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HM Passport Office Backlogs
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Home Secretary if she will make a statement on backlogs at Her Majesty’s Passport Office.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Tom Pursglove)
Due to covid-19, more than 5 million people delayed their passport applications in 2020 and 2021. With demand for international travel having returned, Her Majesty’s Passport Office is currently receiving a higher number of passport applications than ever before; 9.5 million applications are expected in 2022 compared with approximately 7 million in a normal year.
Since April 2021, 500 new staff have joined and a further 700 will join by the summer. As a result, the vast majority of passport applications are being processed within the 10-week timeframe and more than 90% within six weeks. Less than 1.4% of the passports printed last week for UK applications had been in the system for longer than 10 weeks.
With a record number of applications in the system, customer inquiries have increased accordingly. However, the passport advice line, which is run by Teleperformance, is not currently meeting the needs of passport customers. Clearly, that is not acceptable. The Home Office has clear standards for the level of service that suppliers are expected to provide.
Her Majesty’s Passport Office has engaged with Teleperformance at its most senior levels to emphasise the need to significantly improve performance as soon as possible. Alongside steps to bring the operation of the passport advice line, email and call-back functions within the required standard, Teleperformance is urgently bolstering staff numbers in response to the recent surge in customer contact, with 500 additional staff due to be added by mid-June.
We recognise that hon. Members will wish to raise cases and queries on behalf of their constituents, as is, of course, right and proper. Her Majesty’s Passport Office staff have therefore been deployed to answer passport-related inquiries to the Home Office’s dedicated MPs hotline and, for the most urgent cases, they will also be available to conduct in-person passport surgeries in Portcullis House.
Although we acknowledge that there have been issues with customer contact that must and will be resolved, I take the opportunity to recognise the work of Her Majesty’s Passport Office staff who continue to ensure that the vast majority of passport applications are processed in under 10 weeks. Their efforts, alongside the extensive work that went into preparing for record demand, have ensured that passport applications continue to be processed in higher numbers than ever before.
Across March and April 2022, Her Majesty’s Passport Office completed the processing of nearly 2 million applications. As that output demonstrates, HMPO staff are firmly focused on maintaining a high level of service and are fully committed to ensuring that people receive their passports in good time for their summer holidays.
Nick Smith
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.
I thank the staff working on the passport backlog, but many people across our country will not be satisfied with the Minister’s response today. A constituent told me yesterday:
“It’s terrible. We’re due to fly out on Sunday but are still unable to get our youngest son’s passport. Every time I phone I get passed to a different department, then hold, then the phone line goes dead.”
Another told me:
“I’ve called 40 times in the past week, they cut me off every time. I don’t know what to do and am breaking down at this point.”
The facts are that there are long queues outside passport offices; that hours and hours are being spent on phone lines; and that families are afraid of holidays getting cancelled. This situation was avoidable. It was obvious that, when restrictions ended, people would need passports to get away.
The Prime Minister blames a mañana culture at the Passport Office. We need a strategy that improves performance and helps families now, not those flippant comments. During a cost of living crisis, telling people to spend an extra £100 per person to fast-track their application rubs salt into their wounds.
Yesterday, the Home Secretary told us of record passport delivery, which is good, but we need the facts today. How big is the actual backlog? By when will the Passport Office’s too-long 10-week timeframe be down to the normal three weeks?
Deliveries are also delayed and other companies are having to help TNT. Its £77 million contract cannot be value for money, so will the Government be renewing that contract in July?
After years of covid, families finally want to get away this spring and summer. Instead, they face losing thousands of pounds if they cannot keep their holiday after the grief of chasing their passport. The Government need to do much, much better than this.
Tom Pursglove
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for putting in for this urgent question today and for the way that he approached his contribution.
I again thank HMPO staff for the tireless work that they are doing to issue passports as quickly as possible for people who have made those applications; in saying that, I am sure the whole House joins me. I can also confirm for the House’s benefit that the service I referred to in Portcullis House is now live and available for colleagues to access to get help with these matters. Of course, it is also worth pointing out that the Minister for safe and legal migration—the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster)—issued a “Dear colleague” letter yesterday that provided further detail on this issue.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned specifics in relation to contracts. Of course, what I must not do is get into contract-related deliberations on the Floor of the House today, but it is of course right to say that, where performance issues arise, candid conversations are had about performance and what interventions are required to improve performance, where necessary. I again reiterate for the House’s benefit that the key reality is that, between March and April 2022, Her Majesty’s Passport Office completed the processing of nearly 2 million applications. The vast majority of passport applications continue to be processed well within 10 weeks, with over 90% of applications issued within six weeks between January and March 2022. Less than 1.4% of the passports printed last week for UK applications had been in the system for longer than 10 weeks. Those are the facts. He asked for the facts. Those facts have been provided.
There is of course an expedited service available for individuals where passports have been in the system for more than 10 weeks, and I would certainly encourage people to avail themselves of that service if that is the situation they find themselves in. Of course, if there are Members of this House who have specific cases they wish to share with Ministers, we will happily take those away and look at them if colleagues make contact.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Can my hon. Friend tell us how many people employed in the Passport Office are still working from home, if indeed anybody is still working from home? It seems extraordinary that they may be. Can he also expand on the issue of the 10-week limit? If there is a 10-week guarantee, why should people in respect of whom that guarantee is not delivered have to pay a premium? Is not the consequence of all this that people are now panicking and applying for their new passports three or four months ahead, thereby adding to the burden on the Passport Office? Can he assure the House that the 10 weeks is a guarantee, and that anybody who does not get their passport within 10 weeks will get compensation for any consequences arising therefrom?
Tom Pursglove
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. What I can say for the House’s benefit is that, on homeworking, it is fair to say that, as in society as a whole, business as a whole and Government, we are seeing staff returning to the office to work. Of course, people’s working arrangements are in accordance with the approach taken within the Government to these matters. There is the expedited process after 10 weeks for individuals who require it, where passport applications have not been processed within that timeframe. As I have said, 98.6% of passports are renewed within the 10-week timeframe. If he has specifics that he would particularly like to raise with Ministers so that we can take those away and look into them, we will very happily do so.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
The chaos at the Passport Office reflects the wider failures of a Home Office that is simply not fit for purpose under this Home Secretary. The Government have had two years to prepare for a spike in passport applications after the pandemic. They were warned repeatedly about the possible backlog, but they have clearly not acted quickly enough to solve the problem. Can the Minister please explain why that is the case? Can he also tell us how many agency staff are now working to clear this backlog?
The Government have already changed the three-week target to a 10-week target. At the last urgent question on the subject, the Minister insisted that the 10-week target did not need to be adjusted. Given we now know that it is being repeatedly missed, is that still the case or has he changed his position? Can he confirm what the current average period from passport application to receipt of passport actually is?
Some of the cases colleagues are hearing about from their constituents are truly awful. In one case, a couple were trying to get back into the country with their new-born baby after the husband’s two-year work contract in France came to an end, but, having waited two months for a passport, they faced the daunting prospect of having to leave France without a passport for their baby.
The Minister will be aware of the problems MPs and their staff have had accessing any guidance from the Home Office helpline. Is that being addressed? The Prime Minister has threatened to privatise the Passport Office as a solution to this mess, but is it not the case that the privatised TNT courier service is already a major part of the problem, beset with long delays? Surely what we need is genuine leadership and strategy from the Home Secretary. The Home Office contract with TNT is due to end in July. Given its complete failures in delivering passports on time, can the Minister confirm whether the Home Office plans to renew TNT’s contract? Finally, given the thousands of pounds lost when holidays are cancelled, does the Minister accept that the Passport Office’s backlog chaos is making the cost of living crisis worse?
A Government who fail to plan are a Government who plan to fail, and the British people are paying the price for this latest in a growing list of Home Office failures.
Tom Pursglove
I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his contribution. I should make it clear that the 10-week timeframe is not guaranteed, but the expedited process is in place for individuals when it goes beyond 10 weeks. That is available and if colleagues raise specific cases with us directly I will happily ensure they are looked at.
On staffing, passport offices are of course based in seven locations across the UK, with 90% of staff based outside London. Her Majesty’s Passport Office staffing numbers have been increased by over 500 since last April and it is recruiting a further 700. As of 1 April, there were over 4,000 staff in passport production roles.
On the point about contracts, for the reasons I have set out, it would not be appropriate for me to get into the specifics of those contracts and their renewal, but I reiterate that it is right that we have candid conversations about performance against contracts. That does happen and it is happening in relation to these matters.
On the issue of Teleperformance, the provider of the passport advice line, we expect over 500 full-time equivalents to be added by mid-June compared with the position in mid-April. There has been a recent and temporary issue with the passport advice line which means some customers may be informed that they have dialled an incorrect number. Teleperformance is working to resolve that problem as soon as possible with the carrier. The line opened at its usual time of 8 this morning. Customers who have a problem with the usual number can call an alternative number, and there is further information on gov.uk and the HMPO’s Twitter account.
Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) for raising this urgent question. We have seen a number of cases where we are trying to get information and I have to be honest with the Minister: the phone lines we have at the moment as Members of Parliament are not fit for purpose. The advice hotline he has referred to is a general Home Office hotline; it does not always have information, and yesterday a member of my staff was on the phone for two hours and then got cut off. I need to be able to provide information to my constituents, who are getting incredibly stressed, so can we have a dedicated hotline on passport matters? I am very grateful for both the “Dear colleague” letter and the hub in Portcullis House, but can the Minister confirm that staff in the hub will have access so they can provide live updates from the system, rather than just general updates on the process?
Tom Pursglove
I am able to say yes to my hon. Friend in response to his question. I would certainly encourage him to take his cases to the Portcullis House hub to progress them accordingly and to receive the updates he seeks. I am grateful to him for raising that suggestion.
Mr Speaker
I call the Scottish National party spokesman, Stuart C. McDonald.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) for raising this question, because this mess is causing untold misery for people and families across the UK. It is not, as Members have said, about hard-working staff; it is about leadership and planning. On that note, I am worried that the Home Secretary just does not get the scale of the problem. Yesterday, like the Minister, she invited colleagues to send details of their cases directly. My inbox is bursting at the seams and is about to explode with the cases. If all 650 of us were to send our cases to the Home Secretary, she would never be able to look at her inbox again. Does the Home Secretary understand the scale of the problem? Does that complacency explain why it took the Home Office until April to flag up this issue to the public and warn them of the change in target times?
I welcome the new facility at PCH. However, on the phone lines, what are folk being charged for phoning? For example, I know that colleagues have noticed that their constituency office phone bills are going through the roof because staff are having to spend hours on phone lines. I hope that is not the case for members of the public. I seek reassurance on that.
We have been reassured that the Home Office expected this year to deal with 9.5 million British passport applications and had been planning for that, but something has gone wrong. Was it the estimate? Apparently not, given what the Minister said, so what went wrong with the preparation? It is all well and good to be told that the Passport Office is processing higher or record numbers, but that is not the test—the test is whether there are sufficient numbers and that is clearly not happening. When will the Passport Office have enough staff to process sufficient applications?
Mr Speaker
I thought Ian Blackford had returned. [Laughter.] Come on, Minister.
Tom Pursglove
I am always grateful for the constructive way in which the hon. Gentleman approaches these matters. Calls are charged at the local rate. I set out for the House the steps being taken to boost capacity in Her Majesty’s Passport Office but also in relation to the contractors that we work with to deliver these services. It is also the case that, after 10 weeks of proof of travel, within two weeks, the upgrade is free, should that be required. Again, I go back to the fact that 98.6% of passports are renewed within the 10-week timeframe and more than 90% are processed in just six weeks. However, it is right, in terms of the remainder, that we make the interventions we are making to improve matters. We want to see the best service possible delivered and that is precisely what those interventions seek to do.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
It is clear that all of us are being contacted by distressed constituents seeking their passports. It can be highly stressful for them to be chasing documents as they approach departure day—and business travel can be at even shorter notice than a planned holiday. I am encouraged to hear that significant recruitment is taking place at the Passport Office and that 1 million passport applications were completed in March alone—that is a good number—but will the Minister look at the progress being made with that recruitment? We clearly have a capacity issue, which we need to get through, and that will only be got through when we have boosted the capacity of those doing the applications.
Tom Pursglove
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Of course, I and ministerial colleagues recognise the distress caused when individuals cannot receive their passports in the timeframe that they seek. That is why we are taking steps to improve matters. On recruitment, I hear his point about trying to expedite this as much as possible. It is fair to say that we want to see progress made on that as quickly as possible, and I will certainly ensure that Home Office colleagues are sighted on his views. My hon. Friend the Minister for safe and legal migration has that at the forefront of his mind. We want to see that recruitment happen as quickly as possible.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question and to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) for securing it. I have already raised separately with the Minister that I have constituents who applied for a name change on a child’s passport on 9 February. My office has chased it twice and we are nearly into week 15 of waiting for a response from the Passport Office. I echo the comments of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher) about the MP hotline. This week, staff in my office have been cut off from the general hotline three times. I therefore welcome the PCH office. What reassurance can the Minister give us that the hotline will work properly and that calls will be answered? Many Members’ caseworkers are based in our constituencies, so the phone lines need to work. I plead with him to take up the particular issue of the child name change so that my constituents can travel in June on their long-deserved and very expensive holiday.
Tom Pursglove
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. If he shares the details with me, I will happily take that case away and look at it as a matter of priority. On the hotline-related issue for Members of Parliament, I hope I can provide some reassurance in saying that, in the light of the increased number of passport-related queries to the MP hotline, it has been arranged for non-operational HM Passport Office staff to supplement the work of MP account managers and help to provide MPs with a faster service. Of course, that is in addition to the service available in Portcullis House, which I would encourage colleagues to use if they require it.
Jacob Young (Redcar) (Con)
A few colleagues have already mentioned our caseworkers in our constituencies. I want to put on record my thanks to my caseworker team, especially Niall Hargreaves who spent nine hours on the phone to the Passport Office last week and did not manage to get through all day. I am grateful to the Minister for acknowledging the unacceptable situation facing the Passport Office at the moment and for the 700 new recruits. Can he provide any clarity on when we expect the new recruits to start having an effect on the backlog?
Tom Pursglove
I join my hon. Friend in saying thank you to parliamentary staff who work for Members across the House. I, for one, know that my parliamentary staff work incredibly hard to support my Corby and Northamptonshire constituents. I know the same applies for colleagues, regardless of party, and the effort that is made to support us in our work. I can certainly appreciate the frustration they have felt when not being able to make contact or when calls have been disconnected. He is right to raise the increase in staffing. As I said, we expect 500 full-time equivalents added to Teleperformance resourcing by mid-June. The Passport Office is increasing staffing by 700 by the summer and, of course, there have already been 500 additional staff since last April. This is a priority. We are going to get on and deliver, because it is clearly necessary for the swift and expeditious delivery of people’s passports.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on applying for it.
Dozens of my constituents are now facing huge delays in getting their passports. In one particular case, my constituent applied for his passport to be renewed back in February. He sent his old passport by special delivery. Following many chases for updates, he was told that they had lost his passport, and that he should report it as being lost and pay an additional fee to have his new application expedited, which he did. By Friday last week, they still had not done anything and told him that he needs to say it has now been lost yet again. He is travelling in July. He needs to apply for visas. He has already spent thousands of pounds on his holiday. Will the Minister agree to look at my constituent’s case and see if we can get a resolution as soon as possible? I should also add that we all knew there would be a surge in demand after the pandemic and I really want to know why on earth the Government were not prepared for that.
Tom Pursglove
We do, of course, encourage people, as standard, to apply in good time for passports to be processed and to be available. The point I again make is that after 10 weeks of proof of travel, within two weeks the upgrade is free, but if the hon. Lady could provide me with the details of the specific case in question I will happily make sure it is looked at as quickly as possible for her.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
I would like to stress to the Minister that this is not just an issue of people wanting to go on holiday. In my constituency—as you know, Mr Speaker, being so diverse as it is—people have families all across the world whom they have not seen since the pandemic. I have one elderly couple who applied before the new year, back in December. They applied, in fact, before Christmas. They were told that their passport was ready on 24 January, but that they had to send the old passport back in order to get it. By the end of March they still had not had it, by which time they had missed a niece’s wedding and, sadly, a sister’s funeral. It was only after multiple interventions that we eventually got the passport sorted at the end of last month. That is unacceptable—absolutely unacceptable.
