly everyone who is in prison will eventually go out into society. Are we actively trying to rehabilitate people and equip them for a life outside prison?
Voting is a fundamental part of our society. The blanket denial that says that once you are in jail you cannot vote is a way of saying, “We’re not going to do anything to improve the world that helped to put you into this place”. We know the situation of so many people in prison and the huge disadvantage and inequality that is a background to people who are there. So the amendment does not go far enough but it is an important first step.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lords, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, on the amendment, and the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, on moving it. As always, I thank my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett. I am sorry that I am outwith my party’s position on this but there are hawks and doves in both main parties when it comes to penal reform, and indeed when it comes to the law-and-order arms race that I believe has been a problem in our country for too many years—perhaps for my whole adult life.
I remember Lord Hurd addressing the Conservative Party conference when I was a relatively small person—even smaller than I am now. Those were the days when all party conferences were televised in total—can you imagine?—and it was a time when people were calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty. He, as a Conservative Home Secretary, faced that audience down and explained to them why that was a terrible thing. Later in my life and career I had the privilege to congratulate him on that moment, which he remembered, and it was something he could be proud of.
I believe this change will come because I am an optimist about the course of progress in world events. It may well be a Conservative Home Secretary and Government who do the “Nixon in China” thing, but whoever does it, I think they should. I will not cite the European Court of Human Rights, as some would groan and expect me to do. I do not pray in aid its judgments; I pray in aid basic principle and practical logic.
I agree with the points that the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, made about the purposes of incarceration. We accept that some people in extremis need to be incarcerated for certain offences for the reasons of retribution, rehabilitation, public protection and deterrence, but none of those four traditional justifications for incarceration after criminal conviction explains why, on a blanket basis, you would take away someone’s vote—particularly people, as in this modest amendment, who will be out very soon and who we want to reintegrate and rehabilitate as best we can. Frankly, we want politicians, activists and voters to be a little bit more concerned about those people whom we are still subjecting to this Victorian notion of civic death.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I heard all the contributions from all sides of the House, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Thomas, for his introduction, which quite accurately set out the history. I have read the parliamentary Commons briefing as well. The reality is that the position of the Labour Party has not changed, and we do not support this amendment.
The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to all those who have spoken. Amendment 139, as has been said, seeks to extend the franchise for parliamentary elections to prisoners serving a term of 12 months or less. This Government believe, in common with the party opposite, that when a citizen commits a crime that is sufficiently serious to detain them in prison, they have broken their contract with society. In addition, the Government have made their position clear. We said openly in our manifesto:
“We will maintain the ban on prisoners voting from jail.”
Prison means the loss of a number of rights and freedoms, not least the right to liberty and freedom of association. The Government believe that the loss of voting rights while in prison is a proportionate curtailment of such civic rights. As such, we cannot support this amendment.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
I thank those who have supported me in this amendment. I am particularly grateful to those on the Labour Benches, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, who have spoken in favour.
I just wonder about the Labour Party. In Cardiff, it moved to bring about voting for prisoners, seeing it as an important part of its remit from the people of Wales. Here, however, it is dismissed in a sentence: “We haven’t changed”. The Labour Party is a little bit split. I am not sure what it said in Scotland; I will have to look that up after this and investigate.
This is the way the world is going. You can stand in the way if you like, but ultimately the vote will be given to prisoners, just as it is in most democracies around the world. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Automatic voter registration
(1) Registration officers must take all reasonable steps to ensure that all persons eligible to register to vote in elections in the United Kingdom are so registered.(2) The Secretary of State must by regulations require public bodies to provide information to registration officers to enable them to fulfil their duty under subsection (1).(3) Regulations under subsection (2) must apply to the following public bodies—(a) HM Revenue and Customs;(b) the Department for Work and Pensions;(c) the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency;(d) the National Health Service, NHS Wales and NHS Scotland;(e) schools and further and higher education institutions;(f) local authorities;(g) HM Passport Office;(h) police forces;(i) the TV Licensing Authority;(j) Job Centre Plus;(k) the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Local Communities;(l) the Department for Transport;(m) the Department for Health and Social Care;(n) the Home Office; and(o) the Ministry of Justice.(4) Regulations under subsection (2) may also apply to other public bodies. (5) Registration officers must—(a) use the information provided by the public bodies listed in regulations under subsection (2) to register otherwise unregistered persons on the appropriate electoral register or registers, or(b) if the information provided does not contain all information necessary to register a person who may be eligible, contact that person for the purpose of obtaining the required information to establish whether they are eligible to register and, if so, register them on the appropriate electoral register or registers.(6) If a registration officer has registered a person under subsection (5), the officer must notify that person within 30 days and give that person an opportunity to correct any incorrect information.(7) Where a person is registered under subsection (5), that person must be omitted from the edited register unless that person notifies the registration officer to the contrary.(8) Nothing in this section affects entitlement to register to vote anonymously.(9) The Secretary of State may issue guidance to registration officers on fulfilling their duties under this section.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would require registration officers to enter eligible voters on the register, and provide for them to receive the necessary information from a number of public bodies.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, we had not pre-planned who would speak but, having attached my name to this amendment and being one of the two people here to do so, I will speak, with some unexpectedness, in favour of it.
Amendment 141 introduces a carefully planned and worked-through plan—as noble Lords can see—for automatic voter registration. It is a great pity that, given the time of this debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, is not able to be with us, but I hope that we might return to this on Report. It would be particularly interesting to hear from both the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, and the noble Lord, Lord Woolley. Many of the issues that the noble Lord addresses in this amendment were similarly addressed in his speech on voter ID and the importance of allowing the engagement of everybody in our electoral process. I urge people who have not read or heard that speech to catch up with it because it is an important one.
To put the case for why we need automatic voter registration, when I was reflecting on this, I thought it sounded like the sort of thing that we would normally do in Grand Committee in the Moses Room, looking at some detailed statutory instrument and going through the dusty tomes. But this is of course far from a bureaucratic detail. Rather, to bring in automatic voter registration would be the long-delayed completion of a democratic progression of a couple of centuries, right through the 19th-century reform Acts and the 20th-century women’s suffrage. It is a vital step in ensuring that everyone who is eligible to vote actually has that vote available to them. The fact is that people do not have that practical opportunity now.
As I said at Second Reading, just because the Government are trying to slash away what little democracy we have in this country with many elements of this Bill, it does not mean that we cannot use this opportunity to set out a way forward to reform and repair our archaic and dysfunctional UK constitution. For there are what is known in shorthand as the “missing millions”— people who are eligible to vote but not registered for the right. An Electoral Commission study from 2019 suggested that their numbers exceed 9 million, while more than 5 million people are incorrectly registered. Those millions are not some random sample of the population. It is the young and those in private rental accommodation, many of whom have to move often, who are massively underrepresented on the rolls and by our so-called democracy. This ties into the debate that we were having earlier about votes for 16 and 17 year-olds. Those people are least likely to vote Conservative.
This amendment, therefore, is about not just people’s individual rights but ensuring that our electoral results reflect the views of the people. The background to this is individual electoral registration, which was introduced in 2014. It cleaned up the messes—I am sure that I am far from the only Member of your Lordships’ House who has knocked on the door of a very small flat at which there are apparently 16 people registered, and it is not a case of fraud but various people have moved in and out and names have been added without any being removed. However, it also cleaned out millions of people who should have been on those rolls, particularly young people and students at university.
This is a really important point and I hope that the Minister might be able to address it. It is not even easy to check whether you are registered correctly. The Electoral Commission website says—this is the only information it provides—
“contact the electoral services team at your local council”.
That is how you go about checking whether you are on the electoral roll. It is a far from simple, easy process. Can the Minister say whether the Government plan any improvements on that simple step so that people can check whether they are registered?
To briefly address the details of this amendment, automatic voter registration need not be complicated or introduce a large bureaucratic burden. Schools and colleges could register young people as attainers—those about to become voters—and university students could be registered by their universities. Changing the address on your driving licence, which is something everyone is legally obliged to do, registering for council tax, or having contact with the Department for Work and Pensions are all things that could feed into the electoral roll—they are how the Government know where people are.