The Minister said that 500 new staff were in place and 700 were coming, but what we really want to know is when will the Department be able to return to the three-week standard time that we all expected previously? That is the key issue and that is what our constituents need to know. He said 10 weeks from the end of June. We are way beyond the summer holidays by then. The backlog will have accumulated and those people will have lost the opportunity to go abroad. The key thing is when do we get back to that three-week period?
Tom Pursglove
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who, as ever, puts his case forcefully but entirely respectfully. When there are compassionate or compelling circumstances, steps can be taken to expedite applications where appropriate. Some of the sorts of circumstances that he mentioned would potentially be eligible in that scenario. I cannot, of course, provide an explanation on the Floor of the House for his particular case, but I will take his wider point away. On the three-week target, I will ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), who is responsible for passports, to write to the hon. Gentleman to set out the position and let him know his thoughts on that point.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
This issue is undoubtedly causing huge anxiety. I have a case of a new mother who, when her daughter was born, wanted to register her for a passport immediately, because she wants the support of her family, who live in Egypt. She has been up all day and night trying to get a fast-track application. She could not find one, so she put in a regular application. She then did find a fast-track application and now she has been told, having secured the fast-track application for Saturday, that if she shows up, she may not get the passport because the regular application cannot be withdrawn. We have tried everything for her. First, if she does show up, will she be able to get the passport on the fast track, and can I show the Minister the case just to make sure? Secondly, will he assure people that a common-sense approach will be taken in cases such as these and others, so that if someone finds a workaround solution, it will actually work?
Tom Pursglove
I would always want to see common sense shown in these matters. The hon. Lady suggests that it would be worthwhile to share the specifics of the case with me. I would certainly appreciate the opportunity to take this away and look at what we can do to assist and provide any appropriate guidance and advice.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
You might remember, Mr Speaker, that I raised the issue of delays with passports at business questions back in April. The Leader of the House expressed some surprise that I was getting upset about it back then, but I can honestly say to the Minister that the position since then has become much, much worse. He cannot really say that we did not know this was coming, because we were telling Ministers about it some weeks ago.
We have dealt with many dozens of cases from my office, but we still have about 14 cases that have not yet been expedited. The Passport Office advised that applications that are older than 10 weeks—of which we have several—and where travel is due to take place in the next two weeks can be expedited. In order to exercise that, applicants are advised to contact the passport advice line. However, as many Members have said this morning, constituents are doing that but they cannot get through, and when they do, they wait an inordinate amount of time and are then being cut off. It is just not good enough. British citizens cannot actually get their passport—even though it might be printed in Poland these days—to travel abroad.
Many constituents are reporting that they cannot get through and, at the time of the application, constituents were advised on the not appropriately updated website that the turnaround time would be five weeks—so the website was wrong at the time that people were applying. The Minister has to get a grip on this. When will the—
Mr Speaker
These should be questions, not speeches—but I think the Minister has got the impression and the hon. Member has got the message across.
Tom Pursglove
There was quite a lot there, Mr Speaker, and I think that if I were to answer all of that, I would be at real risk of incurring your wrath. Two million passports were issued in March and April alone. The hon. Gentleman is a canny parliamentarian who took the opportunity to raise this issue in business questions. He will have noted from my earlier responses the steps that we have been taking in that period to address this issue. We will see that work through. This is all about bolstering capacity and resource, but if he would like us to look at specific cases, I am very happy for him to share them with us so we can perhaps understand where he thinks the issues are.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
I put on record my thanks to the Glasgow passport office, which has been most helpful to my caseworkers.
I have a constituent who has applied for a child’s passport. The child is a dual national; as part of the application for a British passport, my constituent provided the child’s Australian passport, which is in date. They travel next week, and my team have been urgently supporting them in trying to get, at a minimum, the Australian passport returned urgently. We were assured that that would happen, but the constituent was advised last night that it was not possible. My constituent has also faced some really poor treatment from call handlers on the advice line and is very stressed and upset by it. Please will the Minister intervene in this case and help me to get my constituent their passport?
Tom Pursglove
I certainly want the hon. Lady to share her constituent’s experience with me and with Ministers in the Department, particularly the concerns that she raises about how the calls have been handled. If she shares those details with me, we will look at them in the usual way, but I am keen to understand the specifics.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his replies to questions this morning. May I put on record, in Hansard, my thanks to his ministerial staff and particularly to the Belfast passport office, for everything that they do?
May I put forward a constructive suggestion that may be helpful for our region and for others? Will the Minister outline whether he has considered allowing renewals to be fast-tracked in regional areas, such as by allowing the Belfast office to handle Northern Ireland renewals and especially children’s first passports? Is there a way to further fast-track applications locally or regionally?
Tom Pursglove
I join the hon. Gentleman in thanking the staff of the Belfast office for all their work. I also thank the Glasgow office, which the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) mentioned, and HM Passport Office staff around the country.
I will take away the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion for how we might process future applications and share it with the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay. As with all suggestions from the hon. Gentleman, I am sure that he will want to consider it closely.
Hong Kong Arrests Under National Security Law
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Speaker
I know that we are all a little rusty with urgent questions, so I remind hon. Members that the time limits are three minutes, two minutes, two minutes and one minute.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if she will make a statement on the arrests of Cardinal Zen, Margaret Ng, Hui Po-keung and Denise Ho in Hong Kong on 11 May.
The Minister for Europe and North America (James Cleverly)
I thank my right hon. Friend for raising this incredibly important issue. The Hong Kong authorities’ decision to target leading pro-democracy figures, including Cardinal Zen, Margaret Ng, Hui Po-keung and Denise Ho, under the national security law is unacceptable.
Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest, which are protected in both the joint declaration and the Basic Law, are fundamental to Hong Kong’s way of life. We continue to make clear to mainland China and to Hong Kong authorities our strong opposition to the national security law, which is being used to curtail freedom, punish dissent and shrink the space for opposition, free press and civil society.
In response to the imposition of the national security law, as well as wider recent developments in Hong Kong, the UK has taken three major policy actions: on 31 January 2021, we launched a bespoke immigration route for British nationals overseas and their dependants; we have suspended the UK-Hong Kong extradition treaty; and we have extended the arms embargo on China to cover Hong Kong.
China remains in an ongoing state of non-compliance with the joint declaration, which it willingly agreed to uphold. As a co-signatory to the joint declaration, and in the significant 25th year of our handover, we will continue to stand up for the people of Hong Kong. We will continue to call out the violation of their rights and freedoms and hold China to its international obligations. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is in regular contact with her international counterparts on issues relating to Hong Kong, and we continue to work intensively within international institutions to call on China to live up to its international obligations and responsibilities.
As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary stated in the latest six-monthly report, published on 31 March, the UK will continue to speak out when China breaches its legally binding agreements, and when it breaks its promises to the people of Hong Kong.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I am grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for granting the urgent question.
On 11 May—yesterday—Chinese authorities arrested three trustees of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which helped pro-democracy protesters to pay their legal fees. Although those three figures, led by Cardinal Joseph Zen, have apparently been released on bail, the bail requirements are very onerous and their passports have been confiscated. This is a huge abuse of human rights. Cardinal Zen is, I believe, 96, and he has been a lifelong advocate of democratic causes in Hong Kong and mainland China. We should be looking up to this man, and considering the abuse that he faces. He has spoken out against China’s growing authoritarianism under President Xi Jinping, including a Beijing-imposed national security law, and the persecution of members of many religions, including Roman Catholics in China.
The problem we have is this. A representative of my Government comes to the Dispatch Box, legitimately, and condemns all these actions in China, yet we lag behind others in sanctioning individuals under the Magnitsky requirements. The following people have already been sanctioned by the United States, and are involved in this process: John Lee, elected as Hong Kong’s next chief executive; Carrie Lam, the previous head of the Hong Kong Government; Teresa Cheng Yeuk-wah; Xia Baolong; Zhang Xiaoming; Luo Huining; Zheng Yanxiong; Chris Tang Ping-keung; and Stephen Lo Wai-chung, a former commissioner of the Hong Kong police force. Not one of those people has been sanctioned by the UK Government. It is time to step up and make our position very clear.
I would also say to my right hon. Friend, for whom I have a huge amount of respect, that the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund was shut down last year, and was opened up for inspection for “collusion”. This needs to be investigated.
I understand that you wish me to finish my remarks, Mr Speaker, and I am about to do so. Let me simply say this: it is the important bit. There have been reports that the Government may well re-enact discussions about the Joint Economic Trade Commission, and even re-endorse the economic and financial dialogue which was previously suspended. I want an absolute undertaking from our Government that they will sanction those individuals, and that there is no way on earth that we will entertain the opening up of any trade or financial discussions with this abusive Government.
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend speaks with huge authority on this issue, and he knows that when he speaks on any issue but particularly this one, I personally take notice and Her Majesty’s Government always take notice. He will, I know, be frustrated by the sentence I am about to utter, but I think he will understand that, while we work closely with our international partners on sanctions of individuals, as our response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine demonstrates, we never discuss publicly any future sanctions designations that might be brought. Nevertheless, Her Majesty’s Government and I will take very seriously the points that he has made, and the list of individuals that he has read out. He was right to highlight the importance of not just words but actions in opposition to actions such as those taken by the Chinese Government. We consider Beijing to be in a state of ongoing non-compliance with the Sino-British joint declaration, and I think that that will be borne in mind when we speak, or think, about any other agreements that might be entered into with that Government.
Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)
The arrests in the past few days of Cardinal Zen, Margaret Ng, Denise Ho, Cyd Ho, and Hui Po-keung mark a disturbing new phase in China’s relentless crackdown on the freedoms and liberties promised to the people of Hong Kong—in this case, freedom of religion or belief, which so many Members of this House hold very dear.
This phase has been marked by the rigged election of Beijing’s hand-picked choice of Chief Executive, John Lee, in a one-person coronation. Mr Lee is known for his brutal policing policies during the pro-democracy protests in 2019, and we are now seeing the erosion of the remaining freedoms, including the freedom of religion or belief, that were enjoyed by so many Hongkongers. This will undoubtedly lead to a further exodus of young Hongkongers from the city in search of freedom and new lives elsewhere, away from Beijing’s reach. We have long accepted that the promise of a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong in the legally binding Sino-British agreement has been breached.
I am pleased that on previous occasions we have seen a lot of agreement in the House on this subject, and we strongly endorse the BNO—British national overseas—policy of the Government, but the arrest of opposition activists, including a 90-year-old cardinal, just days after the election of a hard-liner demands further action. I have these questions for the Minister, although I am sorry that the Foreign Secretary is not with us today. Will he make urgent representations to the Chinese embassy here in London? Will the Government consider the sanctions that the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) has so eloquently set out? Will the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office redouble its efforts to support exiled journalists, faith leaders and campaigners in order to ensure that independent reporting on the situation in Hong Kong can continue? Finally, will the FCDO work with the Home Office and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to ensure that those Hongkongers who have fled to the UK for sanctuary are welcomed and supported, and are able to report with confidence any safety concerns they may have about Chinese influence and activity here in the UK?
James Cleverly
I thank the hon. Lady for those points. The tone of her questions, probing though they were, reflects the concerns being expressed from right across the Chamber about what is going on in Hong Kong, and our desire to protect its people. She mentioned the election—or selection—process. On 9 May, the UK released a joint statement with our G7 partners and the EU, underscoring our grave concern about the selection process for the Chief Executive in Hong Kong and its part in the continued assault on pluralism and fundamental rights. The hon. Lady mentioned our commitment to freedom of religion or belief, and also to freedom of the press, both of which we regard as the foundation stones of a properly functioning society. She is right to highlight our collective concern about those in relation to the situation in Hong Kong. Finally, she mentioned her support for the Hong Kong people who have come to the UK. I take very seriously her point about protecting them. She is referring not just to our general duty to protect the citizens of this country, but the specific duty to protect these people from any repercussions. I will take that on board. I cannot give her a direct answer to that question, but the point she makes is valid and has been listened to.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Can the Minister tell the House what steps the Government are taking to protect freedom of religion or belief in the light of the arrest of Cardinal Zen, a senior leader of the Catholic Church in Asia? Have there been any discussions with the Vatican about the arrest? Does the Minister agree that the deteriorating state of freedom of religion or belief in Hong Kong must now be one of the concerns addressed at the UK-hosted ministerial conference on freedom of religion or belief in July?
James Cleverly
I thank my hon. Friend for the work she does on this issue. She is famously passionate about it, and rightly so. She makes an incredibly valid point about this being a topic for the summer; it is inconceivable that it will not be a topic of discussion, although the agenda is not down to me. The Sino-British joint declaration is a legally binding treaty under which China committed to uphold Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and to protect the freedoms and rights of its people. This explicitly includes freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief, so my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that this goes to the core of the agreement. We will call out China when it curtails those freedoms and, as I say, it is right that this should be brought up in international fora—both those centred on freedom of religion or belief and others.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing this urgent question. The direction of travel and the stifling of democracy in Hong Kong is obviously deeply concerning and something we should all deplore. Human Rights Watch said of Cardinal Zen’s arrest:
“Arresting a 90-year-old cardinal for his peaceful activities has to be a shocking new low for Hong Kong, illustrating the city’s free fall in human rights in the past two years.”
That is correct. Rather than colluding with foreign forces, which is what they have been accused of doing, those arrested have simply helped the people of Hong Kong in the face of an increasing crackdown and autocracy.
Will the Minister pledge to the House that every possible diplomatic avenue will be explored to try to secure the urgent release of these four individuals, alongside other pro-democracy campaigners? Will he clarify what diplomatic discussions the UK Government have had on the situation in Hong Kong, and further outline the strategy to try to influence the situation? Finally, will he tell us more about the UK Government’s assessment of the likely impact on democracy of John Lee’s appointment?
James Cleverly
I thank the hon. Lady for raising those points, and for reaffirming the cross-party view of these arrests. On 9 May, the UK released a joint statement with the G7 and the EU specifically on the selection process for the Chief Executive. A co-ordinated international voice has the greatest impact, and we will continue to work with our international friends, partners and allies in calling out these situations.
We used our G7 presidency to highlight our concerns about Hong Kong, including at the Carbis Bay summit. The hon. Lady asked how we will move things forward; we consistently raise these concerns with both the Hong Kong authorities and the Chinese mainland authorities.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
Everyone in this Chamber knows that China seeks to project its power around the world in order to obtain the respect that it believes it is owed. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the arrest of Cardinal Zen does nothing but inspire the contempt of not only Catholics around the world, but all people who value freedom of religion?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is not for me to give advice to the Government of China, but they freely and openly entered into an agreement with us. They are now in breach of that agreement. Countries around the world should look at the respect the Chinese Government have for the agreements into which they freely enter. We expect them to stand by the agreements they make, both on this issue and on the other issues in the Sino-British agreement.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his answers. He is a compassionate Minister who understands the issues very well, and I thank him for all that he has done and will do. The Home Secretary has identified protecting freedom of religion or belief as a foreign policy priority. These arrests indicate increasing restrictions on freedom of religion or belief in Hong Kong. If that is happening in Hong Kong, we must also worry about Christians, Uyghur Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners in mainland China. What assessment has the Minister and his Department made of this case’s long-term impact?
James Cleverly
The hon. Gentleman is another Member in this House who speaks regularly and with great knowledge on this incredibly important issue. He is right to highlight that what is happening in Hong Kong may well reflect things happening in other parts of China that we do not see. The freedom of religion or belief is a foundation-stone freedom. It is the canary in the mine, as it were, and it is a key indicator of a Government’s commitment to a whole range of other freedoms. The fact that this freedom is so visibly being curtailed in Hong Kong should draw our attention to other religious minorities in China, a number of which he regularly champions. I assure him that we will keep a close eye on not only Hong Kong but on places elsewhere in China.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
It is clear that the Chinese Government were watching the west’s reaction to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Members of this House have been sanctioned by the Chinese Government for doing nothing more than calling out human rights abuses in China, so surely the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) about the sanctions and the people to be sanctioned should be taken on board by the British Government, and his suggestion should be implemented immediately.
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend speaks with great passion. I assure him that his point is heard by the Government. I repeat what I said to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith): we do not talk about future sanctions designations. However, I absolutely hear the point about it being completely inappropriate for British parliamentarians to be sanctioned, and we will listen carefully to the point that my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend have made.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for securing this important urgent question. I feel that in the five years I have been here, there has been a repeated deterioration in the situation in Hong Kong. Words are one thing, but action is something else. We should absolutely put in place sanctions, but Hong Kong Watch recently produced a report showing that dirty money gained through corruption—money that is being spent by families of officials from Hong Kong—is flowing in our economy. Will the Minister look carefully at that report, and commit to carrying out an audit of that dirty money, and to using the new powers in the economic crime Bill to root it out from our society?
James Cleverly
The hon. Lady makes an important point about the economic crime Bill. That piece of legislation is being brought through the House specifically so that we can address dirty money that may be flowing through the UK, and I can assure her that the report that she highlighted will be read. This is not my portfolio, but I suspect it already has been read by those at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
I thank the Minister for appearing in the Chamber to answer the urgent question. Does he consider the statements by Hong Kong’s new leader John Lee about cracking down on “fake news” to be as worrying as I do, given the accusations of human rights abuses in the region? Have the Government yet sought engagement with Lee? How do they intend to apply pressure to protect democratic freedoms more broadly?
James Cleverly
Just like the protection of freedom of religion or belief, a free media is a foundation-stone freedom, and actions to curtail it are always something we look at carefully and closely. We have previously released statements about that appointment with our international partners, and I assure the hon. Lady that we will take very seriously actions that are being euphemistically described as a crackdown on fake news, because of course we recognise this for what it is: the curtailment of a free and open media.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
What steps is the Minister actively taking to protect religious freedoms in Hong Kong, in the light of the arrest of Cardinal Zen? Will the Minister commit to working with his counterparts in the Home Office to ensure that UK police forces protect Hongkongers in our country from Chinese Communist party agents, as, shockingly, many Hongkongers are reported to have been followed or even attacked?
James Cleverly
The hon. Lady raises an incredibly important point. The offer we made to British nationals overseas in Hong Kong to come here and make their lives here was designed specifically to help protect them from persecution and danger. We absolutely see that the duty does not stop just because they are now in the UK, and I assure her that we take their protection incredibly seriously, particularly in the light of some of the things we are seeing.
Business Question
(2 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mark Spencer)
The business for the week commencing 16 May will include:
Monday 16 May—Continuation of the debate on the Queen’s Speech, on making Britain the best place to grow up and grow old.
Tuesday 17 May—Continuation of the debate on the Queen’s Speech, on tackling short-term and long-term cost of living increases.
Wednesday 18 May—Conclusion of the debate on the Queen’s Speech, on achieving economic growth.
Thursday 19 May—General debate on transport, followed by a general debate on NATO and international security.
Friday 20 May—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 23 May will include:
Monday 23 May—Second Reading of the Public Order Bill.
Tuesday 24 May—Second Reading of a Bill.
Wednesday 25 May—Remaining stages of the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill, followed by a general debate on Ukraine.
Thursday 26 May—My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will propose an Humble Address to celebrate the platinum jubilee of Her Majesty the Queen.
Colleagues will also wish to be reminded that the House will rise for the Whitsun recess at the conclusion of business on Thursday 26 May and return on Monday 6 June.
Thangam Debbonaire
I thank the Leader of the House for the forthcoming business. If I may start with some parish news: Bristol Rovers 7, Scunthorpe nil. I am sure the Leader of the House will join me in congratulating Gasheads on that win and the resulting promotion to League One.
We were all sad that on Tuesday Her Majesty the Queen was unable to address Parliament. The glaring obviousness of her absence is testament to her unfaltering dedication to our country. We wish Her Majesty well and look forward to celebrating her platinum jubilee.
What a contrast between two constitutional figureheads: one is iconic, capable and the epitome of the high standards that the British public hold dear; the other one is the Prime Minister. Speaking of huge disappointments, I turn to the content of the Queen’s Speech. The Tories promised renters reform in the previous two Queen’s Speeches; in this week’s—the third—there is a mention of a White Paper. The victims Bill has featured in four Queen’s Speeches and three manifestos and is still only in draft form. Gazing into my crystal ball, I see the future: me, months from now, asking, “Where have those Bills gone?”
There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech for women at work, or to close the pay, pensions or housing gaps that hurt women. There is no recognition of the rising child poverty rates that affect children in constituencies of Members from all parties, including those on the Government Benches. Will the Leader of the House please explain why the Government seem to have ignored women and children?
Last week, people from Cumberland to Wandsworth told this Government what they think of 15 Tory tax rises in two years, the cost of living crisis, inflation up, taxes up, debt up and economic growth stagnant. As there is clearly space in the business, will the Leader of the House ask the Chancellor to come to the House with the emergency Budget that Labour has long called for and that people throughout the country so badly need?
On 29 March, the House passed an Opposition motion that instructed the Government to place all documents, emails and so on about questions relating to the appointment of Lord Lebedev—a subject so ably explored by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner)—before the House by 28 April. I understand from advice given to me from clerkly quarters that because of Prorogation the deadline moved to this Tuesday, but either way it is still behind us.
When we debated that motion, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, the right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis), said in his closing speech that, puzzlingly, the Government would not vote against the Opposition motion because
“the common practice is not to vote on Opposition motions”.—[Official Report, 29 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 787.]
That must have been a surprise for the Leader of the House who, as Government Chief Whip in the 2019 Parliament, whipped his colleagues to vote down 50 out of 68 Opposition motions on subjects ranging from protecting leaseholders from unsafe cladding and supporting the steel industry to helping small business, and much more. Perhaps he can tell his colleagues—including, perhaps, his Cabinet Office colleague—why he instructed them to vote against those Opposition motions. Importantly, will he tell us exactly when his Government will comply with the motion that this House approved on the documents relating to Lord Lebedev?
The cost of living crisis, 15 Tory tax rises and the Government refusing to comply with the requirements of this House—what a mess. I really missed Big Ben and his friends ringing out across Westminster. Yesterday, we heard them once more, and the resumption of those chiming bells seems particularly apt, because this Government are certainly out of time.
Mark Spencer
It is good to see the hon. Lady back in good form. May I join her in paying tribute to Bristol Rovers? It was an extraordinary result. I cannot help but reflect for a moment on the disappointment that Northampton Town must have felt at getting pipped to the post, but I am sure that we all wish them well in the play-offs to come.
The hon. Lady mentioned Her Majesty the Queen and the jubilee to come. I know that the whole country is excited by the prospect of the jubilee and wishes Her Majesty well for the coming celebrations. The jubilee can certainly unite us not only across this Chamber but across the country as we join in celebrating the incredible achievement of 75 years on the throne.
That, of course, leads us to the Queen’s Speech. Undoubtedly, the hon. Lady is very keen to criticise what she described as, I think, “an empty Queen’s Speech”. We are proposing 33 Bills—33 Bills! This is the biggest legislative agenda that we have had for many, many Sessions. There is a huge amount in the Queen’s Speech to help communities across the country, to boost the economy, to make our streets safer, and to recover from the covid pandemic. We will need a huge amount of time in Parliament to get through that huge agenda. I know that she will want to go further and do more, but, rest assured, the Government are driven and committed to improving the lives of our constituents, and the Queen’s Speech is certainly a huge step in the right direction.
The hon. Lady made reference to the local elections. It is worth reflecting on the fact that a previous Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband), had a net gain of more than 800 councillors, so with a gain of circa 100 this time for Labour it is a little bit of a bridge too far to convince us that it is connecting with the electorate. The electorate, I think, see through its fibs and see through its lack of a plan. They acknowledge that the Government have an exciting legislative agenda, are on their side and are doing a very good job.
Finally, the hon. Lady came to the Humble Address motion. She will be aware that we have committed to releasing that information. I think I can share with the House that there are a number of security challenges in that information, which has been gone through in great detail, but it will be released to her and the House very soon. [Interruption.] Very soon. She will not have long to wait.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be well aware that, despite some difficult elections elsewhere, in the London borough of Harrow we gained eight seats from Labour and took control of the council for the first time since 2006. Will he join me in thanking and congratulating the councillors who were elected across England, Wales and Scotland last Thursday, the activists and all the support people who did the hard work and the hard graft to get them elected and get representation across our councils?
Mark Spencer
I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in that. I pay tribute to all those elected, whatever political party they represent, and I wish them well in their careers as local councillors representing their communities. It is no surprise to me that the Conservative party made gains in Harrow, as Harrow has great leadership at its core under my hon. Friend. He is a true ambassador for his community and a great campaigner.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
To that list, of course, we should add the Prime Minister, who sunk the Conservatives from second place to third place in Scotland, so well done to him.
I thank the Leader of the House for helpfully announcing the business up to the Whit recess. Try as I might, though, I could not find any scheduling of an emergency budget. This must now surely be a priority as we learn today that the UK economy has contracted by 0.1% and that inflation is at a 40-year high. The whole of the UK is suffering from a cost of living crisis, yet the Government’s priority is to give people in England the right to complain about a neighbour’s garden shed.
I do not know whether the Leader of the House is joining his Cabinet colleagues at their bonding session in Stoke-on-Trent this afternoon, but we can only imagine what a joyous occasion that will be. I hear the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) is in charge of the kitchen arrangements; he is offering cooking lessons to help Secretaries of State ensure that their Cabinet salaries go just that little bit further. Who knows? There might even be cake, and it might even be made from scratch, because they have so much to celebrate. The Prime Minister is still in place—a big hooray from everybody on the Back Benches over there.
We must have a debate on comedy performances, because the Levelling Up Secretary is apparently providing the after-dinner entertainment. Following his rip-roaring, side-splitting success yesterday, he is going to give all his best regional accents in an attempt to upset just about all parts of the United Kingdom. But that is this Government, is it not—laughing while the nation suffers? They fail to take seriously the utter despair and desperate conditions of our constituents. The Tories may still be in power, but any moral authority they might ever have had is now well and truly gone.
Mark Spencer
I am not quite sure what questions or requests for debates the hon. Gentleman made there, but he did draw attention to the state of the economy. It is worth reflecting that, following a global pandemic, the policies of Her Majesty’s Government meant that the UK economy grew fastest of any nation in the G7. That puts us in a robust place to assist with the global challenges of energy and food inflation. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has caused huge challenges around the world, with energy price spikes and the cost of food going up exponentially. That is something the Government take very seriously, and we have already invested £22 billion of support to help people through the cost of living challenges they face.
There is a lot more in the Queen’s Speech that will continue to grow the economy and ensure that we move towards a high-wage, high-skill economy so that people can earn their way out of some of the challenges they face, but there is also support for those who find themselves in difficult circumstances, which the Government wholly understand. There will be more from this Dispatch Box; this is something the Government understand, and we want to try to help mitigate the impact of those global challenges.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
During Prorogation, Mr Speaker, you announced that you would establish a Speaker’s Commission to ensure that the workplace we are privileged to be part of is as secure and as welcoming as it could possibly be. Could the Leader of the House find some Government time in which hon. Members could debate some of the changes they would welcome in this place—including, I hope, a condemnation of the constitutional sexism we find in the other place, where one eighth of the seats are reserved for men only?
Mark Spencer
I know this is something my hon. Friend has long campaigned on, and she has tabled a private Member’s Bill to that effect. Maybe she will be lucky enough in the private Member’s Bill ballot next week to have another crack at that. I join her in welcoming your announcement of the conference you are hoping to pull together, Mr Speaker. We will work across the House, and I know there is cross-party support for trying to improve the way people are treated. There are structures in place and I am sure that, working together, we can solve some of the challenges we face.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
Mr Speaker, I hope that you and the Leader of the House will join me in congratulating Gateshead Football Club, who were last week promoted to the national league from the national league north—a promotion secured, by the way, with a 2-2 away draw at Chorley, Mr Speaker. It is a great success, because the club was rescued by the fans, having been relegated from the national league for financial misdoings by the previous ownership. That is one reason why we need the urgent introduction of the governance provisions on football. I know there will be a White Paper produced, probably in the summer, but we want to see this done as a matter of urgency, because football is not out of the woods by a long way.
Mark Spencer
I realise that in praising Gateshead football club I am going down a rabbit hole of celebrating with all the football clubs who are seeking promotion through the play-offs. I see that the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) has been bobbing in his seat. I hope he is not going to encourage me to wish Huddersfield Town well through the play-offs as they compete with Nottingham Forest.
It is worth reflecting on the positive impact that football has up and down this country, not only in drawing communities together but in getting young people out of the house and on to sports fields, and keeping themselves physically, and mentally, fit.
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) (Con)
One of the consequences of the employment Bill not being included in the Queen’s Speech is that the vehicle to introduce neonatal leave and pay for 2023 is no longer available. Nobody wants to see another year where thousands of parents are not able to spend the appropriate amount of time with their premature or sick children. I am grateful to the Leader of the House for meeting me to discuss this and taking it so seriously. What steps will the Government now take to deliver this vital commitment on time?
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend is undoubtedly an assiduous campaigner on this issue, as he has indicated. I have met him previously to try to assist him in his pursuit and will continue to try to assist him. He will be aware that the ballot for private Members’ Bill will take place next week and I wish him well in that, as he may well be able to pursue the cause in that way. However, there will be other routes whereby we can work together, and I encourage him to continue to engage with Ministers going forward.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I have every confidence that Huddersfield Town will succeed in being promoted to the premiership, but I will leave it there.
I want to ask the Leader of the House about a housekeeping matter. At the time of the last jubilee, some of us fought very hard to get the fountain in the main court—a gift from both Houses of Parliament to the Queen for the silver jubilee—working, and we did that in time. At the moment, it still is not operating—could he do something about that?
Can we soon have a proper debate on those selfish communities, towns and cities that create much, much waste but do not want to dispose of it in their own patch, exporting it to other constituencies and other parts of the country? As the Leader of the House will know, energy from waste in every community could support 20% of our energy needs.
Mark Spencer
I think I am right in saying that there are plans to make sure that the fountain is working for the platinum jubilee, and that extensive work has recently taken place in that area of the Palace of Westminster. There is also the prospect of the unveiling of a new gift to Her Majesty from both Houses in the very near future, and we will all be able to celebrate and enjoy that.
I hear the hon. Gentleman’s comments about waste, and clearly there are challenges in some communities. Disposal of waste is often a very controversial planning challenge for local authorities to overcome. Across Government and local government, we need to find ways to reduce waste and try to improve recycling. The Government are certainly committed to doing that, and I know he will continue to press the issue.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
In response to a business statement last month, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) called for a debate on Labour corruption in local government, and I echo that call. The current leader of Crawley Borough Council, when he was a parliamentary candidate, arranged for a housing contract that did not include Unite the Union. Unite the Union then said that it was going to withhold funding from his parliamentary campaign. That resulted, at a cost of over £150,000 to the taxpayer, in the council having to renegotiate the housing contract to include Unite the Union in it. I will be referring that to the district auditor, but may I again call for a debate on corruption in local government among Labour councils?
Mark Spencer
I am sorry to hear about the challenges my hon. Friend faces in Crawley. I know that he will pursue this alleged corruption and will not allow people to get away with that if it is the case. He will have the opportunity to raise the matter directly with the Secretary of State at next week’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities questions, and I am sure he will be in his place to do so.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the worsening economic and civil rights problems in Sri Lanka, an island of 22 million people? Protests on Monday saw nine people killed and 200 injured, allegedly by supporters of the Rajapaksa Government. Clearly there will be a need for the International Monetary Fund to intervene. Will his Government ensure that any IMF intervention takes heed of the past travesties of justice experienced by the Tamil community in Sri Lanka?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Lady is right to raise that terrible situation, and I am certainly sorry to hear about what is happening in Sri Lanka. I know that she will continue to raise it in the House. There will be an opportunity at Foreign Office questions on 21 June to raise it directly, but should the situation worsen, I am sure Ministers in the Foreign Office will update the House.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Does the Leader of the House agree that it should be a priority in funding station improvements to ensure that all platforms, and therefore all trains, are accessible by all passengers? A bid to the accessible stations fund for lifts at Sandbach station to facilitate that should be strongly supported, as indeed it is by the local MP.