I will make one final point, because I am sure other people will have many other things to say on this important amendment. Of course, automatic voter registration will not guarantee that people turn out to vote. Already, typically, fewer than 70% of people on the roll turn out for general elections, and often 30% or fewer in council elections. But giving people the opportunity by making sure their name is on the rolls as it should be without them having to go to extraordinary efforts has to be essential to make any claim of calling this country a democracy. I beg to move.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, as it is to add my name to this amendment also in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Woolley of Woodford, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Warsi. I do not need to repeat the compelling points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, but I will just say this. We all know that to have the option of voting is a fundamental right, just as to pay tax when it is owed is a fundamental duty. The Government worked very hard, as they should, at ensuring that when people reach the age of 18, they are automatically registered for tax purposes. I really believe in taxation, obviously. They are right to do it, and it ought to be increasingly easy to do that in our automated world. If the Government can do that, why on earth would they not do the equivalent thing when people reach whatever the age of majority is—we argued about that—to ensure that people are registered.
We have had the arguments about voter ID, which is ID when you turn up and choose to vote. No doubt, we will come back to those, but this is an earlier step. If the Government are really serious, as they tell us they are, about not disfranchising people and making sure they have this possibility of exercising their right, why would they not at least ensure they are automatically registered, with all the information and all the tools available to the state? If I may say so to the Minister: if the Government would listen on this issue and be prepared to have discussions, it might go some way to ameliorating concerns about potential voter suppression in relation to ID when people to turn up to vote at the polling station.
This is an infinitely sensible proposal, infinitely possible to achieve. A quarter of the way into the 21st century, with all the wit and wisdom we have at our disposal, and all the resources the Government have, if we are really serious about ensuring people are not disfranchised, they should be automatically registered when they reach voting age.
Baroness Whitaker (Lab)
My Lords, the exacerbation of the political exclusion of poorer and marginalised communities—Gypsies, Travellers and Roma in particular —consequent on this Bill was thoroughly aired in Committee on 17 March, when, I regret, I was unable to attend, and on Second Reading. I read Hansard carefully, and I will not rehearse the powerful arguments made by my noble friends Lady Hayman of Ullock and Lady Lister and the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and acknowledged by the Minister responding—the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook.
I would just add, in support of Amendments 141 and 144B, that only this week, colleagues from Friends, Families and Travellers—I declare an interest as president and my other related posts shown in the register—and the Roma Support Group made the points at a meeting with DLUHC that people from their communities already have difficulty in meeting the identification requirements for exercising their right to vote and would feel even more left out of the system under the Bill’s proposals. The fact that postal voters would be exempt compounded their sense of injustice.
As I understand it, the Government do not actually know the relative proportion of minority ethnic turnout to vote. Nor did their voter ID pilots establish this basic national social evidence. In my opinion, the Government would be well advised to consider positively the assistance offered by these amendments in making sure that no one is left out.
As the Bill stands, Gypsies, Travellers and Roma, and other marginalised citizens, are in effect discriminated against, when they should be enabled to join the mainstream. The proposals deter rather than enfranchise people. They subvert democracy. These amendments would help right that wrong. I urge the Government to adopt them.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I support both these amendments. Does the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, wish to speak to her amendment first?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Carry on—I will not be saying anything very different.
Lord Stunell (LD)
First, it is important to establish that there is a problem. I quote from the briefing supplied by the Electoral Commission to your Lordships on these amendments:
“There is more that could and should be done to modernise electoral registration processes in Great Britain, to ensure that as many people as possible are correctly registered.”
I believe I heard the Minister make the same point—that he believes it good public policy to get people registered. The Electoral Commission’s most recent estimate is that
“between 8.3 and 9.4 million people in Great Britain who were eligible to be on the local government registers were not correctly registered”.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, said, those figures were collected in December 2018. It says there are another 360,000 or more people in Northern Ireland not correctly registered. It also made the same point as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett:
“Our research found that young people, students and those who have recently moved are the groups that are least likely to be correctly registered.”
Courtesy of the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, I would say that Travellers are very much in that group of under-registered people.
The Electoral Commission has published feasibility studies which identified that there is potential to evolve the current system. Those studies are reflected in the amendments before your Lordships today. Amendment 141 is one route to it—the two are not exclusive but it is one route—and Amendment 144B is another, to which we have added our names as well. It provides simply that, when a person is issued with a national insurance number, they receive their application for the electoral register.
The Electoral Commission makes two more points in its briefing:
“the education sector … could help EROs identify attainers and other young people. Also, data from the Department for Work and Pensions could potentially be used by EROs to register young people to vote automatically when they are allocated their national insurance number ahead of their 16th birthday.”
I do not want to frighten the Minister; the Electoral Commission is not suggesting that they would vote from their 16th birthday but simply that, as attainers, that would be an appropriate time for them to apply to be put on as an attaining voter.
At least in theory, I think we are all in favour of all qualified UK citizens being on the electoral roll and we would all say that we would like them to exercise their vote. This legislation increases the number of people eligible to go on that register by virtue of what the Bill proposes to do in relation to overseas electors. We will debate that shortly.
Clearly, the Government do not have a problem with having a larger voting roll. They share the Committee’s view that it is desirable, in principle, that all eligible people should be on the roll, and yet, so far, they have been extremely resistant to doing that, as far as attainers in particular are concerned. In the light of the evidence that the Electoral Commission has produced, that it is a significant number and that there are solutions, and in a situation where the Minister has in front of him two amendments proposing practical ways to solve that problem, I hope that in winding up he will be able to say that he will take this back, give it further consideration and perhaps produce an appropriate government amendment on Report.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord True, has made two sets of powerful arguments about the right to vote. First, he made a series of powerful arguments in favour of photo identification as a right to vote and, just now, he talked about the rights and responsibilities of citizens with respect to prisoners’ right to vote. Would an acceptance of this amendment not represent some consistency, and a rejection of this amendment represent some very clear inconsistency in the following sense? What would the Minister do about a situation where someone turns up at a polling station with a British passport and a British driving licence on which their address is registered, and they are then refused the right to vote? They will have complied with everything the Minister argued for in the discussion of identification, but they will be denied the right to vote because of a variety of complexities that still bedevil our registration system.
Surely it is appropriate that there are democracies—Norway, Australia—in which a presence on the register and the right to vote are automatic and ensured by modern data systems that can easily do the job. Surely, if he has a degree of consistency in his arguments about this Bill, the Minister will support these amendments.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, throughout Committee I have kept coming back to the impact assessment. Right there on the front page of the impact assessment it says:
“What are the policy objectives of the action or intervention and the intended effects?”
It is:
“To ensure that those who are entitled to vote should always”—
always—
“be able to exercise that right freely, effectively and in an informed way”.
That is the intended consequence, the stated intention of the Bill before us: that those who are entitled to vote
“should always be able to exercise that right”.
People cannot exercise that right if they are not on the electoral roll. It is an absolute condition of always being able to exercise that right.
The amendments before us are absolutely bang on the money, in terms of what the intended policy of the Bill is in the impact assessment. As citizens of this country, we are all given automatic rights and responsibilities. Through that, we get certain certificates or automated numbers. We get our national insurance number automatically. We do not have to apply; it is automatically granted to us at 16. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, we are registered for taxation automatically. We get our NHS number automatically. If noble Lords asked the vast majority of the public if they would object to being automatically registered, I have seen no evidence that says people would reject that proposition. Whether people then go to vote is down to the politicians to encourage them, enthuse them and get them to the polling station.
The very fact that the Government’s policy is to “always” ensure that people are able to exercise their vote in an automatic, easy and effective way means that these amendments should be accepted by the Government. If they are not, I would ask the Minister to explain why not having automatic registration, and keeping what is on the face of the Bill, would actually meet their objective to
“ensure that all those who are entitled to vote should always be able”
to do so.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 144B, I would like first to take the opportunity to thank the Patchwork Foundation for its very helpful briefings on this matter. I will be brief because we have already heard that the current system of voter registration really is not working to the benefit of many people, and that voter registration rates are disproportionately low among young people and some minority groups.
There is confusion among eligible voters about how and when to register. The University of East Anglia carried out a survey in 2016 which found that two-thirds of electoral registration officers reported that citizens had complained to them about the voter registration process being bureaucratic, and that this had discouraged them from registering. Surveys of poll workers have also found that the most common problem that they encounter is citizens asking to vote when they are missing from the electoral register. Furthermore, a poll conducted by YouGov before the 2019 general election found that 16% of respondents believed that they were automatically registered to vote if they paid their council tax, and 17% believed that they were automatically registered when they turned 18. There is a lot of confusion and we belief that AVR will go a significant way in tackling the disparities and the inefficiency of the current system. It would diminish the impact of cyclical registration patterns, which can put so much pressure on voting infrastructure and the officials who are running and managing it. It would also go some way in bridging the current gaps in registration across various ethnic and social economic groups, as other noble Lords have said.
The UK is one of the few liberal democracies that does not already have some sort of system of AVR in place. Of 40 liberal democracies assessed by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and the University of East Anglia, the UK came out as one of just six countries that does not have a system of either automatic or assisted voter registration. Where it is in existence, it has proved very effective at encouraging first-time voters to vote. By contrast, the UK is witnessing a fall in the number of young people registering to vote.
We have had quite a discussion on this, and I will finish by saying that this is terribly simple and straightforward. As other noble Lords have said, people are already written to ahead of their 16th birthday with their national insurance number. If we can do that, why can we not at the same time have an automatic registration to vote? We have the means to do it, so why do we not just get on with it?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Committee for the debate; it is a debate we had two years ago when we were discussing a previous Bill. If applying to vote was difficult or time-consuming, the Government might have more sympathy for this proposal, but it is not. It can be done online, by paper and post, in person, or by telephone, where the registration officer offers these services. Online, it takes five minutes and can be done anywhere, anytime, on a smartphone or a tablet; I have done this recently myself.
As a small but very positive step to encourage young people to vote, HMRC now includes additional information on registering to vote on letters issuing the national insurance numbers, and this practice has been in place since the end of September 2021.
These amendments contradict the principle that underpins individual electoral registration: that individuals should have ownership of, and responsibility for, their own registration. At this point, I say that some members of our communities do not want to register—we have all probably met people who do not want to go on the electoral register. Automatic registration would threaten the accuracy of the register and, in doing so, enable voting and political donations by those who are ineligible.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
The noble Baroness may be aware that there is an equivalent of a national register: Experian, which collects a great deal of data and is used by a lot of private and public authorities. If it can do that, why cannot the Government?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I do not know, but I will look into that with the team.
Automatic registration therefore risks not being truly automatic or adding ineligible people to the register. For example, under the EU voting and candidacy rights changes provided for in the Bill, very few EU citizens who arrived to live in the UK after 31 December 2020 will have the right to register to vote, but most will be issued with a national insurance number. Moreover, most national insurance numbers are issued before someone is 16, which is too young to be added to the register, even as an attainer, in England and Northern Ireland. Therefore, the Government have no plans to introduce automatic registration at this stage, and I request that this amendment be withdrawn.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and a number of other noble Lords asked what we are doing to encourage registration. Since its introduction, the register to vote website has revolutionised the ability of electors to participate, with over 60 million applications to registers being submitted since 2014. In the last UK general election, a record 47 million people were registered. We continue to refine and adjust the way that the digital system works to improve its security.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, brought up accessibility. It is very pleasing to see that the register to vote service has the highest accessibility rating—AAA—under the web content accessibility guidelines. It is also the responsibility of the Electoral Commission to promote participation, and it runs an annual campaign to encourage eligible voters to register.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I will ask a question, because this may impact on another group. The Minister mentioned that we will not know whether EU citizens who have come here properly after a certain date have the right to vote. The Government have signed agreements with a number of EU countries—Spain, for example—that will allow EU citizens to vote from them. Why is that a problem, in terms of this issue? How many EU countries have we signed reciprocal voting arrangements with?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
No, I think we will deal with that later—but if we do not deal with that today, I shall make sure that the noble Lord gets a note on it, because I do not have a list of them to hand.
We have no plans to introduce automatic registration, and I request that the amendment is withdrawn.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
Could the Minister address the inconsistency to which I referred—that someone with a British passport and a British driving licence, obeying the requirements in this Bill for identification for voting, could be denied the right to vote because they are not registered?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
No, because they are not registered. You cannot just have anybody walking into a polling station with some pieces of paper or a passport and saying that they have the right to vote. They have to register to vote.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
So the Minister is saying that a British passport and a driving licence are random pieces of paper. Is that how she is referring to them?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
No, my Lords, but you have to register to vote in this country, and going into a polling station and just saying that you have a passport but you have not registered cannot allow you to vote.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, this has been a very interesting and informative debate and I thank the Minister for her answers, and thank all noble Lords who have participated.
To pick up some points from the Minister, she suggested that it was not difficult or time-consuming to register. Perhaps this is not something that most people in your Lordships’ House do very often, but moving house is up there just below divorce and death in terms of people’s level of stress. Moving house is something that many people in our society, particularly younger and poorer people, find themselves doing regularly at six- or 12-month intervals—and now we are going to make this extra thing that they have to remember when there are so many other things they are worrying about. Perhaps when people are younger, the first or second time they move they do it religiously, but by the time they get to the sixth, or the eighth or the 10th time that they move, and they have so many things to worry about, it is unsurprising that they do not. It is difficult, when it is mixed in with that whole difficult experience.
The Minister made the point about people owning their own registration and that they might get registered accidentally when they should not be. Of course, the form that automatic registration could very easily take would be to change your driving licence address in the box and then respond to the questions about whether you were eligible to vote, providing any extra information that might be needed. I shall have to go away and look at this, but all the information that you have to provide for a driving licence would be sufficient, I should have thought, for voting. I shall go away and look at that.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins, brought up an interesting point about complications around EU citizens, which we will come to—but again that could be answered by a tick-box arrangement.
One key point has come out of this debate, well highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, but also by the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti. This is a balance to voter ID. I do not agree with voter ID but, if you are going to have it, as the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, said, and you turn up with your paperwork, and you are still told, although you have your passport, that you are not really a proper citizen because you have not ticked a box on a website, that is going to create some real anger.
I am not sure that the Minister really addressed the important points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, who so often in your Lordships’ House is a champion for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people, and many other excluded groups in our society. For all kinds of reasons, it is so much more difficult for those citizens, and we should be going to extraordinary efforts to make sure that their voice is able to be heard.
I pick up also the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, about the Government’s own impact assessment. If this is the aim of the Bill, it is very hard to see why the Government should not be taking these steps.
I make the final point that I raised a question with the Minister that was not answered—whether the Government are looking to make it easier to check whether you are correctly registered. You may have moved two or three years ago in a mad flurry—maybe your relationship had just broken down and that was why you moved—then there is an election coming, and you think, “Did I register to vote or not in that difficult period?” You would then have to know what council you are in and find its electoral services and send them an email or ring them up—and we all know what ringing a council up is like. Are the Government doing anything to improve that? If the Minister cannot answer that now, perhaps she could write to me about that, and perhaps she could commit to that before I withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I think from the discussion it is very obvious we are going to return to this on Report, but for the moment I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Holmes of Richmond
“Electronic voting
Within 3 months of the passing of this Act the Secretary of State must commission research into the desirability of electronic voting, including—(a) lessons to be learnt from similar systems in other countries,(b) the accessibility and inclusion benefits which may result from such a system, and(c) the use of block chain and distributed ledger technologies, with the aim of ensuring security and immutability of votes cast.”
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to move this amendment. I will speak to Amendments 144 and 209 in my name and I will not trespass on others’ eloquence when speaking to their amendments in this group.
Had I had a sharper pencil when I was drafting, I could have probably made Amendments 144 and 209 into the same amendment. I did not so they are not, but they are very closely linked. They speak to the opportunity that comes from the new technologies now available to us to potentially—it is only potential—use innovation to drive inclusion in our electoral process.
Amendment 144 is concerned with electronic voting. It is not suggesting that we move to electronic voting; it is simply suggesting that within three months of the Bill becoming an Act, it is something worth considering. The amendment talks about considering some international comparators. Estonia is particularly helpful in this instance, being probably the most digital state—certainly in Europe—and which has a very effective and efficient means of electronic voting. It goes so far, and I will come to more of the areas where we could go further in this country when I discuss Amendment 209.