Mark Spencer
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the campaign she has run. I, too, have campaigned in my constituency, as Mr Speaker has in his, to try to improve access to railway services for those with disabilities. It is certainly something that the Secretary of State for Transport takes very seriously, and he is trying to address it with funding and opportunities for bids for funding. I am sure my hon. Friend will take the opportunity at Transport questions next week to raise the matter directly with the Secretary of State.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The closing of post office services in North East Fife is a blight on our communities. In the past year, we have had, or are shortly due to have, post offices closed in St Andrews, Ladybank, Balmullo, Newport, Wormit and Leuchars, removing vital services. A part-time mobile service is doing its best to make up for those losses, but there is a lack of a dedicated vehicle. When will the Government make time for a debate in this House on the worrying decline in traditional post office services and the support that is not there for badly needed alternatives?
Mark Spencer
I am disappointed to hear that; I am a huge fan of the post office. Personally, I think they do a fantastic job. They play a crucial role in our communities, providing key services; and the Government set out access criteria to ensure that services remain with reach of all citizens. I think 99% of the UK population should be within 3 miles of a post office outlet so that they can access those services. I am sorry to hear about the challenges that the hon. Lady faces, and I will pass on her concerns directly to the Minister, and hopefully she will get some answers.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
Given that today is International Nurses Day, can my right hon. Friend advise me on how we can thank nurses across the country and especially in my constituency of Watford, not just today of all days, but throughout the year? Is there a way to do that formally and put my thanks on record?
Mark Spencer
My hon. Friend may well have just done that by raising it here in the Chamber. He is right to raise the great work that nurses do up and down this country, and I know that is supported across the House. We never know when we might need the support of the NHS, and it is good to know that it is there for us in our moments of need.
Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
In the Leader of the House’s football chat, he forgot to congratulate Manchester United on their victory over Nottingham Forest in the FA youth cup final last night. I am sure he will want to rectify that omission as a matter of urgency.
Moving on to more serious matters, a few weeks ago I met some constituents whose dog sadly died as a result of a fire in their home. The fire service says it was caused by a fault with a Hotpoint tumble dryer, but Hotpoint refuses to accept any responsibility. I am outraged that we have reached this point, forcing the family to look at legal action. Can we please have a debate on what more can be done to hold manufacturers to account for these kinds of faults?
Mark Spencer
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for celebrating Manchester United winning anything, which is a rare event these days. He went on to make a very serious point about tumble dryers and whether they are causing fires in people’s homes. There are clearly a number of safety regulations that products in our homes should meet. It is worthy of further debate, and I am sure that he will be in his place to raise those matters with the relevant Ministers when they are at the Dispatch Box.
Lucy Allan (Telford) (Con)
Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital is still not doing elective orthopaedic surgery. Many of my constituents, such as Mr Graham Cotton, who is 68, are suffering severe and constant pain, having already waited since before the start of the pandemic for surgery. If a hospital trust decides not to do much-needed surgery, it is answerable to no one—not patients, MPs or Ministers. It has no responsibility or duty to find an alternative provider. May we have a debate on the accountability of the NHS? It is simply wrong that desperately needed care is not provided and that no one is accountable or responsible to the patient.
Mark Spencer
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She is truly an assiduous campaigner on health challenges in her constituency and the whole of Shropshire. The Health and Care Act 2022 includes measures designed to improve accountability to enhance public confidence in our NHS. The Government plan to spend £8 billion over the next three years to tackle the elective backlog. Clearly, covid has given a number of challenges to the NHS and has caused those backlogs. The Government are committed to trying to resolve that and to helping health services catch up so that our constituents can get the operations they desperately need.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
With apologies to Sir Winston Churchill, like
“the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone”,
the Northern Ireland protocol continues to plague Northern Ireland politics and affect our economy. There have been many reports in the media about moves by the Government to perhaps legislate directly to lance that boil. Can the Leader of the House give an indication about whether any movement is planned? Will it be brought to the House, and how quickly can we expect action on that matter to ensure that businesses know what is happening?
Mark Spencer
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. As he identifies, the protocol was clearly a huge issue in the Northern Ireland elections. It is something that the Foreign Secretary has been pursuing for a long time by trying to encourage EU colleagues to come to the table to find a way forward. She will continue with those plans. The hon. Gentleman is right to identify, however, that if we cannot find a way forward, the UK Government will clearly have to consider options to overcome the challenges that communities in Northern Ireland are facing. Shoring up and supporting the Good Friday agreement is a fundamental desire of the UK. The Good Friday agreement must be protected, so if the protocol is damaging it, the UK Government will have to take action.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
For the vast majority of our constituents, the largest purchase that they will make in their lifetime is a house for them and their family to live in. For my constituents living in Steinbeck Grange in Warrington, however, the opportunity to purchase a dream home has turned into a living nightmare. The Competition and Markets Authority has launched an investigation into the mis-selling of leasehold. Can the Leader of the House update us on where the CMA is with that investigation? Can we have a debate in the House on the opportunities to retrospectively fix the leasehold scandal that affects many people living in my constituency?
Mark Spencer
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. That subject would make a good Adjournment debate if he were to apply. We welcome the CMA’s action to tackle potential mis-selling and unfair terms, and the Government certainly want affected homeowners to obtain the justice and redress that they deserve. I know that my hon. Friend will play his part in drawing the House’s attention to the challenges that they face. It is DLUHC questions next Monday, and I am sure that he will be in his place to raise the matter again directly with the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Every 22 minutes, someone is killed or seriously injured on UK roads, and police describe speeding as one of the fatal five. Last week, we learned that Nottinghamshire’s police and crime commissioner, who was elected on a promise to tackle speeding on our roads, has admitted breaking the law five times in 12 weeks, including twice near a Nottingham primary school. What does that say about her commitment to road safety?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Lady will be aware that that case is ongoing, I think, so I am not going to comment on the individual court case. However, I would say that speeding is something that should be condemned. Local authorities, the police and the Government put measures in place to try to reduce speeds, particularly around our schools. As someone who has done an enormous amount of campaigning on speeding, certainly in the villages in my own constituency, I will continue to pursue those who break the law by speeding.
Robert Largan (High Peak) (Con)
Spring brings the familiar sights of daffodils, newborn lambs and, less cheerfully, temporary traffic lights, as councils across the country rush to spend their annual roads budget before financial year end. Due to poor planning and communication between Derbyshire and Tameside councils, residents in Glossop have been subjected over the last few weeks to complete traffic gridlock as major roadworks have been approved on both of the main roads out of the town, which underlines the long-term need finally to build the Mottram bypass. In the meantime, can we have a debate on the way councils’ roads budgets work and the need for long-term strategic planning over several years, rather than the annual chaos we see every spring?
Mark Spencer
I am sorry to hear of the challenges my hon. Friend is facing in High Peak. He will have the opportunity at DLUHC questions on Monday to raise those matters directly with the Secretary of State. I certainly share his frustration at times of sitting at temporary traffic lights, especially when, after finally getting through those traffic lights, it does not appear that anything is happening.
Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)
May is a very important month, and today, as well as being International Nurses Day, is the birthdate of Florence Nightingale. In addition, today is also my birthday—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”]—a day I share with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, although, sadly, I have celebrated 12 more birthdays than he has.
Even more importantly than that, May is Melanoma Awareness Month. Melanoma is the most serious type of skin cancer, and protection from ultraviolet rays is key to lowering the risk of this disease. Cancer Research UK has found that skin cancer rates have more than doubled since the 1990s. Will the Leader of the House join me in lobbying the Chancellor to reclassify sun cream as an essential healthcare item, instead of a cosmetic item, thereby exempting it from VAT and making it more affordable for more people to protect themselves from the risk of skin cancer?
Mark Spencer
First, I wish Florence Nightingale, the hon. Member and the Chancellor of the Exchequer a happy birthday.
The hon. Member is absolutely right to raise melanoma as an issue in this House, and I thank her for doing so. The more we talk about it, the more people will be aware of a change in a mole or a growth on a part of their body that needs early detection. I think I am right in saying that the earlier we detect these things, the better the chances of the NHS being able to solve the particular problem. I hear her request to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I shall pass that on directly to him, and I am sure that, at a future Budget, it will be something he will consider.
Liz Twist (Blaydon) (Lab)
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, and the theme this year is loneliness. I would like to take this chance to thank organisations nationally and locally in my constituency, such as Age UK in Gateshead and the MHA—Methodist Homes—in the west of the borough for the work they do in tackling loneliness. Can we have a debate in Government time on the issue of loneliness to make sure that we are doing all we can to tackle it?
Mark Spencer
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that important matter, and for raising the profile of the challenges that some people face with loneliness. I join her in celebrating the work of the many individuals and charities that do great work in this area. I certainly think it would be worthy of a Westminster Hall debate or an Adjournment debate. It is something on which I am sure she will continue to have support across the House and that she will continue to pursue.
Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)
Leaseholders in Cambridge and across the country are continuing to suffer punishing insurance premiums. Their homes are safe, but because of the fallout from the issues around the removal of cladding and the EWS1 fiasco, they are punished. That is quite unfair, so can we have a statement from the Secretary of State—I do not mind whether it is in a scouse accent, an American accent or a Scots accent—to explain to us why my constituents are still suffering in this way?
Mark Spencer
The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity at DLUHC questions on Monday when the Secretary of State will be at the Dispatch Box to answer any questions of that nature. The Government recognise the challenges facing people who have suffered from the miscladding, let us say, of their properties and we brought forward the Building Safety Act 2022 and other legislation to try to address those challenges.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Yesterday at the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, Professor Lorand Bartels, professor of international trade law at the University of Cambridge, was asked about the ramifications for trade with the European Union if article 16 is invoked. In the afternoon at the Committee, the Minister for Trade Policy spoke passionately about the problems with the current checks in the Irish sea. However, she was unable to give an answer on the legal basis upon which article 16 could be invoked. May we have an urgent question from the Attorney General about the legal basis for the invocation of article 16?
Mark Spencer
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and should there be any triggering of article 16 he should and would expect a statement from the Dispatch Box from the relevant Minister; I would be amazed if that was not the case. The Government would of course update the House on any changes, but there are currently no plans to trigger article 16. Our discussions with the EU continue over the challenges of the Northern Ireland protocol, but it is a challenge we need to overcome; I encourage the EU to work with us to protect the Good Friday agreement, but that needs to happen on a very rapid timescale because it does need resolving.
Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)
The Syrian family of 13-year-old Firas were told in 2018 that they would be resettled to the United Kingdom, but they are still waiting and, heartbreakingly, that severely disabled kid died in Beirut with his family struggling to pay for medical care, food and clothes. Some 2,000 refugee families are currently in a similar situation according to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The resettlement programme can be transformational but we must not leave families hanging on for so long. May we have an urgent statement on steps to be taken to speed up the resettlement programme and help more families like Firas’s?
Mark Spencer
I am sorry to hear about the challenges the hon. Gentleman outlined. If he writes to me on the specific case, I will of course raise that directly with the relevant Minister on his behalf. The Government have a great track record in supporting families coming to the UK and taking refugees not only from Syria but from Afghanistan and now Ukraine, and if I can assist him in his pursuits, I will do everything I can.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
The David Livingstone birthplace museum in Blantyre in my constituency has been nominated for the best permanent exhibition at the museums and heritage awards. The museum documents Livingstone’s life and career, good and bad, and seeks to educate about Scotland’s role in slavery and colonisation. Having visited a number of times, I can attest to the power of the exhibition. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the museum and schedule a debate in Government time on the importance of the arts and culture sector in educating communities?
Mark Spencer
I join the hon. Lady in that celebration; I was not aware of the Livingstone museum but it sounds interesting and I am sure tourists up and down the country will be making their way to her constituency to enjoy the exhibition. I join her, too, in celebrating all tourist attractions and museums; that is worthy of a debate and I am sure that if she were to apply for a Westminster Hall debate, many colleagues would want to participate.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Leader of the House for all the time he gives to answering all our difficult question; they are sometimes more difficult than others, but I hope he will agree with mine. In Ethiopia recent violent clashes between Muslims and Orthodox Christians have left at least 30 people dead and more than 100 injured. Will he join me in condemning the attacks and ask the relevant Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Minister to make a statement calling on the local authorities in Ethiopia to carry out timely, independent and transparent investigations into the attacks?
Mark Spencer
I thank the hon. Gentleman, whom Mr Speaker always saves till last. I do not know why he does that—it feels a little bit like the good news story at the end of the ITN news. I saw that he was present for the urgent question to the Foreign Office Minister, when he also asked about religious oppression around the world. He is an assiduous campaigner on this topic and, at the end of his career—I think that is a long way away—we will all be able to reflect on the positive impact that he has had around the world on religious freedom. I know that he will continue to pursue those aims.
Mr Speaker
Order. I just want to correct the record. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) has already asked three questions today, and earlier he was called so early that he fell off his own chair. If the Leader of the House wants the hon. Member to be taken last, I will have to listen to him.
Debate on the Address
Fairness at Work and Power in Communities
(2 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
I am pleased to speak in support of the Queen’s Speech and the measures that it contains to make the United Kingdom stronger, healthier and more prosperous than before. The rising cost of living is a global challenge, and I know that this is a worrying time. The Government have made dealing with that challenge our top priority. Fundamentally, the only way to deal with it properly is to grow the economy, enable businesses to invest and create jobs, increase wages and increase productivity. However, we cannot achieve that overnight. That is why in 2022-23 we are providing support worth more than £22 billion to help families with the pressures in the immediate term.
The Government recognise that businesses are also concerned. Energy prices have increased globally, and there are supply-chain issues as the world economy recovers from the pandemic and adapts to the shock of the war in Ukraine. We will continue to keep the situation under review, recognising the current high level of uncertainty, and continue to monitor the ongoing impact on the economy. However, the UK economy is incredibly resilient and, with responsible management, we have seen it bounce back time and again—most recently from the pandemic with output above pre-pandemic levels. Unemployment is back below pre-pandemic levels and demand for workers remains strong. There are now more employees on the payroll than ever before.
A key part of our resilience is our strong, flexible and dynamic labour market. It is the envy of the world because it gives businesses the confidence to create jobs and invest in their workforce while giving workers more choice over who they work for and how often.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
Informal carers across the country will have been dismayed to hear that legislation to introduce the right to unpaid carer’s leave was not in the Queen’s Speech. It was a 2019 manifesto commitment and is a key pillar of the Government’s adult social care reforms. Will my hon. Friend please let me know when that will be addressed?
Paul Scully
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue, which she has done on a number of occasions, and rightly so. It remains a commitment of the Government to support unpaid carers, who do an amazing job in supporting their families and, importantly, supporting the economy and other areas of social care through their work and their commitment to their families. We remain committed to unpaid carer’s leave and indeed will introduce it when parliamentary time allows.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
I have listened to the Minister’s speech so far. He is talking about business being dynamic, but of course there are rogue employers out there. He promised a Delegated Legislation Committee on 25 January that there would be an employment Bill in the Queen’s Speech—may I ask where it is?
Paul Scully
We remain undiminished in our commitment to balance, as I outlined, the flexibility of the labour market with protections for workers. Indeed, we have already been working on a number of areas. We have made really good progress in extending the right to a written statement of core terms of employment to all workers—we have made access to that a day one right—and quadrupling the available aggravated breach penalties used in employment tribunals to £20,000 as well as any number of other issues, many of which I will outline in the debate. However, we clearly want to do more, and we will do that as parliamentary time allows.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
Talking about the protection of workers, would the Minister like to tell the House what protections were afforded to the 800 P&O workers who lost their jobs over a video call?
Paul Scully
I will cover P&O a bit later in my speech, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me. While we celebrate the flexibility of our workforce and the employers that do the right thing, clearly, there are egregious examples, such as P&O. We continue to address those through the work of the Insolvency Service and through the harbours Bill, which was announced in the Queen’s Speech.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
Would the Minister extend the category of egregious employers to Asda, B&Q, Sainsbury’s, Marks and Spencer and British Gas, all of which have reduced the terms and conditions of their long-standing members of staff on the basis of just 90 days’ consultation? Is that any way to treat anybody?
Paul Scully
The hon. Lady has raised this issue on a number of occasions. She will have seen, not that long ago, my announcement that we are establishing a statutory code of practice that will allow a strengthening of the findings of tribunals on companies that are doing the wrong thing in terms of fire and rehire and going back on people’s contracts in the way that she describes. What we want to provide, and what we have, is a labour market that rightly bears down on unscrupulous employers, protects those keeping to good working practices, promotes more competition in UK markets to build a high-skilled, high-productivity, high-wage economy, and promotes competition and choice so consumers have confidence in markets and businesses can compete on a level playing field. Our labour market is ranked among the top 10 countries, according to the World Economic Forum’s global competitive index. We also have one of the best records on workers’ rights in the world. Despite the pandemic, the labour market is strong by historical standards, with close to record levels and rates across the board.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that crucial to our recovery and crucial to our workforce is the ability of women to get back into the workforce and have hours of work that suit them? Why is it that childcare in this country is the most expensive in the developed world? When are we going to do something about that to liberate women to use their talent to the full?
Paul Scully
I happily agree with everything the hon. Gentleman has said. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), is reviewing childcare to tackle exactly that point. It is so important, as he says, to keep women, and basically everyone, in the workforce who want to stay in the workforce and progress their careers. So much about the flexible labour market is to ensure that companies, which invest a lot of time, money and resource in their workplace, keep those people and keep investing in those people. Businesses are based on their people if nothing else, so it is important that women can stay. That was my point about childcare. The Minister for children is reviewing the issue with a sense of urgency and passion to do something about making childcare affordable, but also to ensure that good employers, and more employers, provide women with flexibility in the workplace to keep them in the workplace, so there are fewer career breaks.
The unemployment rate is at its lowest since 1975. If you are in work, you have the best chance of tackling the cost of living as a household. The employment rate is at its highest since comparable records began in 1971 and workforce participation is close to record high rates. Youth unemployment—that is, 16 to 24-year-olds—has bounced back to pre-pandemic levels and is now at one of its lowest rates on record. We continue to build on that excellent record. This April, we made sure that 2.5 million people received a pay rise by raising the national minimum wage and living wage. That was the largest ever cash increase to the national living wage and put more than £1,000 a year into a full-time worker’s pay packet, helping to ease the cost of living pressures.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that it is time to think about incorporating mandatory ethnicity pay gap reporting to ensure that we reduce the disparities among black and ethnic minority workers?
Paul Scully
I am sure that the hon. Lady has read the report on the challenges in relation to this. We have seen how gender pay gaps have changed. There are complexities about ethnic pay gap reporting, but it is clearly an important issue. We will continue to work through that and encourage businesses to make sure that they pay a fair wage, and that starts with the lowest paid in the workforce.
The 2022 national living wage is now 42% higher than the minimum wage was in 2015. It is 60% higher than the minimum wage was in 2010. The Government have a commitment for the national living wage to equal two thirds of median earnings by 2024, providing economic conditions allow that. Additionally, we are putting power into the hands of individuals and businesses to find and create work that suits their personal circumstances. On Monday, we confirmed our intention to widen the ban on exclusivity clauses, ensuring that the lowest-paid workers have the freedom to boost their income through extra work if they wish.
We also continue to level the playing field, holding unscrupulous businesses to account and creating an environment in which businesses can compete fairly. The Government are tackling appalling business practices, such as—as I said—the disgraceful behaviour of P&O Ferries in firing their employees without consultation.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
I am very interested in what the Minister said about exclusivity clauses. How will he ensure that that does not simply encourage employers to keep wages low, knowing that, in fact, workers will then take on more and more low hours and low-paid jobs, effectively multiplying their exploitation?
Paul Scully
That is the careful balance that we in this place rightly have to achieve in our legislation. The entire philosophy behind removing exclusivity clauses is that it is for people on the lowest wages. They should not be bound to one employer. Clearly, people should not be forced to work in many jobs to earn a living wage. That is not the purpose of our proposals. We want to ensure that we remove discrimination by extending the protection against exclusivity clauses.
To come back to P&O, on 1 April, following a request from the Business Secretary, the Insolvency Service confirmed that, following its inquiries, it has commenced formal criminal and civil investigations into the circumstances surrounding the recent redundancies made by P&O Ferries. The Harbours (Seafarers’ Remuneration) Bill that was announced in the Queen’s Speech will protect seafarers working aboard vessels visiting UK ports by ensuring that the ports have powers ultimately to refuse access to ferry services that do not pay an equivalent to the national minimum wage to seafarers while in UK waters. That means that all ferry staff will receive a fair wage while in UK waters when operating regularly to or from UK ports, helping to avoid a legal loophole between UK and international maritime law that P&O Ferries ruthlessly exploited.
Andy McDonald
The Minister said a very important thing: that a criminal investigation had started. An assurance was given to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee that there would be advice on the legal position by 8 April. Will he please inform the House whether he has received that advice and whether a criminal offence has been made out?
Paul Scully
I said that the Insolvency Service would respond by 8 April, which it did, and that is why it has launched its criminal and civil investigations. That is ongoing.
We have also recently committed to producing a statutory code on fire and rehire practices to strengthen the rights of all employees. The new code will deter employers from using controversial tactics and from failing to engage in meaningful consultations with employees. The Government’s approach is clear: when bad bosses do not play by the rules, we will act.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
Last year, I introduced the Tips Bill, which would be an important solution, supporting hospitality workers with the cost of living: it would ensure that employers could not keep tips given to staff, waiters and hospitality workers. May I have an assurance from the Minister that he will continue to support me in ensuring that the Bill goes through Parliament?
Paul Scully
My hon. Friend has done amazing work in raising the profile of ensuring that there is a fair system for tipping and that the tronc actually goes to those at the front end, who are often on low wages. As I have said, the primary purpose of our employment measures is to protect those who are at the lowest end especially. I reaffirm our commitment to building on my hon. Friend’s continuing work in that area.
Chris Stephens
The Minister is being generous in giving way. He says that, where employers adopt bad practices, the Government will act, but it has been nearly five years since the Taylor review reported on issues such as zero-hours contracts and short-term shift notices. Once again, may I ask where the employment Bill is to tackle those issues?
Paul Scully
I will come back to the future of work in a second. The hon. Gentleman talks about zero-hours contracts, but we cannot just throw that term around as if it described a single exploitative work product. I have talked about how we have a dynamic and flexible labour market. Many, many people who are on zero-hours contracts like to be on them. There is still exploitation and there are still bad bosses out there, which is why I say that where there are bad practices we will act, but it is important that where businesses are playing fairly we salute them and support them in creating jobs and boosting our economy. We will all become poorer if the public lose faith in Britain’s businesses.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I know that he is committed to improvements to the labour market; we have had many conversations about the subject. He talks about acting when bad bosses are not doing the right things. Are the Government still planning to act to outlaw the misuse of non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality agreements, which are too often used to cover up wrongdoing in the workplace? The Government have undertaken to do so.
Paul Scully
We have had some really good conversations about this. As I say, where we have said that we will act, we will. My right hon. Friend has talked often in this Chamber and in the Women and Equalities Committee, when she was its Chair, about pregnancy discrimination, which goes back to a point that I responded to earlier about keeping women in the workplace. Women should not have to suffer for taking career breaks. We need to make sure that investment in women in the workplace is not wasted, because frankly it makes no business sense to act badly in that area.
There is no growth without enterprise. The Queen’s Speech sets out exactly how we will continue to boost economic growth across the country to address the cost of living and help to create the conditions for more people to have high-wage, high-skill jobs. The energy security Bill will not only accelerate our transition to more secure, more affordable and cleaner home-grown energy supplies, but encourage the creation of tens of thousands of high-skill jobs across the country. The audit reform Bill will reduce the unfair impact of sudden corporate collapses on workers, pensioners and suppliers, and will help businesses to grow by reinforcing the UK’s reputation as a great place to do business and invest.
The digital markets, competition and consumer Bill will protect consumers’ hard-earned cash from scams and rip-offs and will help them to get better deals, promoting more competition in UK markets so that consumers have confidence in markets and businesses competing on a level playing field. The economic crime and corporate transparency Bill will strengthen the UK’s reputation as a place where legitimate businesses can thrive, while ensuring that dirty money has no place to hide. All these reforms will improve our business environment and increase opportunities for the hard-working people of the UK to find jobs that suit them and their personal circumstances and that treat them fairly.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
The Minister is being generous in giving way. He referred to the Harbours (Seafarers’ Remuneration) Bill, and specifically to provisions to protect seafarers on ships entering UK ports. In the light of his remark about opportunities for well-paid, secure employment, will the same provisions apply to employment in the renewable energy sector on the UK continental shelf? There is the potential for many tens of thousands of new jobs, but the risk is that they will be offshored and will not go to British workers.
Paul Scully
What we are trying to do with the harbours Bill is resolve an anomaly between UK law and international maritime law. However, the hon. Gentleman has raised an interesting point, which will no doubt be explored during the progress of that Bill.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
The economic crime Bill gives us an opportunity to address the misuse of compulsory strike-off. I should be grateful if the Minister would make time to meet me, and some of the insolvency practitioner organisations, to discuss this phenomenon, which allows unscrupulous directors to use the practice to have their companies struck off without meeting debt and other obligations.
Paul Scully
I think I missed the first part of the hon. Lady’s intervention, but I will happily meet her, or one of my colleagues will. The Minister responsible for corporate governance matters is in the House of Lords, but I will ensure that whatever meeting takes place is the most appropriate one for the hon. Lady. We do want to secure the confidence in our corporate governance to which she has rightly referred.
The Queen’s Speech contains a packed and ambitious legislative programme, including a comprehensive set of Bills which will enable us to deliver on priorities such as growing the economy, which will in turn help to address rising living costs and get people into good jobs. We remain committed to introducing legislation to deliver on these manifesto commitments as soon as parliamentary time allows. Today the Prime Minister has asked my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) to conduct a review on the future of work. The review will build on existing Government commitments, mentioned by Members today, to identify and assess the key questions to address on that subject are as we seek to grow the economy after the pandemic.
Let me take this opportunity to remind Members that we have produced a raft of secondary legislation in recent years. We brought into force a world first in introducing a legal right to two weeks’ paid bereavement leave for parents who suffer the devastating loss of a child, irrespective of how long they have worked for their employer. Furthermore, at every stage of the pandemic our priority has been to protect jobs and livelihoods, and to provide a fair deal for the hard-working individuals of the United Kingdom. We continued to take action, swiftly and decisively, when it was needed during the pandemic.
I have spoken today about how reforms in the Queen’s Speech, and additional Government actions, will continue to improve our business environment and increase the opportunities for those hard-working people of the UK to find jobs that suit them and their personal circumstances and treat them fairly. Let me also make it clear that those opportunities will be spread across the country, driving local growth and regeneration. We are giving powers back to local leaders by devolving powers to Mayors and local government. We are giving local communities more tools to bring about regeneration, including a planning system that places beauty, infrastructure, democracy, the environment and neighbourhoods at its heart. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill will enshrine in law the Government’s commitment to the 12 levelling-up missions giving power and opportunity back to those communities, and we are pressing ahead with our plans for the implementation of the White Paper “Levelling Up the United Kingdom”.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
The Minister has talked about more powers, and it is clear that more areas will be given powers similar to those currently held by, for instance, the existing combined authorities. Can he specify what those powers will be, for the benefit of those mayoral combined authorities? Will he set them out very simply, so that we all know what additional powers the Mayors will have?
Paul Scully
I am sure that the answer to that question will develop as the debate proceeds. I am not going to go through all the various powers now. Suffice it to say that what we will all see is devolution that matches the expectations of people and communities, so that we can create opportunities for good governance and ensure that local leaders shape their areas and their economies. Ultimately, levelling up is about levelling up people and levelling up lives. That will inevitably be reflected in infrastructure and transport, but it will also be reflected in governance which ensures that those who know those people best and can work with them most effectively can respond at a local, bespoke level.
We are also introducing legislation to give social tenants a more powerful voice with their landlords, and we are legislating to improve the quality of housing for private renters and making renting fairer for tenants.
This is a Queen’s Speech which will ensure that we can continue to build back a better Britain after the pandemic, boosting our growth and our recovery so that every part of our country can thrive.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
Before I call the deputy Leader of the Opposition, I must point out that this is a very well subscribed debate and that in order to get everybody in, I ask that Back-Bench speeches are no longer than 10 minutes each.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to face the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully) for the first time, but from what he has said today, I have to ask: where is the employment Bill that was promised? Where is it? The Labour party has a long and proud history as the party of working people and for working people. It is simple: we believe that people deserve a high-quality, secure job and a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Everyone deserves a job that they can build their life on and the security to be able to start a family, no matter who they are or what job they do.
More than that, I believe that working people should earn enough so that they can have cash spare at the end of the week to enjoy the fruits of their labour and balance work and life. Going out for dinner or taking their kids to the cinema should not be a luxury item for people who are working. What a miserable vision of our country it is when older people who ride buses to keep warm are told that they should be grateful for that privilege, when 2 million people in our country cannot afford to eat every day and when a further 250,000 UK households face destitution in 2023. That is the Conservative Government in action, and it shows how we on this side of the House differ. We are not all the same.
The Minister opened the debate today by talking about the importance of growth, yet today’s GDP figures show no growth in February and a fall in GDP in March. Working people across the country have been betrayed by the Conservative Government. The employment Bill that was promised to follow the withdrawal agreement has never happened. They did not get it done.
In yet another Queen’s Speech the Government offer jam tomorrow while millions of people in our country cannot afford either to eat or to heat. This week, families needed to see a proper proposal from the Government to put money back in their pockets. Parents getting a late-night text to tell them their working hours and tearing their hair out organising last-minute childcare to cover their shift, and social care workers working two jobs who cannot afford to take a break or get sick, needed to see fair pay agreements or a basic minimum wage that is enough to live on. The bus driver who worked all through the pandemic but was fired and rehired on less money and longer hours needs to see the outlawing of this obscene practice. They need real help, right now. Instead, they get warm words and wishful thinking.
Time and again—in fact 20 times—Ministers promised an employment Bill that would protect workers and put an end to warehouses run like Victorian workhouses. They then promised they would make it illegal for bosses to sack long-standing staff members and then rehire them on worse pay and hours, to avoid a repeat of the P&O scandal. They promised that enhanced rights and protections were just around the corner. Well—mañana, mañana, mañana. Twenty times, Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and said that we should await the employment Bill, and await it we did. Where is it? Three years now and we are still waiting.
Now we can see that the Government were never going to come good on that pledge. The promise to introduce a single enforcement body and take action on tips and sick pay—gone. The promise to consult on making flexible working the default without good reason not to—ditched. The promise to introduce extended leave for neonatal care—dropped. The promise to make it easier for fathers to take paternity leave—disappeared.
The promise to extend the entitlement to leave for unpaid carers to a week—abandoned. The promise to create a preventive duty against sexual harassment—missing. The promise to extend redundancy protection for pregnant women—nowhere to be seen. And the promise to end the cruel practice of fire and rehire—up in smoke. The truth is that this Government are presiding over a bonfire of workers’ rights and breaking their promises left, right and centre. They pledged to enhance rights and protections at work, but yet again they have failed to deliver.
If the Conservatives were serious about spreading opportunity, prosperity and power across the country, they would start by introducing plans to pay people a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, but this Government have yet again failed to make the choices required to stand up for working people, because they are not on working people’s side. While prices continue to skyrocket, we see no plans—no plans—to tackle the cost of living crisis. The Prime Minister said that more help is on its way, and then his own spokespeople and his absent neighbour at No. 11 furiously denied it, while Ministers took to the airwaves to put on silly voices and mock those who are struggling. This is not a serious Government.