Similarly, with electronic voting we can address many of the issues discussed on day two, particularly on Amendments 119 and 120, about accessibility and inclusion. Electronic voting potentially offers the opportunity for everybody to vote in an accessible and inclusive manner. There is also the consideration of what technology can be used. Certainly, distributed ledger technology offers a range of possibilities to assist with underpinning the integrity and security of electronic voting.
Amendment 209 takes a similar approach when it comes to the electoral register. This would be a step further than the situation in Estonia, because although in Estonia you can vote electronically via the electronic voting machine, there is not a system behind that which can trace the vote from the point of the voter registering in the first instance to being eligible to vote in that environment. If we had the electoral register put on a distributed ledger technology, we could have full traceability, immutability and, crucially, auditability of every move, of every vote—of every element of that system. You could permission particular actors to be the auditors of that. It would ensure far greater safety and security than the current system. It would be extremely difficult to drive an electoral fraud through such a system because you would have to engage so many actors to pull it off. The immutability of the technology would alert, in real time, all those permissioned people to be aware of it.
There is much more I could say on the technologies, but I will not. The crucial point is that if we looked, experimented and proof-of-concepted some of these technologies, we could potentially drive accessibility, inclusion, and the independence, secrecy, security, safety and integrity of every vote and, through that, the entire electoral process in the UK.
Crucially, these amendments are not asking for revolution, transformation, that we move to e-voting, or to an electoral register based on a distributed ledger technology platform. They are simply suggesting that there is something in these technologies that it is worth the Government considering and experimenting with and proofing some of their concepts. I look forward to my noble friend the Minister’s thoughts and response. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 150 and on some of the broader issues. I was quite worried, listening to the last debate and the Government’s answer. They now seem to be saying that they are not interested in broadening the number of people who vote, filling in the gaps in the register, or in much modernisation of the system, because they are quite happy with the inconsistencies that we have.
I think that the United States and the United Kingdom are the two democracies with the largest number of people eligible to vote who are not on the electoral register in each state or local authority. That is a scandal. It suggests that some of those behind this Bill are concerned with voter suppression, or at least with discouraging people from voting who they do not think may vote Conservative. That should worry us all. I fear that we are heading towards a bad-tempered Report, because the Government will railroad this through without any consultation or discussion.
On these proposals, I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, that modernisation and digitisation is where we should be going. When in government, I was concerned with the digitisation of Whitehall, and I agreed very strongly with Francis Maude, now the noble Lord, Lord Maude, on the efforts which he was making to push digitisation through a rather reluctant Whitehall and a group of largely uninterested Ministers. I much regret that, since 2015, the Government appear to have lost momentum on all that. There are ways of linking government databases without sharing all the information that could make life much easier for citizens on whom the Government hold a fair amount of information which is relevant to them.
I was deeply affected by what happened with the Windrush scheme, when all those people were told that they had no right to be in Britain, or that they had not been living in Britain for the last 20, 30 or 40 years. There was information in various Whitehall departments demonstrating that they had been here, but the Home Office did not look for it. In terms of modernising the electoral register, in terms of managing the vote and in terms of managing another couple of million applicants for overseas voting, who need to be checked properly when they come on to the register and need to have the chance to vote within a tight time scale, digitisation is clearly part of the answer.
The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and my amendment, are saying that the Government should be looking at this. Other Governments are way ahead of us in this. Everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said in Committee on a previous day about how astonishingly old fashioned our electoral process is, compared with many other democratic states, is absolutely on target. I hope that the Minister might at least give us a very slight indication that the Government might be just a little interested in this, even though it would be very dangerous for them to encourage more people to vote.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for his introduction to his amendment. I thought what he said about the opportunities that are available for new technologies to drive inclusion in our electoral process is really important if we are looking to the future. We completely support his aim to encourage the Government to invest much more in technologies in this area. As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, let us catch up with many other countries which are looking to do this and looking to invest more in this in the future.
One thing we do know is that electronic voting machines are often more accessible for disabled voters. I give the example of the United States, where visually impaired voters can use an audio interface while those with paralysed limbs can select candidates from a screen using head movements. There are all sorts of different innovations that we should be looking to investigate and see how we can bring them into our own system.
I turn to my amendment. The Government’s 2019 manifesto—I go back to their manifesto—included a commitment to
“make it easier for British expats to vote in Parliamentary elections”.
I also say, as part of that, they should be looking at the Electoral Commission’s research after the elections since 2015, which has consistently found that overseas voters have experienced difficulties in voting from outside the UK. This is mainly because many did not have enough time to receive and return their postal vote before the close of the poll.
I am aware that the Government are looking at ways to improve that, but it strikes me that as the Electoral Commission also recommends that the Government explore new approaches to improve access to voting and draws on evidence from other countries, there is an opportunity here, which is why I tabled the amendment. I hope that this will encourage the Government to consider more research into digital technologies and look at what is happening in other countries in order to drive inclusion and enable a quicker and more efficient system for those voters who live outside the UK.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, these amendments both seek to improve and expedite means of voting for British citizens living overseas. My noble friend mentioned Estonia and although Estonia has e-voting, it still uses paper ballots and less than half of Estonian voters use the e-voting system, which relies on the national ID card as a credential to vote. The blockchain technology which supports its system, although advanced in security, is not foolproof and hackers are becoming more and more sophisticated.
That leads me to Amendments 144 and 209, which would require the Government to conduct research on electronic voting and technological solutions to increase the security of the electoral register. I fully understand that electronic voting and further technological solutions supporting our processes may sound attractive in the light of ongoing digital advances. However, all electronic changes are large-scale programmes and we are currently not persuaded of the need for them and are wary of the risks that they may usher. In particular, electronic voting is a double-edged sword.
The selection of elected representatives for Parliament and other public offices is regarded as requiring the highest possible level of integrity, and the introduction of electronic voting would raise a number of issues. We know that electronic voting is not seen to be suitably rigorous and secure and could be vulnerable to attack or fraud by unscrupulous hackers and hostile foreign states.
Lord Scriven (LD)
If that is the case, can the noble Baroness then say why we are allowed to register to vote electronically and why the Government encourage us to do that?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Security is not as necessary for that as it would be for voting.
Amendment 150 from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, would require the Government to ask the Electoral Commission to make proposals on how to facilitate the participation of overseas electors in parliamentary and local government elections while maintaining the security of the election process. I highlight the fact that British citizens resident abroad who are registered as overseas electors are not currently permitted to vote in local elections, though they may participate in parliamentary elections. Overseas electors are, by definition, more likely to be directly affected by decisions made in the UK Parliament than by decisions made by local government. For example, decisions on foreign policy, defence, immigration, or pensions may have a direct impact on British citizens abroad. The Government have no intention to change the franchise for local elections in this way.
In a similar vein, Amendment 151, tabled by the noble Baroness, would require the Government to consult on the possibility of introducing digital ballots for overseas electors within six months of the Bill passing. Ballot papers are printed on specific papers with security markings on them as a measure to prevent fraud. This cannot be replicated when printing on home printers and it would raise concerns as to the secrecy and security of the ballot if such measures were removed. Furthermore, the votes of overseas electors could then be easily distinguishable at a count if, for example, they were printed on different paper. That cannot be appropriate. As such, the Government cannot support the introduction of a “print and return” system for ballot papers.
On a wider interpretation of “digital ballots”, the Government hold the position that, at present, there are concerns that electronic voting by any means is not suitably rigorous and secure and could be vulnerable to attack or fraud. Due to these concerns, the Government could not support any alternative online voting option for overseas electors. This consultation, therefore, would be a poor use of time and resources.
The provisions in the Bill will enable overseas electors to remain registered for longer with an absent vote arrangement in place ahead of elections. The registration period for overseas electors will be extended from one year to three years. Additionally, electors will be able to reapply or refresh their absent vote arrangements as appropriate at the same time as renewing their registration. We are also introducing an online absent vote application service allowing electors registered in Great Britain, including overseas electors, to apply for a postal or proxy vote online. It is anticipated that an online service will alleviate some of the pre-existing challenges for electors and electoral administrators, by reducing the need to rely on manual processes. In addition to benefiting citizens, these changes will benefit electoral administrators by reducing workloads during busy electoral periods.
Additionally, the Government have already improved the postal voting process for overseas electors registered in Great Britain by working with Royal Mail and the British Forces Post Office to expedite dispatch abroad and funding the use of the international business response licence which expedites the return of ballot packs from overseas in a large number of countries, as well as covering any postage costs that might otherwise be incurred.
In summary, the Government have already taken steps to improve voting methods for overseas electors, without risking the integrity of the ballot, and will not consider these amendments. I urge that the amendment is withdrawn.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, I have the greatest respect for the Minister, but that was an extraordinarily disappointing response. The amendments merely asked the Government to consider these areas, but the response was, “We will not”. From the Minister’s response, we would take it that the current electoral system is without difficulties or problems. The intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, was germane, because one could register online with whatever means one chose, with no real checks. It probably boils down to still messing around with gas bills as some kind of proof of identity, but where is the quality of that? Nowhere. At this stage, I will withdraw the amendment, but I have to say that that was an extraordinarily poor response.
“Qualification for standing in local authority elections: temporary housing exception
In section 79(1) of the Local Government Act 1972 (qualifications for election and holding office as member of local authority), at the end insert “; or“(f) he or she may have otherwise qualified under any combination of paragraphs (a) to (e) if he or she had not been provided temporary housing outside of the area by the local authority.””Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would protect the right of people in temporary housing to stand for election where the local authority provides temporary housing outside of the local authority area.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I move and speak to Amendment 144E, which noble Lords will have noticed appears in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, but operating on our normal lark and owl rota, this one falls to me at the owl end of the evening.
We have just been talking about some major issues around the Bill and our whole electoral system. Here, we are doing something that some might regard as a more traditional aspect of your Lordships’ House: the scrutiny, modest measures, cleaning and tidying and curing of small injustices. Amendment 144E amends Section 79(1) of the Local Government Act 1972, addressing the situation where people have been placed by their local council into temporary housing outside the area for which they wish to stand for election.
We know that housing is now a huge issue. Many people are struggling to find housing, many people are being displaced and many local councils are struggling to find housing. The amendment comes from the case of a person who contacted our office who wants to stand in the forthcoming local elections and, through absolutely no fault of their own, under the current rules have been made ineligible to stand because they have been placed in temporary housing outside the local authority area.
It is obvious that this is not an isolated case. It is a factor of the current qualifications for standing in local elections. It is a case of instant disqualification. Someone may have been in an area for decades and be really embedded in that area, part of that community and have something to offer it but, because of the lack of housing—perhaps a failure of the local authority—they are suddenly unable to stand and to contribute. Of course, this can affect any candidate, regardless of their party or their social or economic situation. Perhaps they have been evicted because a landlord is selling the home they have been living in, perhaps they are fleeing domestic abuse. There is a whole host of other reasons why people might need temporary accommodation. They may have been planning stand in the forthcoming election for years, but the placement outside the borough scuppers all their hard work.
This is a small, modest amendment that would affect only a very small number of people, but it would address a basic injustice. I hope that I will get broad support across the Committee for the amendment and the Government might feel able to move modestly on it. I beg to move.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak briefly to this amendment, which would protect the rights of people in temporary housing to stand for election where the local authority provides temporary housing outside the local authority area. At any given point, close to 100,000 households live in temporary accommodation, according to quarterly statistics published by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, is right to draw attention to their right to participate in the democratic process, and I fully support the intention behind her amendment. We on these Benches fully support the points she made. Those who live in temporary accommodation are often most in need of their voice being heard, especially at local authority level. The suggestion that they would be prevented from standing for the relevant local authority due to the fact that their temporary accommodation is located outside the boundary is absurd. I hope the Minister will accept the case behind the amendment and work with the noble Baroness to find a solution to the problem.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for the amendment. Although admirable in its intent, it introduces an unwelcome subjective element into the current objective criteria that specify qualifications for election as a member of a local authority. It presupposes that an individual, if moved by their local authority into temporary accommodation out of the area where they are standing for election, would otherwise satisfy the qualification criteria had they not been moved by their local authority.
The qualification criteria for local elected office must be beyond doubt. The amendment as drafted would remove the demonstration of consistent connection with an area that the current criteria rightly demand. The amendment would introduce a subjective qualification that the individual believes that they would otherwise categorically have remained eligible within the existing criteria, but this is not objective; it could be neither proved nor disproved. It would be unreasonable for the local electorate to be asked to consider voting for someone who may no longer have a strong connection with the local area nor any demonstrable proof that they would otherwise have maintained that contact.
There are other criteria for standing in local elections, and I think it is important that anyone in this situation looks at those—specifically, that they have been a local government elector for the last 12 months and that they have during the last 12 months preceding that day occupied as owner or tenant any land or other premises in that area. If they work in that area then they can stand for local election, or if they have resided there for the whole of those 12 months before they were moved just before the election. Also, there is the case that they are a member of a parish or community council. There are other points for people to consider.
We have looked at this and will give it further thought, because it is an interesting concept that has not come up before. We do not make any promises, but we will look at it. At this moment, though, the Government cannot accept the amendment and I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw it. Maybe we can have further conversations.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, that was a very short but productive group. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Khan of Burnley, for his offer of support.
I note that, with 100,000 households affected, we are not just talking about a few people; there is a significant group here. To respond to the Minister, we often think about people being moved long distances from an area, but it could literally be to the other side of the road—that would still technically be out of the area. However, I very much thank the Minister for her constructive response. I will not go through it line by line now, but I would very much like to work with her to see how we can address this issue.
I just make the point that, if you had resided there for the whole 12 months—maybe you were moved into temporary accommodation the day before—there are obviously areas there that do not help. With regard to working, again, people may volunteer in the area but maybe what they spend much of their time doing is not work in terms of that qualification. However, I very much take encouragement and I hope to work with the Minister in future to see what we can do with this. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Return of election deposits where a candidate's party elects at least one MP
(1) Rule 53 of Schedule 1 to RPA 1983 (forfeiture of deposit) is amended as follows.(2) After paragraph (3) insert—“(3A) Where a candidate has been authorised to use a party description under rule 6A of these rules, the deposit shall be returned as soon as practicable after any candidate using the same party description is elected in any constituency at that general election.”(3) In paragraph (4) after “paragraph (3)” insert “and (3A)”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would return the election deposits to all general election candidates whose registered party elects at least one MP.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I rise again to speak to amendments in my name, starting with Amendment 144F, which moves us back to a larger scale. It would amend the part of the Representation of the People Act 1983 that deals with deposit forfeiture to return election deposits to all general election candidates whose registered party achieves at least one MP. Those Members of your Lordships’ House who are still paying acute attention at this hour of the evening might have noticed that I have to declare an interest at this point.
The “one MP” point is not chosen randomly or for self-interest. It surprises many voters when they find out that to stand in a general election you have to pay a £500 deposit. Maybe many say, “A one-off payment of £500 is not that large a sum of money”; it is for many people in many communities, but maybe it does not seem that much. However, put that at a national scale: to take the example of the Green Party in the 2019 election, 465 lost deposits cost us £232,500, the best part of a quarter of a million pounds. I am aware that for some political parties that might look more or less like change down the back of the sofa, but to us it is a massive sum of money, a sum that in our case is largely raised by crowdfunding at a local level, people putting their £10 or £20 in to support local democracy.
What we have is a very odd situation—here I come to why the “one MP” criterion is in the amendment—because, in our system, we have what is known as Short money. It was introduced in the Commons in 1975 and is available to all Opposition parties that either secured two seats or one seat and more than 150,000 votes at the previous general election. It is payable to qualifying parties as £18,400 for every seat won at the last election, plus £36 for every 200 votes gained by the party. When people say to me, “I think my vote is being wasted because it didn’t elect someone”, it is always worth pointing out that it does have an impact in terms of Short money.