The Government continue to try to pull the wool over our eyes, telling us that skyrocketing prices are just a global problem, that offering people help is somehow silly, that nothing can be done. But here is the problem: as bills soar across Britain, the Prime Minister is enforcing a tax-hiking Budget. He is the only G7 leader to do so. The Prime Minister and his Chancellor chose—they chose—to hike taxes on working people at the worst possible time, and they chose not to introduce a windfall tax on energy companies to help people with their energy bills. We need an emergency Budget now to sort out this mess and to tackle the cost of living crisis.
I constantly get mail from constituents who are struggling to make a pay cheque last until the end of the month. They all deserve better, a decent wage that is enough to raise a family on and to afford bread and, yes, some roses, too. Better pay would end the self-defeating low wage, low investment and low productivity cycle in which the country has been trapped for the past decade. Boosting people’s income is not just the right thing to do for them; it is the right thing to do for our economy.
The fact is that, right now, people do not have the money to spend in our shops, businesses and local economies, so high streets are suffering. Places that were once a source of great pride are now a source of great sadness, as independent businesses are replaced with plywood shutters.
Britain’s insecure work epidemic is not just punishing workers and communities; it is starving the public finances, too. New research from the TUC this week shows that insecure, low-paid work costs the Treasury £10 billion a year in lost tax revenue and increased social security payments, which means less funding for our cash-strapped hospitals, care homes and schools. That is a choice—it is the Government’s choice—and, under this Government, the people who worked to rebuild this country have been forgotten. In towns up and down the country, people are working harder and paying more but getting less every year.
In places like Stockport, where I grew up, families are suffering. While travelling across the country during the local election campaign, I saw at first hand how the Conservatives have frozen wages, overseen widespread inequality and increased poverty. From Bury to Bletchley, and from Barnet to Burnley, the people and places that once proudly powered Britain, that contributed to our economy, are being rewarded with low wages and insecure work. They are underpaid, underappreciated and undervalued. It is high time that the key workers who got us through this pandemic, and all other working people, were given the dignity and security at work that they deserve, but under the Conservatives, work does not mean security any more, and it does not mean fairness, either. That is why we have proposed a new deal for working people. Within the first 100 days of a Labour Government, we would legislate to introduce fair pay agreements, which would bring together workers and employers to agree terms in each sector, starting in social care.
We are ambitious for our country, and our ambitions do not stop there. Labour will strengthen the protections afforded to all workers by ending qualifying periods for basic rights, which leave working people waiting up to two years for their basic protections. Labour will end this arbitrary system, and will scrap qualifying time for basic rights such as those on unfair dismissal, sick pay and paternity pay. With a Labour Government, working people will have rights at work from day one, but this not just about workers; so many businesses play by the rules and try to do the right thing but are undercut by the offshore and the unscrupulous. Many of them are the small and medium-sized businesses that are the backbone of our local and regional economies, and they deserve better, too. We would scrap business rates to help our high streets flourish. Just today, Deliveroo and GMB union have reached a groundbreaking agreement, which shows how innovation and a voice at work can go hand in hand. It is good that there are successful businesses that understand the value of trade unions in a modern economy.
This Government could also learn a lesson or two about the role of women in our economy. Having been a single parent, I know only too well the challenges of trying to balance work with being a good mum—of running from work to the school gates, and of missing out on parents evening. Rather than stacking the odds against working parents, Labour would deliver stronger family-friendly rights. Labour will ensure that all workers have the right to flexible working as a default from day one. During the pandemic, so many workers have shown how flexible they can be, and we should build on that flexibility. We are committed to extending statutory maternity and paternity leave, introducing the right to bereavement leave, and strengthening protections for pregnant women by making it, as a default, unlawful to dismiss them within six months of their return to work. Labour will set stronger family-friendly rights in stone.
We will also put mental health on a par with physical health in our workplaces. This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, and Ministers would do well to remember it. Labour will also act to close gender, disability and ethnicity pay gaps. This Government’s programme is completely lacking in any plans to tackle the inequalities facing black, Asian and minority ethnic people, which were so visibly exposed by the covid-19 pandemic. Yet again, the Government have reneged on their promise to introduce ethnicity pay gap reporting, ignoring calls from both the CBI and the TUC.
Andy McDonald
My right hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does she share my admiration for Baroness McGregor-Smith, and the work that she did to persuade many companies to embrace pay gap reporting, though that was thwarted by those on the Government Benches? Is it not a sad indictment of the Government that business, the TUC and everybody else are way ahead of them on this issue?
Angela Rayner
I thank my hon. Friend, not only for his work on Labour’s plan for employment, but for the crucial point he makes. This Government’s pattern of behaviour is to not work with or listen to anybody at the moment. It is all about rhetoric, rather than working collaboratively to make things better for the people of this country. It seems that nobody is immune to that these days, whereas once it was just a select few who the Government felt were partisan in their views. The ideas of quite a lot of people are now frozen out, and it seems the Government are not willing to listen.
Our country is riven with inequalities, which we on the Opposition Benches are focused on fixing in order to ensure that the working people who create our nation’s wealth get their fair share of it. Meanwhile, the Government propose a Procurement Bill that looks increasingly unworthy of the name. We need a Bill that allows us to use Government contracts to support British businesses, so that we can make, buy and sell more in Britain. As we recover from the pandemic, we have a chance to seize new opportunities to shape a new future for Britain—opportunities to give people new skills and jobs here in the UK, to invest in local businesses, and to help our high streets to thrive again.
A Labour Government would ask every public body to give more contracts to British businesses, using social, environmental and labour clauses in contract design. We would work with colleges and universities to make sure that we hone the skills and apprenticeships that we need for the jobs of the future. The Tories have cynically abused procurement rules and handed out millions of pounds of public money to their mates; Labour will use public procurement to support good work and good British businesses. From good green jobs in tidal power and offshore wind, to fintech, media and film, we must grow modern industries to build a long-term economy that provides good jobs and is fit for the future.
Mr Sheerman
Does my right hon. Friend agree that closing down Channel 4 in Leeds by selling it off will be a mortal blow to the creative industries in the north of England?
Angela Rayner
I absolutely agree. The frustration is that people in the north and in the midlands—areas like the one I represent—have been told that there will be “Levelling up, levelling up, levelling up,” yet at the first sign of any sort of sprig of help for our economy, they trash it by taking away the support that is there and doing something that really does not add up to levelling up and supporting our great industries in the north and in the midlands.
Chris Stephens
My Unison comrade makes an excellent point. Does it not also apply to the Government’s ludicrous decision to close Department for Work and Pensions offices, and now to close Insolvency Service offices throughout the UK?
Angela Rayner
I thank my Unison colleague and friend, who I have known for many years, and who has fought for working people and great public services for many years. Yes, I absolutely agree with him: it does not make sense. The theme I have highlighted throughout my speech is that the Government say one thing, but it is always jam tomorrow, and their actions are completely divorced from what is happening on the ground.
The Conservatives have had 12 long years to make the changes that our country desperately needs to secure our future, but they have failed. All the while, we have seen the watering down of workers’ rights, and rogue bosses such as those at P&O taking advantage of our lax rules while Ministers stand idly by. Instead of an employment model that delivers for working people, the Conservatives have ushered in a race to the bottom on the backs of working people. Outsourcing, zero-hours contracts and agency work have driven down pay, standards and conditions for everyone across our whole economy.
Labour’s approach is to offer people real help right now, and a vision for the future of work in which working people enjoy dignity and are treated with respect. This is what is missing from the Government’s programme: real help right now, when people need it—a vision for a better Britain, with a more secure future. Work should provide not just a proper wage that people can raise a family on but dignity, fairness and flexibility. Labour will make Britain work for working people. This Conservative Government have not got a plan—they have not got a clue. Ministers claim they are getting on with the job, but they are failing Britain’s workers and their communities today.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to speak in this House, but it is a particular pleasure for me today, as it is 30 years to the day since I stood on almost the same spot to give my maiden speech in the House of Commons. It is a pleasure, too, to speak in a debate about the communities up and down our country.
Nothing undermines the stability of our economy, community and families more than inflation. It inevitably hits the poorest in society hardest, and it is therefore a moral as well as an economic hazard. As Milton Friedman said, inflation is taxation without legislation, except that no one wins, including the Treasury.
As a result of the covid-19 pandemic, the global economy suffered a negative supply shock, with an initial fall in output followed by an increase in prices. That has affected a wide range of global commodities, but nowhere has the effect been felt more than in the energy sector. The complication here is that the current surge in prices is the result not of a single shock of the pandemic, but of a number of supply and demand factors that have affected the market in recent times. Members who are interested in a detailed analysis of this subject should read the report by Carlos Fernandez Alvarez and Gergely Molnar, written and published by the International Energy Agency, because it answers the question that many of our constituents are asking us: why has energy suddenly become so expensive?
At the beginning of the pandemic, fossil fuel prices fell to their lowest in decades. That was followed by a strong rebound as the global economy recovered, and it was exacerbated by a cold winter in the northern hemisphere and lower than average wind generation in Europe. However, the main driver of price increases has come on the supply rather than the demand side. The commodity price collapses of 2014-15 and then 2020 resulted in diminished investments in oil and gas, which increased the vulnerability of the sector. Governments across the world have failed to sufficiently scale up clean energy sources, renewables and technologies to fill the inevitable gap.
Those problems were exacerbated by the recent lockdowns, which pushed essential maintenance work from 2020 into 2021. That led to restrictions on supply just as demand was quickly recovering. That was particularly true in the UK and the Norwegian sectors of the North sea. Similar problems affected the gas industry. The global economy has seen an unavoidable inflationary shock, but—and there is a big but—we can be sure that this is not the whole story when it comes to the price rises that British people face today, not only in energy but across a range of commodities. How can we be so sure? If we look across the global economy at the variability of inflation rates, we see a very large difference. In Japan, which imports all its fossil fuels, the latest inflation figure shows a rise to 1.2%. China is 1.5%. While inflation in the eurozone has surged to 7.5%, Switzerland, a European but non-eurozone country, has inflation of 2.5%. In the UK, we are above 7%, and the US is 8.5% and rising, so something other than energy prices has been behind our inflationary phenomenon.
In fact, we have two different inflationary surges—that of global commodity prices, as I mentioned, which affects everyone, and that of monetary inflation, which afflicts those countries where central banks have allowed persistent increases in the amount of money in circulation relative to existing output. The group-think mentality of central bankers in the United States, the eurozone and the UK has reinforced the idea that they have stumbled on some kind of monetary alchemy that makes it is possible to continually expand the money supply, unrelated to output, without creating inflation. Perhaps that is an uncharitable view, and they knew all along that they would create inflation but were simply responding to their political masters. However, that raises questions about the independence of the central bank in the first place. Either way, it is a wholly unacceptable position.
It is almost universally accepted that the first duty of Government is the protection of its citizens. As a former Defence Secretary, I am only too aware of the many external threats to the safety of our people and our country, but there are other threats that I believe we have a right to be protected from: the debasement of our currency, the erosion of our earnings and the devaluation of our savings. I believe it is fundamentally wrong for Governments to engage in structural profligacy, spending excessively across the economic cycle and passing ever-larger amounts of debt on to the next generation.
I also believe it is the duty of central banks to safeguard the value of our money and our savings. The Bank of England persisted beyond any rational interpretation of the data to tell us that inflation was transient, then that it would peak at 5%. It has consistently underestimated the threat.
There are three things I would like to see. First, the Treasury Committee should launch an investigation into why the Bank of England so comprehensively underestimated the inflationary threat; secondly, the monetary policy report should go back to being the inflation report and thirdly, the Government should think about what guidance might be given to the Bank of England on considering and reporting monetary stability.
I will say a word about the Government’s forthcoming Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill. We all understand the need for housing targets. We must have social mobility, ensuring that the next generation can participate in the benefits of home ownership. We need more affordable homes to allow young people to continue to live in the communities in which they grew up. However, targets for housing must be just that—targets for local authorities, not instructions to local authorities. I am delighted that the Government seem to have changed the direction of travel to move in a much more rational direction than previously.
We must also accept in planning that local authorities have competing priorities. To give one example, in my North Somerset constituency we accept that we need to have more housing and that the Government will set targets, but at the same time the Government say, understandably and correctly, “Don’t build on the green belt”, and, “Don’t build on floodplains.” That limits the space to build further housing. I would like to hear the Government make very clear that, where local plans are being constructed and conflicting priorities are being applied to them by Government, it is the local authority that will get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the Planning Inspectorate.
That brings me to the issue of the green belt itself. According to the Government’s national planning policy framework, the green belt serves five purposes:
“to check the unrestricted sprawl of large built-up areas; to prevent neighbouring towns merging into one another; to assist in safeguarding the countryside from encroachment; to preserve the setting and special character of historic towns; and to assist in urban regeneration, by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land.”
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
In order to secure that supply of land for building houses that the right hon. Gentleman spoke of, does he agree that it would make sense to reform the Land Compensation Act 1961 so that local authorities can purchase land closer to its existing value, rather than its hoped value?
Dr Fox
That is certainly something that we should look at. The passage and the Committee stage of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill are opportunities for Parliament to genuinely reform our planning laws to make them sensible for a 21st-century country. We must ensure that in that Bill, not only is our green belt protected, but the Government increase those protections. Once our green belt is gone, it is gone forever. I believe it is our duty to steward the green spaces in our land for future generations.
Siobhain McDonagh
Is the right hon. Member aware that there are large tracts of green belt close to outer London train stations that are not green and are not accessible and that, if developed, could lead to 1 million more homes precisely in the areas where people need them?
Dr Fox
We should be having far more housing built in our urban areas. One of the great hopes I have for this Bill is that we will see housing built closer to where people can go to work so that there is not so much pressure on the transport infrastructure. It has been our tendency in recent times to build commuter belts where people therefore have to travel into our cities. Getting mixed development in our cities, thereby regenerating them, would take a lot of pressure off the transport system.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Dr Fox
I do not have time—I apologise to my hon. Friend.
We need reform of land banking. The system that we have at the present time, where big developers buy land, get permission for 200 houses, build 40 and wait for the price to rise before they build the rest, results in planning blight. It results in big land banks for the developers. It means that people who live in our communities do not know what is going to happen. There are a number of solutions. My preferred one would be that if developers have not built out the permissions they have, they should not be allowed to apply for further planning permissions in the same local authority area. We absolutely have to deal with this problem, because it blights communities up and down the UK.
The levelling-up agenda is about extending opportunity to people in all parts of the United Kingdom. In regenerating our great northern cities, we have an opportunity to take pressure off the overcrowded south where housing and transport demand is too high. We need better employment opportunities spread across the country in what I would call a rebalancing of Britain. We have a great chance to have a win-win for all parts of the United Kingdom. However, unless we are able to tame inflation, none of our ambitions will be realised.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
In giving some thought to what I might say today, I thought that the best way I could say, “Where is the employment Bill in this Queen’s Speech?”, would be to quote the Scottish TUC, which absolutely got it right:
“20 times the Tory UK Government promised to bring forward an employment bill. Absolute silence in today’s State Opening of Parliament. True to form, Tories have shafted workers and armed bad bosses. Devolve it already.”
I could not say it better than that. The Minister has given us all sorts of promises about an employment Bill, as he has been doing all year, like many other Ministers. We cannot believe anything that he says in relation to the employment Bill, because it has not been forthcoming. He promises and promises and clearly cannot convince the UK Government to actually deliver—if he even believes it should come through at all. There are so many reasons why we need an employment Bill—why it is absolutely vital and more so today even than it was when it was in the Conservative manifesto back in 2019 or when the Taylor review was published more than five years ago. It is desperately needed because of the cost of living crisis that we are seeing and the absolute pain that our constituents are going through. The Conservatives might want to try to rebrand it as a cost of living crunch, but it is an absolute crisis that people are struggling with every single day.