In the context of this amendment, we have a situation where with one hand the state deliberately gives money to parties that have won at least one seat and got a certain number of votes but, with the other, takes it away in terms of the election deposits. This is, in effect, a tax on democracy. If we look at the comparison with many other democracies around the world—on earlier groups we were talking about comparisons in many ways and how we appear to fall short compared with other democracies—it is interesting that many other democracies in Europe and other parts of the world fund the operations of their political parties on a regular basis, not just in parliament but in terms of funding research and election campaigns. They acknowledge that, if we do not all collectively fund politics, the people who do fund it are the ones who then get the politics that they have paid for. We are now in a situation where we are getting politics paid for by a relatively small number of people, and election deposits make that far worse.
I will be interested to hear from the Government what their current justification for election deposits are, but I expect that they might say the £500 deposit discourages frivolous running for office and joke candidates—at which point I would invite them to look at any list of candidates standing in any general election or high-profile by-election, as it does not really seem to do the job.
If the Government do not like Amendment 144F and the immediate step to end this tax on democracy, I have the alternative Amendment 212F, which is a simpler and less immediate action. It calls for a review of election deposits and the exploration of alternatives. If the Government were to acknowledge that there is an issue here that deserves to be explored and should be considered, Amendment 212F is a way of getting to that by taking a longer and more considered view of how we might approach this situation and end this barrier to democracy. As we were discussing on an earlier group, the Government said in their impact assessment of this Bill that their aim is to improve access to democracy. Taking away the deposits could be one important step for that. I beg to move.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness has come up with a very cunning plan and I have to say that, as a Liberal Democrat, I can see its merits immediately. I just say one thing to her, which is that it is usually a mistake to put all your dice on one number. There is about £250,000 at stake if that seat were, by any mischance, to be lost. That may be a good reason for me to be more enthusiastic about her second amendment than her first, which might be a case of being careful what you wish for.
Nevertheless, she has raised some important issues which are clearly relevant to all political parties other than the big two—it has to be said that the big two also waste money on lost deposits, although I am sure they do not think of it as being wasted so much as an investment for the future. That said, it is an interesting argument to link this to the payment of Short money from parliamentary funds to support those political parties which are represented in the other place. It will be interesting to see whether the Minister is in any way tempted to assist small parties with a £250,000 bounty, as compared to the very much bigger sums of money which he and his colleagues can summon up on demand when a general election arises.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I hear what the noble Baroness says, but there are many reasons for a deposit. It is a well-established practice and I do not accept that it is necessarily a barrier, bearing in mind the facilities that being a registered candidate gives you—not least free postage for an election communication to every elector. There are certainly a lot of things you can already benefit from as a properly accredited, validly nominated candidate. There are lots of responsibilities to that, so I do not see grounds for change.
However, that does not mean I am opposed to some sort of examination of precisely how the deposit system impacts on candidates. The noble Baroness said that an argument might be made that it acts as a barrier to participation, but then she said that, when you look at general elections, a lot of candidates are thrown in, particularly in high-profile seats. It is a form of registration; you get your money back if you get sufficient support, so I do not see the grounds for changing.
Lord True (Con)
My Lords, I am afraid that, having been able to be reasonably accommodating on the previous amendment, I cannot meet the noble Baroness on this one for very similar reasons to those argued by the noble Lord opposite. The reality is that candidates have to provide a deposit of £500, which is lost if they get less than 5% of the vote. It is designed, as the noble Lord said, to ensure that, normally, only those who are serious about seeking public office will put themselves forward for election. However, it does not seem to have deterred Lord Buckethead over the years I have been following elections, although I suspect the figure under the bucket may have changed—he has been around a long time.
As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said, candidates at parliamentary elections are entitled to have an item of election material sent to electors free of charge by the Royal Mail. Paying the deposit gives candidates access to over £20,000 of public money for this purpose in a typical case. This is a factor in the level of deposit required from candidates.
The noble Baroness proposes that, at a general election where a candidate standing wins one seat for a party, all other candidates standing for that party would be entitled to have their deposit returned regardless of the level of vote they receive. At a general election, there are a series of individual contests in individual constituencies across the country, as the Green Party knows very well from its successes. We submit that it would be a significant change for a result in one constituency to have any impact on contests in others. You can have very different results down the road; that is germane to a general election. While candidates can be members of parties, they stand for election on an individual basis and the law views them as such in terms of deposits.
As the noble Baroness sees it, this would help her party, which secured a little more than 2.5% of the vote nationally. The noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said it might help other parties. However, the reality is that, as she acknowledged, the Greens were not so popular, because they lost their deposit in 465 constituencies, which was up from 456 lost deposits in the previous election—they actually lost more. This amendment would require, as the noble Baroness acknowledged, nearly £250,000 of taxpayers’ money to be returned to Green candidates who had been rejected by taxpayers at the polls.
We would also need to consider very carefully the implication the proposal would have in individual constituencies. It could unfairly and, in my submission, inequitably disadvantage single, local independent candidates—we all know them, people who have strong issues in a local constituency, who put themselves on the line. They may get more of a share in a particular constituency than this national party, and then find someone they had beaten gets their deposit back, but they do not. A level playing field for elections is essential for our democratic processes, so I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that this would need a lot more consideration before we could go near this. The Government constantly review electoral activity, but I regret to say that we cannot support this change, and I urge the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, to withdraw this amendment.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords who have participated in this short debate and thank the Minister for his response. I would perhaps question the classification of general elections as measures of popularity; they are reflections of popularity, since people have to deal with the first past the post voting system. If we look at the last election, it might have been taken as a measure of popularity where votes more or less matched seats, and people knew that their votes counted. It was the last European election where the Green Party got 11% of the vote and finished ahead of the Conservative Party in that particular measure of popularity under a different voting system.
I wish to pick up on a couple of points. Both the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, picked up the point about the one seat issue. I take their points, but the fact is that, with Short money, there is already a legal situation that says one seat means you will be regarded as a national party. I am interested in the Minister’s comments, with his strong stress on each seat being an individual contest, which does not really seem to be the way the Conservative Party has been fighting recent elections, or the way recent elections have been treated by the media.
On the Minister’s point about disadvantaging single local candidates, around the country at a local council level we are seeing groups of candidates representing their local area—I am thinking of Herefordshire, but there are other areas where significant groups of councillors have come together as representatives of their local area, and they might want to run in a number of seats where they represent the council, and that is a very large sum of money.
The noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, said it is not a barrier to participation because you get your money back if you get sufficient support, but that implies you are able essentially to gamble £500. While there are many people in our society who can say, “Well, here is £500—I will get it back or I will not”, there are an awful lot of people for whom that is not a financially viable situation, who do not have access to that £500 to start off with.
I think this has been the start of a conversation. I took encouragement from the comment by the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, that the idea of a review might be of interest to the Labour Party. I think that is something that I might look to take forward in the future, and I hope we might be able to work on that. This has been very much the start of a conversation which has a long way to run, but at least it has been started. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock
“(c) on that date a red notice has not been issued in respect of the individual by Interpol.”Member’s explanatory statement
This probing amendment would prevent those who have been issued a red notice by Interpol from being overseas electors.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I have tabled my Amendments 146 and 147 mainly to probe what kind of checks and balances are taking place for who can register for a vote as an overseas elector. This is because our main concern about the overseas elector section of the Bill is that it could undermine the integrity of our electoral process if not done well. I have mentioned in previous debates concerns raised by local government and others about the pressures on our councils and election teams, which are already overworked and underresourced. These changes to who can register as an overseas elector will in some areas greatly add to the pressures and workload, so they will need support in making sure that everyone who applies is a proper person to be on the register.
I also draw attention to the fact that we are very worried that the proposed changes could create a loophole in donation law that would allow donors unlimited access to our democracy—in other words, foreign money to be able to bankroll election campaigns from potential offshore tax havens. I will not go into any detail now, because we are going to debate this in some detail on Monday.
Whether we agree with removing the 15-year limit or not, it does not seem right to me that expats will be granted more flexibility in registering a right to vote than some people living in this country. My noble friend Lord Collins will talk about this in the next debate.
I want to briefly talk to my Amendment 148. The issue of sanctions is pertinent at the moment, given Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has led to new legislation and designations of Russian individuals and businesses. This has shone a light on the complexities of sanctions legislation and the importance of the entire statute book complying with such declarations. The purpose of this amendment is to highlight that election law must too be implemented in accordance with any sanctions legislation. There is clear evidence that Putin’s regime has sought to undermine democracies around the world, and it is entirely possible that, in the future, it may seek to do the same in relation to the UK. For this reason, public bodies in the UK that organise and facilitate elections must work closely with the bodies responsible for maintaining our compliance with sanctions. Ultimately, this means ensuring that sanctioned individuals play no role in elections. But given the complexities of holding elections, this is easier said than done. That is why we have tabled this amendment—in the hope that the Minister is able to explain how the Government can help to ensure that elections are held with consideration of sanctions legislation, to prevent foreign interference from hostile actors. I beg to move.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, I wish to speak to the two amendments in my name, Amendments 147A and 147B. They are meant to be helpful, in the same way that the amendments I put down on postal voting numbers and handing them back at city halls or town halls were meant to be helpful—helpful in the sense that they come from briefings from and discussions with those who administer the elections. What those people are saying is that they welcome the move from annual to three-yearly registrations for overseas voters, but that the new three-year period might not help with the administrative burden because general elections can be five years apart. Therefore, people registering late and not every three years, as the tendency is, will mean that the problem from the impact assessment that the Government are trying to solve—about late registrations posing
“challenges for persons who choose to vote by postal ballot and live further away from the UK”
in getting their vote back—may not be solved by what the Government are doing.
I seek clarification from the Government. What advice has come back from the discussions they have had with electoral registration officers? Do they feel it would solve the problem to move to the three-year gap or that, in their view, a five-year period for re-registration would help to deal with the problem that the Government identify in their own impact assessment?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, overseas voting extension is an important part of this Bill, one of the many bits that is substantially changing the pattern of voting. It could add a couple of million extra voters and deserves better than the treatment it is getting at present. Some of us may wish to discuss whether we will oppose Clause 12 standing part on Report just to make sure we have a proper discussion. I have been struck, in everything I have read and discussed with Ministers and officials, by the fact that this has not been thought through and has been poorly prepared. If I were unduly suspicious, I would say that Ministers are more interested in getting donations from people who will then come on to the register than they are in really getting proper overseas representation.
We know where this comes from: the campaign that Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, when he was head of the Conservative Party’s international office, took to encourage overseas voters, particularly retired British expatriates in Spain and France, to register. Academic research that I found, which the Minister, when I spoke to him, appeared to be unaware of, showed that the distribution of votes—I do not know whether the Minister is listening to me; he may not be interested—in constituencies had been lopsided from the start. It was always concentrated in London and the south-east. Now, it continues to be very lopsided. The Minister said that he was unaware of the distribution of votes by constituency. I found it out quite easily, through the Office for National Statistics. I am sorry it was not available to him. It ranges from over 2,000 in several north London constituencies, to 25 or so in various Welsh constituencies. If we double that, the maldistribution of overseas voters in different constituencies will entirely undo the redrawing of the boundaries to make them more accurate, which is just going through.
The academic research in the mid-1990s suggested that two-thirds of overseas voters in 1992 had voted Conservative, but only in small numbers. After the introduction of individual electoral registration allowed Conservatives abroad to mount a registration drive on individual registration from abroad, numbers rose from 33,000 in 2010 to 106,000 in 2015. The Conservative Party International Office encouraged targeted donations from abroad to marginal seats in the 2015 general election, showing that donations were a very important part of this. After the referendum, the numbers registered surged to over 300,000, which perhaps suggests that the Conservative assumption that they are all going to vote Conservative may have been a little shakier than they had intended.
There are many weaknesses with the proposals as they currently stand. First, in a Bill that tightens identity checks for domestic voters, the identity checks for overseas voters are extremely weak. Furthermore, the Government do not know who the overseas citizens are, how many of them there are or where they live. I put down a series of Written Questions six months ago, and the answers I got to most of these was “We do not have the figures”. I asked the Foreign Office what information it had, and it said that it plays no role in the registration of overseas voters and it does not expect to play any role in assisting them to vote. If the Minister had looked at comparisons of the way in which other Governments handle overseas voting, he would have noted that embassies and high commissions play a very active role in this. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, reminded me that the largest polling station in Australia is at the other end of the Strand in London. The British Government apparently do not want to get involved in that, and it would be very complicated.
The problem we were discussing about digitisation and how to get the balance out and then get them back in a short campaign, remains and is already a grievance with overseas voters.
The absence of preparation, therefore, is absolutely clear. The problem of how you identify fraud is very considerable if the Government have such little information on where citizens are and who they might be. The identification checks are very weak, and the powers given to the Secretary of State to take whatever measures he thinks appropriate to provide information campaigns suggest that a particular Secretary of State might decide that Portugal, Spain, Italy or France are where he wants to concentrate their efforts, rather than on those who retired to Jamaica or southern Nigeria or Pakistan.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
Or Belgium: exactly. There are many weaknesses in this. We put down another amendment, which comes in the next group, suggesting that the appropriate answer is overseas constituencies. The idea that people should vote in constituencies in which they have not lived for 50 years is absolutely absurd. My conversation with my local ERO suggested that trying to check on whether they actually have lived there or not might prove an impossible task.
This is a very shaky part of the Bill. My conversation with the Minister and officials suggests that they have not thought this through; it seems the Minister is not interested in thinking it through any further. I suspect, therefore, that it is the donations that they are really interested in, and this leaves me very discontented with this part of the Bill.
Lord Stunell (LD)
My Lords, I want to ask some technical questions, without necessarily knowing what the correct answer is myself. I hope that the Minister, if he is not able to answer today, would be prepared to write to provide a further explanation.
I start by referring to some of the text of Clause 12. On page 14, line 13, under the new section “Extension of parliamentary franchise”, there are various conditions that a person has to satisfy. They have to be,
“not subject to any legal incapacity to vote (age apart)”
et cetera. I take it—perhaps the Minister can consult the Box to get an answer to this—that that is to make sure that nobody overseas registers who is under age. I assume that is the meaning of that. If I am wrong about that, then there might be a whole set of questions arising, but that seems to be the common-sense explanation for those two words in brackets.
I want to move on to the next page of the same clause. New Section 1B is headed,
“British citizens overseas: entitlement to be registered”.
The proposed new section sets out that, essentially, there are two ways in which one can qualify to be registered. The first is as a former elector in a United Kingdom constituency. There will be discussions about that, I am sure, but the second is what I want to focus on at the moment. The second condition is that you were a former resident in a UK constituency. We already know that there is quite a large number of people who are not registered, because we discussed earlier on that the Electoral Commission’s estimate is that in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, there are somewhere between 8.6 million and 9.8 million people who are currently resident but not on the electoral roll. There is, therefore, quite a large pool of people who, presumably in approximately equal proportion, will be overseas now. There is no special preference for people who have registered being the people who have migrated.
So my question is: does this legislation grant voting rights to someone who left the UK with their parents as a baby and moved to Switzerland, say, to claim their vote alongside their parents, once they reach the age of 18 overseas? If it does, I note that there does not seem to be any requirement for that baby to have been born in the United Kingdom; they need to establish only that they were resident here. As far as I can tell, there is no specified minimum period for that residence.
I will take a case that is not entirely hypothetical. Parents who came to the United Kingdom, having been working in Ghana, with a baby who was born in England, move to Switzerland six months later. It seems that nothing is set out in the legislation to prevent that baby from claiming their vote on reaching 18 while still living overseas. I want to check that I have not misunderstood what the legislation is saying there and that, by virtue of that brief period of residence, they would be eligible to vote and—I suppose I could add—to make a donation. If that is true, I know of two British nationals now in their 50s who will be very happy to take up the offer.
But I want to know whether that really is the extension to the franchise that the Government want or whether I have actually missed something and, in some other part of the RPA—or Schedule 9 or goodness knows where else—there is something that would prevent that absurd outcome.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I will first answer the noble Lord, Lord Stunell: it is late and I do not have all the answers, but we will get a letter to him as soon as we can to answer his questions.