The first thing that we would like to see in the employment Bill is a proper living wage and the removal of the age discrimination within it. The living wage is not actually enough money for people to live on. The UK Government have continued to call it a living wage, but it is a minimum wage rebranded as a pretendy living wage, because people cannot afford to live on it. We can see that from the fact that the Child Poverty Action Group has said that 72% of families with children where at least one parent works are struggling to afford food. If this Government were committed to making work pay, those people would not be going to food banks. They would not be in poverty while working. They would not have to have so many jobs, including zero-hours contracts. Because they have so many jobs that are so low-paid, they do not meet the thresholds for things like auto-enrolment or statutory sick pay. They do not get any of the benefits that people should get with work because the work is not paying. We see the level of stress, pain and mental health suffering that this is causing people. If the UK Government decide that they want to put employers first, ahead of employees, then surely they should recognise that employees having no money and living with that level of stress makes them worse employees. If that is the key thing for the UK Government, they should be trying their best to improve lives for employees by making sure that work actually pays.
We would like to see flexible working requests available from day one. The UK Government have promised to look at that. Some 29 months ago, they said they would look at neonatal leave and pay. Where is it? They said they would look at making flexible working the default 29 months ago. After 29 months, nothing has happened. There is nothing in the Queen’s Speech about that. They said 43 months ago that they would like tips to go to workers in full. Where is the legislation? They said 54 months ago that they would evaluate shared parental leave. We have been waiting 54 months for UK Government action on that, and they have failed and failed again, and they failed this week in the Queen’s Speech.
The Government have said that they want to look at redundancy protections for women. That was mentioned by the deputy leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), who made a very good speech that I agreed with the vast majority of. We need to see new mums being given that protection. Having been made redundant when I was pregnant, I know how painful and difficult that situation is. We need to see those protections in place for new mums.
The reality is that the lack of action by this Government has enshrined inequalities and means that the gender pay gap and the gender pension gap will continue to grow, because women are more likely to be on low pay and low hours, working a number of different jobs and not being put into auto-enrolment. The UK Government are making things worse for this generation of workers and future generations of pensioners, as well as for current generations of pensioners.
We saw some action in the Queen’s Speech on fire and rehire specifically for seafarers—it is not actually in relation to fire and rehire, but the P&O issues that there have been. Although I welcome the Bill, and I am glad that action is being taken on low pay for seafarers, it is not for all seafarers; it is for ferry seafarers. It covers only people who work on ferries, and it is not any broader than that. Representing a port in my constituency, I am keen to hear the Government explain how they will indemnify ports having to take action against large boats and large companies. How will the Government ensure that those ports are not put at risk by the action they should be taking? I agree that action should be taken, but I do not want this to land in the lap of the ports and for them to be left holding all the responsibility. The UK Government should be taking action to press for changes in maritime law to ensure that everybody who is in a boat or ship within our seas is being paid a living wage, not just those on UK-flagged boats.
We are five years on from the Taylor review. Why did the Government bother doing the Taylor review? What was the point in all the money, time and hard work that went into it? Nothing has happened and nothing has come of it. Nothing has changed for people working in the gig economy or for people working in companies where they are pretending to be self-employed. Those changes have not been made. People are still living with the level of uncertainty that the deputy leader of the Labour party mentioned, getting texts the night before saying, “Your shift is being cancelled”, or suddenly being given an extra shift that they somehow have to find childcare to cover. They are still living without the benefits of having a pension, sick pay and all those things that workers should have to be able to live lives and not just live to work. We all should be aspiring for our constituents to be able to live, to enjoy living and to have fair work that they can go to.
I want to mention the Brexit freedoms Bill, which has a hilarious name. It is about taking back control—which is ironic—to the UK Government. It is about taking back control away from Parliament and taking back control from having things in primary legislation and moving it to secondary legislation, ensuring that the UK Government can do what they want to remove the protections put in place by EU law. The only reason why we have the level of workers’ rights that we have, and the only reason why we have been saved from the Tories’ untrammelled reductions in workers’ rights, is EU law. The Brexit freedoms Bill will undo that. It will allow them the absolute power to do what they like with our workers’ rights and to ensure that employers are put first rather than employees at every possible opportunity. The Government must absolutely commit not to roll back workers’ rights—not that it will mean anything if they do say it, but it would be useful for us to be able to repeat it back to them—and to increase the protections in place for workers. The promises that they have made need to come through.
We have been asking for years for employment law to be devolved. I would love for the Labour party to back us in that call. If it did not back us on this, it would feel a bit like it was willing just to let us sink with the rest of Britain. It would be very nice for the Scottish Parliament to have control of this area, because we could make a positive difference to workers in Scotland, even though we have a Tory Government and even though the Labour party is letting down workers in Scotland by failing to call for employment law to be devolved. We have made these cases on behalf of our constituents and the people of Scotland: we want employment law to be devolved.
The longer that this Tory Government continue to refuse to devolve employment law; the longer they continue dismantling the protections in place for workers; the longer they keep coming on television saying things like, “People are using food banks because they can’t budget”, or, “People should just work a few more hours and that will be great; that will reduce the need for them to have the £20 universal credit uplift”; the longer they continue to refuse to increase benefits by anything close to inflation—the Scottish Government have increased benefits by almost double what the UK Government have increased them by this year, and the Scottish Government have a child poverty action plan in place—the stronger the case they are making for independence. They are making that case stronger for the Scottish people, who can see the two Governments working on their behalf. They can see the Scottish Government enshrining fair work and principles in every single thing we do and putting the wellbeing of the population first in every single thing we do, and they can see the Tories doing everything they can to dismantle those protections, to reduce social security in real terms and to ensure that people do not have enough money to live on, and they can see them to step up to solve the energy crisis. The case for independence is getting ever stronger, and the Conservatives’ continued failure is bringing the reality of independence much closer every single day.
Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)
This Queen’s Speech is all about driving growth in our economy. Although the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) may have disagreed with that in her speech, that is what is best for working people throughout the United Kingdom, because a strong economy will give us secure jobs, good wages and the most overall certainty for the future. I suggest to the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), who spoke for the Scottish National party, that when it comes to wellbeing, certainty is incredibly important as well, and having a strong economy, as the Government are focused on, is at the heart of that.
For too long, the economic powerhouse of the UK has been focused on an extremely small part of our country: the south-east of England and London. The Government’s levelling-up mission directly addresses that problem. Today, we have seen the announcement of faster recovery in the UK compared with the US, Germany and Italy, but we have to make sure that that recovery spreads beyond a very small part of our geography, because the cost of living rises that have been referred to in many speeches today affect everyone. The Government need to make sure that when it comes to solutions, they reach everybody.
I suggest that the Government need to pay great heed to the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), because he is right that one lever they can pull in their response to the challenges that we face is to make changes around inflation. It is very much within the Government’s gift to make those changes to bring inflation more under control. When we look at the different levels of inflation in countries around Europe, we can see how the fiscal responses that Governments make have driven those changes inherently.
The cost of living problems that we are struggling with need to come first and foremost in the eyes of every Minister, regardless of Department. The flagship Bill of the Queen’s Speech, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, is fundamental to Conservative values. It is all about giving everyone the opportunity to succeed, regardless of where they live or the geography they are in. Spreading the prosperity of our country more evenly is crucial to our future.
That is not a new challenge. I gently say to the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), that regional policy has a chequered history in this country and we need to ensure that, as the Bill sets out, we have regular monitoring of the effectiveness of levelling up. My constituency of Basingstoke has been named as one of the top 10 most levelled-up boroughs in the country, which is because we have excellent local government in our borough and county councils and we have had significant investment in our local infrastructure. More than £80 million has been invested in our roads, our school places have been expanded and we have high levels of employment.
I want more places in our country to be like my constituency, and I hope the Bill will help that to happen. That comes not just from a positive sense of wanting to support other constituencies around the country, but from self-interest, because we cannot continue to overly focus the growth of our country on such a small geography. Basingstoke built four times as many houses in the last 40 years than other communities across our country, and that cannot continue. We are being asked to build another almost 20,000 houses in our next local plan, because the algorithms punish people who have been successful in building new homes, which cannot be right.
We need to shift growth. If the Government are really going to achieve levelling up, they cannot allow the south-east to continue to be a hothouse of house building. They must make a change ,and they need to direct planning inspectors to look more closely at the challenges that over-developed areas such as mine face so that we can deal with issues such as community cohesion, which we simply do not have time to tackle when we are building so many houses. The Government must appreciate that levelling up is far more than geography. It is fundamental to Conservative values that we give everyone the opportunity to succeed, regardless of where they are born, their parents, their gender or their disability.
I gently point out to the Minister that conversations around the employment Bill cannot be dismissed. There are a number of issues that the Government, through their own research, understand to have been areas of important labour market failure in this country, such as maternity discrimination; the misuse of non-disclosure agreements; the importance of flexible working in increasing our productivity; and unpaid carer’s leave, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) has spoken about and is central to our adult social care policies, and parental leave. All those things need to be addressed, and the Government must set out how they will be dealt with in the absence of an employment Bill.
This debate is also about stronger communities. One way to strengthen our communities is by strengthening our education system. I am delighted that there is a Schools Bill in the Queen’s Speech. I welcome the focus on raising standards and on specific things such as home-school children being on a register so that we know that every child in this country is being cared for correctly.
I also suggest that the Government look again at the way in which relationship and sex education is being rolled out. It became everybody’s concern when, a year or so ago, Everyone’s Invited was a front-page news item; we were all concerned about the culture of sexual abuse among school-age children. I found it curious that the Government asked Ofsted, which is responsible for the roll-out of relationship and sex education in our schools, to investigate that problem, because it should have been monitoring that roll-out, which, according to many, has been much slower and less successful than it should have been. Despite the provision of such education having been law for three years, just one in three young people in our country have learned about how to tell whether a relationship is healthy, including online, and just one in three have learned about the harm of pornography. The Minister needs to consider how we review Ofsted’s effectiveness in monitoring the roll-out and whether others should be involved in that, given the current failures in that direction.
I am delighted to see a draft victims Bill in the Queen’s Speech. I particularly hope that recognition will be given to the way that the Online Safety Bill will increase the number of victims in the justice system or just outside it. Given that seismic increase, we need to look for ways to ensure that there is funding, perhaps on a “polluter pays” principle from social media companies, to pay for the additional support that is needed.
I welcome the modern slavery Bill, which addresses a weakness in the current system and proposes to increase the accountability of companies and organisations driving modern slavery out of supply chains. That was a key recommendation of the report that the Government commissioned from me, Lord Frank Field and Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss when we reviewed the Modern Slavery Act 2015 three years ago.
In conclusion, I very much welcome the Queen’s Speech and the Government’s focus on levelling up, but we must ensure that we do not limit our ambitions and that we focus on levelling up around the geography of the United Kingdom. We will level up Britain and Northern Ireland if we treat everyone fairly and give everyone the opportunity to succeed, regardless of their gender, their disability, their parentage or whether they are parents or single people. I welcome the measures in the Queen’s Speech but the Government need to carefully consider how they can deliver on the important changes in the workplace that the Minister and I have spoken about for many months.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I obviously want to contribute on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which was mentioned in the Queen’s Speech and has now been introduced, and the measures on social housing, which the Select Committee have been dealing with in recent months. First, however, as a constituency MP, I ask: where are the measures in the Queen’s Speech to address the cost of living crisis that is affecting all our constituents?
When we talk about levelling up, we should recognise that those in the greatest poverty, who were struggling before energy bills rose, are struggling even more now. Frankly, they look at the eye-watering profits that have been announced in recent days by BP and Shell and wonder why we are not taxing those super-profits to help to cushion the effect of rising prices on their bills and households. The Government have not given an adequate answer to that.
To return to levelling-up issues, I have two major concerns. First, where is the money? That has been a challenge right the way through. If the Government are about levelling up, they are about levelling up Government spending across the piece. Pots of money—levelling up pots, high street pots and town pots—will not make any real difference by themselves, particularly in the context of the massive cuts to local government funding that the poorest areas that need levelling up have seen in the last 10 years.
The Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities sort of got that message; the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Harborough (Neil O’Brien), got it when he came to the Select Committee; and Andy Haldane got it even more—he basically said that we should not have those individual pots of money. We need proper resources and proper budgets to be given to our Mayors, combined authorities and local authorities to spend according to the needs of their area.
I ask the Minister for Levelling Up Communities, the hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), what levelling up really means in financial terms. Does it mean that the Chancellor has an extra sum of money to announce which will be spent in our poorer areas to bring them up to the level of the richer parts of the country?
One particular example is the buses in South Yorkshire. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) in his place, who, until recently, was the Mayor of South Yorkshire, previously the Sheffield city region. I thank him for the excellent work he has done on behalf of the region, and my constituents in particular, over the last four years. He knows that the amount of money spent on bus services in London is about 10 times per head more than it is in South Yorkshire. We have the powers to run our bus service in the same way, but not the money.
I say to the Minister that this is about either an extra sum of money that the Chancellor will have to find or rediverting money from the richer areas to the poorer parts of the country. It has to be one or the other. How can we level up and get equality of funding unless we either find additional funding to bring the poorer areas up or transfer money from the richer areas to the poorer areas? It has to be one or the other. What are the Government going to do? Currently, they are really doing neither.
Secondly, I ask: where are the powers? Earlier, I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), what additional powers are in the Bill to level up and give more authority to combined authorities, Mayors and individual local authorities. He could not answer the question because actually there is no answer. I cannot claim to have read every single one of the 196 clauses in the Bill and the 17 schedules to it, but I cannot find any mention of extra powers. I have found mention of other areas that currently do not have combined authorities, particularly county areas, getting them in the future, which is welcome, but I cannot actually find any additional powers.
The Select Committee has been much more radical. We have said that we should look at this the other way around: should not all decisions be made at local level unless there is a good reason for making them at national level? When the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Harborough, came to the Select Committee, he said that that was a bit radical. Well, it is, but I actually think we need a radical solution to deal with the fact that we are one of the most overcentralised countries in western Europe. That is the reality. There really is not any fundamental change here to alter that, and I am sure we will come back to and press that as a Select Committee.
There was going to be a major planning reform a few months ago, was there not? The previous Secretary of State announced it: the Government were going to tear up the planning rules and start again. It has now come down to a few clauses in the Bill. I am not dismissing that, because I think there are actually some quite good proposals in there. [Interruption.] Well, they are quite good because I think the Government have come round to the view the Select Committee took, which is why they are probably quite helpful. First, we have got rid of the three zones. It was never going to be possible to rewrite every local plan in 30 months, and we have got away from that situation.
We have, I think, moved to a situation where we are going to have simpler processes for local plans, and I think that is welcome, although we have to look at the detail of how they will be worked through. They will be digitised, and that is helpful. In clauses 50 and 60, I think, we have got to a point where, in individual planning applications, the local plan is going to be given greater weight, and I think that is helpful as well. There will be a degree of certainty for communities and for developers—both are important.
We have to get more of the public engaged in the local plan process so that it actually means something, because currently people tend to get engaged once a planning application comes in for a site near them. We have to change that, and get the community to look at where houses should be built and where other developments should take place in the area as a whole through the local plan. That does mean helping authorities, which are being stripped of resources in their planning departments, to undertake more work in getting all local plans up to date and in place in the next couple of years. I am generally not in favour of ringfenced grants, but I think there is a case for having a one-off grant to planning authorities to enable them to do a real job of getting local plans up to date and getting their community engaged in them to take some of the heat and some of the contention out of the planning process.
There are a couple of issues of slight disappointment. One, which the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) mentioned, is the issue of build out. Why are the Government not taking measures in this Bill against those who get planning permissions—there are hundreds of thousands of them around the country—and then do not build the houses they have permission for? Why are we not penalising them for that? Ministers have argued the case for that in the past, but there is nothing in the Bill to do it. Why not? We had the Letwin report, which recommended something like this, years ago, and it still has not been done.