Amendment 146 seeks to place a time limit on overseas electors’ connections with the UK. Imposing a new time limit, albeit a longer one, does not deliver on our manifesto commitment to introduce votes for life. The Government’s view is that any time limit is arbitrary in an increasingly global and connected world. Length of time outside the UK is not a certain indicator of how a person feels about their British identity or a measure of the interest that they take in this country’s future. The Bill sets a sensible boundary for the overseas franchise. Previous registration or residence denotes a strong degree of connection to the UK.
Amendments 145, 147 and 148 seek to prevent people who have committed offences or been sanctioned under the described Acts, or those who are subject to an Interpol red notice, from registering as overseas electors. Domestic electors are not required to declare whether they have ever committed offences under the Acts described, and the Government will not impose these requirements on overseas electors. Overseas electors would be subject to the same restrictions as domestic electors in respect of offences relating to personation and postal vote fraud that result in a temporary bar from voting upon a person being convicted or named as personally guilty of that offence.
In a situation where a domestic elector would not be permanently barred from voting, we would wish to treat an overseas elector equally—
Lord Stunell (LD)
The Minister has just said that exactly the same restrictions would apply to overseas voters as to voters in the UK. If an overseas voter had been sent to prison in Switzerland, say, for 18 months, would they be able to vote from prison there, or would we have a mechanism for making sure that they were not competent to vote in that situation?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I think that is a hypothetical question, but I shall certainly get a legal opinion on it.
On Amendment 148, as the noble Baroness said, all those issues on sanctions should be dealt with on Monday, within the group on donations, if she does not mind. I think that is the sensible place to have that debate. Therefore, I urge her not to press the amendments.
Lord Scriven (LD)
The five-year period in my amendment comes from a briefing from Solace. Could I suggest that further discussion takes place to see whether something has happened since the original discussion?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I shall certainly ask the team to go back and check. I do not know whether it was Solace or another group that has been working with the policy team on this. We will check that out for the noble Lord and see why there is a difference.
Furthermore, the Bill carefully balances the need to ensure that registers are kept accurate and that overseas electors’ contact details are up to date, which is particularly important to ensure that they receive a postal ballot. I hope the noble Lord will consider these points and not press his amendments
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response. I will just make a couple of points. One is that there is quite a bit of concern about this part of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, talked about concerns about proper checks, which is what we are very concerned about—making sure that those checks are done so that the people who are asking to come on to the register who have not been in this country for a long time are proper people to come on to the register, and the checks and balances have taken place properly and correctly. Also, if that is going to happen, what about the support for local authorities and election teams? It could be a lot of work in some areas. At some point, it would be good to return to this issue.
I completely take the Minister’s point about looking at sanctions in more detail in the debate on Monday. That is a particularly important thing that we need to spend some time on, even if the broader debate is not one that the Government want to spend time on. We need to look at that. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
“Creation of overseas constituencies
(1) Within six months of the passing of this Act, and prior to section 12 coming into force, the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament on proposals for overseas constituencies.(2) A report under subsection (1) must consider proposals on—(a) the most suitable deployment of overseas constituencies;(b) the ratio of nationals per MP;(c) the impact on existing UK constituencies;(d) the local administration of ballots;(e) the appointment of returning officers; and(f) the form of proportional representation best suited to electing Members of Parliament to represent overseas constituencies.(3) In preparing a report under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must consult—(a) the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the House of Commons;(b) the Constitution Committee of the House of Lords;(c) the appropriate committees of the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru and the Northern Ireland Assembly;(d) the Electoral Commission;(e) the Association of Electoral Administrators; and(f) any other person they consider appropriate.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to report on the creation of overseas constituencies.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, if the Government were in a mood to try to build any sort of consensus on the Bill, which they clearly are not, I would hope that they would be willing to consider accepting some part of this amendment; it does not say that we should necessarily create overseas constituencies but that we should at least consider them.
If I may anticipate the Minister’s comment that this would be an enormous innovation, I point out that the extension of the franchise to people who have lived abroad all their life is itself an enormous innovation. If I were to follow the line that he has argued on former subjects—that we should be looking at the practice of other countries—overseas constituencies are a practice in a number of democratic countries for very obvious reasons. If you are looking after your overseas voters, they have lost their links with their local constituencies, they are much more distant than they were and they have a different set of interests and it is therefore perhaps appropriate for overseas constituencies to be created.
It may be that we have not yet thought this through. I suspect that the Government have not thought about it at all because they do not have the numbers or any of the practice or documentation that the French, for example, have about their overseas citizens with support from their embassies, consulates and others. Nor have we looked into what we do about dual and triple nationals, an increasingly large and difficult category, as we have discovered in our relations with Iran and China in recent years, which takes us into the question of how we might redefine British citizenship as such in a much more global world. The question of how parties fund keeping in touch with overseas voters is the most sensitive one because we know that one of the underlying structural biases in our electoral system is that one party has two-thirds of the funds available for political parties and the others have a great deal less, so we know which party will be able to keep in touch with the overseas voters it wants and the others will not be able to do so.
Having said that, I hope the Minister will recognise that there is a case for looking at this. The current proposals will concentrate overseas voters, by and large, in London, Surrey and other home county constituencies. We do not know the implications of that. A Conservative Peer of my acquaintance told me that the one overseas constituency in France which consistently votes left is the one that includes London; he suspects that there might be some similar interesting differences in where people are living as opposed to where they come from, but at least we ought to be looking at that as part of the package. I therefore ask the Government not to close their mind to this and not to demonstrate that getting this done without thinking through the implications is all they are really concerned with. As part of approaching this major extension of the British franchise, they should look at this, as other countries have done. I beg to move.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I have very little to say other than that it is a very interesting suggestion and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for bringing it forward and giving us food for thought. I had no idea that France had overseas constituencies until he tabled his amendment and I looked into it. It is an interesting suggestion.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I fear that at this late hour, I will disappoint the noble Lord. This amendment would require the Government to prepare a report on proposals for the creation of overseas constituencies. The Bill will allow overseas electors to continue to vote in constituencies to which they have a significant and demonstrable connection. This constituency link has always been and continues to be a cornerstone of our democracy. Creating overseas constituencies is therefore not something the Government are considering. To commission a report on the topic is unnecessary. Overseas electors will continue to register in the constituencies to which they have a significant and demonstrable connection.
As the amendment acknowledges, there are extensive and complex bureaucratic challenges to implementing overseas constituencies. There would, for example, be ongoing complexities regarding how constituency boundaries and their electorate would be determined and maintained with a constituency stretching across multiple countries and being affected by fluctuating migration. Furthermore, electoral administration for overseas constituencies would have to be done in a very different way from the current process, whereby it is undertaken by local authorities. We would need to address matters such as: who would be responsible for maintaining the register of electors and administering the polls for an overseas constituency. Overseas constituencies would not fit in with the existing arrangements for organising constituencies and delivering elections, and establishing them would require the consideration of a range of complex issues. I hope the noble Lord will feel able to reconsider this suggestion and withdraw his amendment.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, that is not at all surprising as an answer. I point out that the extensive and bureaucratic challenges to which the Minister refers are involved in extending the vote to overseas voters in the first place. Those challenges will be met by local registration officers in Britain, but if we are to have a different relationship with our 5 million to 7 million citizens abroad, we need to look at it in a rather more rounded way and consider how we manage it. It is not a question of just extending the vote and leaving it like that.
After all, we have got into some difficulty in recent years with the question of how we relate to overseas citizens, particularly our dual nationals when they are imprisoned in the other countries of their nationality—and these are not particularly friendly countries. That needs to be thought about.
What I hear from the Government throughout the Bill is that they are not interested in anything except their current agenda. They are not interested in thinking through the implications of some of their proposals. I have talked to Canadian Senators about how they cope with these voters. I am aware of the French system; I am surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, was not. The Britain, Ireland and Nordic constituency is one of its five overseas constituencies. Many people in London are French and therefore vote in French elections. In the last presidential election campaign, Macron came to address a large meeting in London as part of his campaign. If we were to move in that direction, of course British politicians would need to think about which other countries they would go to campaign in. There are some large implications of this which, if I may say so, the Government appear simply not to have thought through as they push this through.
That is the problem with an awful lot of this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord True, will be responsible for having assisted and enabled a thoroughly badly thought-through Bill to become law. That will be on his conscience and his responsibility. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.