When we began talking about planning reforms with the previous Secretary of State, the whole idea was to build more homes. It was said that the planning system was holding everything up. I think build out is a key issue there that the Government have not addressed, but where has the target for 300,000 homes a year by the end of this Parliament gone? That was the Government’s target. Would the Minister for Levelling Up Communities like to say whether it is still the Government’s target to build 300,000 homes a year by the end of this Parliament? That seems to have fallen off the agenda, and that is really disappointing because we do have a housing crisis in this country.
To again be complimentary to the Government, I think they have listened when it comes to the whole problem of compulsory purchase. Local authorities have been complaining about the very difficult process they have to go through, and if we are going to see real regeneration and redevelopment of our city centres, as the demand for retail floorspace drops, we are going to need easier compulsory purchase powers. I think they are in the Bill. I do not know all the details, but at least the Government seem to have listened and to have taken that seriously, which is to be welcomed.
On social housing, I welcome the improvements to regulation that are going to come. We have not seen all the clauses, and the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the hon. Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), is coming to the Select Committee on Monday to talk further about that. The Select Committee has seen and heard of some appalling examples of the really awful conditions that some social housing tenants are living in. The housing ombudsman has done some excellent work on mould and dampness in homes, and every local authority should be taking that into account.
I would say that, yes, in the past—and the Grenfell inquiry has highlighted this—there has been an attitude that social housing tenants are somehow second-class tenants in second-class housing, and we have to do everything we can to improve the standard of housing. There was also the idea that people did not really want to be social housing tenants, did they, so we would not build any more council houses and housing association properties. I am pleased that the Secretary of State said the other day that he wanted to see more social housing built, but again, where is the money? Where is the money? The Government are going to have to put in more grant to get the social housing built. If we are going to build the 300,000 homes we have talked about, at least 90,000 of those—probably more—are going to have to be social housing, and we are nowhere near that. I just say in passing that I hope the changes to the infrastructure levy in the Bill do not mean a reduction in the number of social houses built by developers, with the ending of section 106 agreements. That is another challenge.
Finally, on private renting, I welcome the Government’s commitment. Okay, we can be disappointed that we have not actually got a commitment to produce legislation, and I would have hoped for at least a draft Bill, but this issue is complicated and we must get it right. In particular, we must get right that landlords cannot use rent increases as a way of forcing out tenants when they do not have section 21 powers to rely on. One thing the Select Committee has pressed for, which the Government have not committed to, is the idea of a housing court. A housing court would simplify procedure to help both the good landlords and the good tenants—the good tenants being harassed by bad landlords, and the good landlords whose bad tenants will not pay the rent—to have a simplified way to get redress. I hope the Government might look at that again.
Overall, there are real problems with the cost of living that simply are not dealt with by the Government. On levelling up and regeneration, I would just ask: where are the powers and where is the money? Yes, there are some good details that we want to work through with the Government—on planning, compulsory purchase orders and social housing regulation—but there are still many challenges not addressed in the Queen’s Speech that we will need to come back to.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts). I agree with him about one thing, which is that the Government need to show a lot more conviction in expressing their opposition to windfall taxes. They are a simplistic solution that always end up hurting hardest the ordinary people who work in this population. I am against windfall taxes, and if I have time I will say a little bit more about that later.
Who would dare to criticise the content of the Gracious Speech delivered in Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee year? I am certainly not going to criticise it, but I would like to begin by drawing attention to some omissions from it. I referred to one of them in an article carried in today’s “ConservativeHome”, headed “Harm from Covid vaccinations. Don’t leave victims behind.” That is a reference to the need for changes to be made to the vaccine damage payment scheme. Currently, the maximum payment under that scheme is £120,000, which has not been increased since 2007. By way of comparison, as my hon. Friend the Minister on the Front Bench will know, industrial injuries disablement benefit has in the same period gone up by 39%. When I discussed this with my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), the Minister for vaccines and public health, she indicated that she took the point and understood that something needed to be done. I hope that in responding, the Minister will be able to say what is going to be done and why the Government believe it is fair that this level of £120,000 should continue to remain unchanged since 2007.
The newly formed vaccine injured bereaved UK organisation, vib.uk, which has been established in the last few days is also calling for much wider changes to the vaccine damage payment scheme. I think they are absolutely correct and in the article to which I have referred I explain why I support its suggestions for fundamental reform of the scheme to make it more flexible and relevant to the plight of those who have suffered as a result of doing the right thing by getting vaccinated.
Kirsty Blackman
Unfortunately, I missed the article this morning but I will be sure to read it. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one of the biggest issues with this scheme is the length of time it takes for decisions to be made? People are waiting a significant length of time even to get an initial contact with the vaccine damage payment scheme. Does he agree that that is one of the key things that needs to be fixed?
Sir Christopher Chope
Absolutely, and I have been campaigning for changes since I first raised this issue in the House last September. In the article I refer to the fact that at the meeting I had with the vaccines Minister on 21 April she told me that, at last, an organisation has been appointed to carry out the administrative job of assessing the claims. There are now over 1,300 claims and the first assessments have not even begun, but I am told they will now begin on 16 May. The new organisation that has got the contract is committed to dealing with 1,800 such assessments each year, which is an indication of the extent of this problem. As the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) rightly says, it is appalling that we have had to wait for so long, and only last autumn the Prime Minister was assuring a correspondent that people who have suffered vaccine damage should not be ignored and left to suffer in silence. So I very much agree with the hon. Lady on that point and again commend the article to her.
Another significant omission from the Gracious Speech is any reference to the promised changes from RPI to CPI as the measure for calculating the maximum annual increase in charges for pitch fees for park home residents. This issue is dear to my heart; I have been chairman of the all-party group on park homes for many years, and the Government have outstanding, overdue business not just on that aspect but on dealing with the issue of rogue operators in that field.
When I was first elected in Christchurch—25 years ago, Madam Deputy Speaker—I would never have been able to contemplate that we would have a Conservative Government presiding over the highest levels of taxation in a generation and with inflation raging at 10%. I note from the Gracious Speech that the
“Government will drive economic growth to improve living standards”—[Official Report, 10 May 2022; Vol. 714, c. 4.]
and I hope I am right in concluding from that that the Government are not going to introduce any further tax increases. Yet there is talk, even from some of my Conservative colleagues, about new tax increases: so-called windfall taxes. Describing a tax as a windfall tax does not make it any less of a tax and I am concerned that the Government still seem to be flirting with the idea of ever higher taxes despite all the evidence showing that windfall taxes would be a further disaster.
Mr Sheerman
I have been in the House rather longer than the hon. Gentleman and I remember when the first windfall tax was introduced; it was by the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She made very good use of a windfall tax on the banks, which had made a very big profit. I thought it was a very good innovation; what is wrong with Thatcherism these days?
Sir Christopher Chope
As with so many things about Thatcherism, the Labour party tried to copy it and, when Gordon Brown introduced a windfall tax, it was such a disaster that ever since Governments have decided that windfall taxes are a very bad idea. I was not in the House at the time, but the justification for the windfall tax to which the hon. Gentleman refers was that the Government had pushed up interest rates in response to rising inflation, so the banks had received a windfall benefit. Those arguments are nothing like those prevailing at the moment, where we need to encourage our oil and gas industry to invest, rather than disinvest, in our economy. Instead of windfall taxes, the Government should be talking about paying back to taxpayers some of the windfall receipts of tax revenue. VAT receipts are now expected to be £47 billion in the coming year, £9 billion more than predicted. So the case for removing VAT on energy bills completely and scrapping green levies on energy bills is overwhelming. It could be financed from the windfall receipts.
I am concerned that throughout this debate there has been insufficient reference—indeed, hardly any reference—to the issue of productivity, which is fundamental if we are to get the economic growth we need. However, I congratulate the Government on, it seems, being on the threshold of completing Brexit, resolving the issue of the Northern Ireland protocol and ensuring all those restrictive practices we continued to sign up to after we left the European Union can be removed. If this Government are able to finally deliver the full Brexit, they will have my full support.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
For 30 years, Susie Dent from “Countdown” has admirably been the country’s dictionary and thesaurus expert. When searching for a missing word, there can be few more reliable sources and it was thanks to Susie that I recently discovered the word “snollygoster”: not a character from “Harry Potter”, but an unprincipled person in office motivated by personal rather than public gain. Imagine making it to Downing Street and then spending your time doing anything to clutch on to power, rather than using your privileged position to change the lives of others.
Out in the real world, families are desperately worried about the cost of living crisis and how they can possibly stretch their salary to the next payday. They turned on the news this week in the hope that help was on its way, but, Madam Deputy Speaker, it isn’t. It is the duty of a Government to find ways to help, such as by introducing a one-off windfall tax on the oil and gas producers that have unashamedly declared that they have more money than they know what to do with. Instead, the Prime Minister’s focus is on smearing his opponents, planting dead cat distractions and proposing policies designed not to solve problems but to sow division to make people point at this Chamber and say, “You are all the same.”
But this is no game. Around one in seven adults live in homes where people have skipped meals, reduced meal sizes or gone hungry. And that is before inflation rises even further and energy costs soar even higher in October. Far from the days of D:Ream, without intervention, things can only get worse.
As ever, I listened particularly closely to the housing announcements in the Queen’s Speech. They were surprisingly prominent, but, as always, the devil is in the detail. Despite the fact we have 1.15 million households on social housing waiting lists across our country, the Secretary of State announced yesterday—between his ridiculous impressions—that the Government’s manifesto commitment of 300,000 new homes a year has been scrapped. Fast forward 24 hours and No. 10 says that is not the case. So I ask the Minister to put on the record whether the target still stands.
A cynic might link any scrapping of the house building target with the scale of the Government’s failure on the issue: there were just 5,955 new social rent homes last year, one of the lowest on record. At that rate, it will take 192 years to house everyone on the waiting list. Where is the ambition? Where is the political will?
House building commitments aside, I was reassured finally to read of progress for social housing tenants who are living in disrepair and battling endless hurdles in their fight for a safe and habitable place to live. Last year, my constituent Kwajo Tweneboa bravely partnered with journalist Daniel Hewitt and ITV News, which reported on the appalling conditions in which Kwajo, his neighbours and thousands upon thousands of social housing tenants were living. I am extraordinarily grateful to all involved for their determined pursuit of progress.
As it stands, to make a complaint and see it through to its conclusion, a social housing tenant requires the patience of a saint, the tenacity of a five-star general, an endless amount of phone data, a laptop for emailing and a postgraduate degree in bureaucracy. It is a world regulated by an authority that does not even the power to inspect a property, or speak to a resident—all thanks to the coalition Government, who completely abolished the Audit Commission and the housing inspectorate in the bonfire of the quangos. A decade on, we all need to talk about reinventing the wheel. However, I am relieved that the Government have finally seen the error of their ways. A strengthened regulator does not build a single new home, but it is an important step in finally giving a voice to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.
I turn to workers’ rights. Ministers promised 20 times to deliver an employment Bill to enhance workers’ rights, but there must have been a page missing in the Queen’s Speech because I could not find a word to turn that rhetoric into reality. Just weeks ago, the Government told us how shocked they were about what happened at P&O and how that must not happen again—but it will. The Bill’s omission is all the evidence needed to show the importance with which the Government consider the issue. Until the practice is banned once and for all, fire and rehire will continue to be the model template for the biggest organisations to restructure and save funds; it is completely naive to think otherwise. The next scandal is just around the corner and the absence of an employment Bill plants the responsibility clearly at the Government’s feet.
I close with one final word from Susie Dent’s dictionary: perendinate, which is the marking of time by continually putting something off until the day after tomorrow. The reality for all those in insecure work, desperately waiting on social housing lists or choosing between heating and eating is that they simply cannot wait that long.
Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)
I refer hon. Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I welcome the Queen’s Speech, which is a timely intervention if ever there was one. On apathy, last Thursday is a warning that many of our voters see us as rudderless and lacking ambition and vision. That is a shame after we led the world in fighting the pandemic and given we are leading the support for a battered Ukraine—I commend the Prime Minister for both. It was an extraordinary coincidence that, on 24 February, when all restrictions were lifted, Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, the world has faced soaring costs, shrinking revenues and shaky alliances, with fuel and food shortages threatening global stability. What concerns me is that, while we defend freedom and aim for recovery, our nation struggles with ever-weakening institutions and toxic culture wars, and citizens are struggling with the consequences of a cost of living crisis.
The future seems less certain now. Our economy, blighted by covid and lockdowns, is not reigniting as fast as we would like. Unbelievably, we, the Conservative party, are presiding over the steepest taxes since the 1940s and the highest sustained spending levels since the 1970s. That is not the Conservative way, nor is it the way to cope with a stumbling economy. High taxes stifle enterprise, aspiration and, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), productivity. They also risk low growth, stagnation and unemployment. This week, the Bank of England warned of impending recession and 10% interest rates driven by higher energy prices.
These are difficult times, but every cloud has a silver lining and, as Conservatives, this is the time to be radical and to return to our vote-winning philosophy of less state, low taxes and sound public finances. If ever there was a time to loosen the screws, this is it, and the Prime Minister knows it. He said that
“this moment makes clear our best remedy lies in urgently delivering on our mission to turbo-charge the economy, create jobs and spread opportunity across the country.”
Hear, hear. So let us get on with it, Prime Minister.
The Chancellor, of course, must fulfil his role. The promised tax cuts in two years will be too little, too late. We will have lost the electorate, who, burdened by high taxes and debt, will turn to a ruinous socialist Government, possibly in coalition with the SNP: the ultimate nightmare scenario. I accept that legislation on its own cannot solve the cost of living crisis, which has been caused to a large extent by events outside the Government’s control, but we do have the power to cancel the increase in national insurance, remove VAT from domestic fuel and reduce fuel duty even further.
The power to control our own economy is one of the major reasons I backed Brexit, and I am generally delighted by measures in the Queen’s Speech to, at last, fully exploit our new-found freedom. About time, too, as hardcore remainers are still out there and only too eager to highlight any difficulty that we face. While I am on the EU, despite the lack of a specific Bill, I am glad to hear that the Government will prioritise support for the Good Friday agreement and its institutions. Unless the EU compromises further, we must rewrite the Northern Irish protocol to ensure that Northern Ireland is genuinely and unquestionably back in the United Kingdom. The current system is not working and endangers all that so many have worked hard to achieve, namely, peace and prosperity.
I am also relieved—I think that is the right word—to see at last a Bill that aims to conclude the appalling witch hunt of our Northern Ireland veterans. I do not want to commit myself any further at this stage as the devil will be in the detail. While I am on our armed forces, I would be failing in my duty not to warn the Government once again against impending cuts to the Army. Regrettably, Ministers appear persuaded that Ukraine’s success against overwhelming odds proves what a small, flexible and manoeuvrable army can achieve on the battlefield, but the Russians have shown, fortunately, how inept they are at combined operations, so that is a false comparison. I am told that mass is no longer necessary, but an Army of 82,000 is not massive and, for sustained operations against a peer adversary—God forbid what we may face in future—numbers will count in any future conflict.
I return to the Government’s direction of travel. Their adviser has said that it is time to
“scrape the barnacles off the boat.”
I have some sympathy with the Opposition about the lack of an employment Bill, but, as an employer myself, I would say that we are already riven with legislation from top to bottom. The danger of imposing more is to disincentivise employment rather than encourage it, while quite accepting that employees should have rights—of course they should. On flexible working, yes, if it works for the employer, the employee should be allowed to work flexibly, but it should not be a right. That is all we hear so often from the Opposition Benches—right, right, right, right. What about responsibility? It is the employer who takes the risk to employ someone and give them a life chance, a career and a salary, not the employee. A balance should be adopted, with not necessarily so much weight on one side
Richard Drax
If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not. I am going to plough on. There are a lot of people who want to speak and I do not have much longer left.
On housing, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) spoke such sense. The Bill to ensure that locals have more of a say is to be welcomed and I really am backing that. Far more imagination, less density, more green space and supporting infrastructure is needed in the planning system. It is failing every single time. Affordable homes must be affordable. I have seen examples where developers have really taken the care to build affordable, friendly, safe and warm homes that look nice. All too often, sadly, I see larger developers building homes that seem to fall apart within a year. That has to be changed.
There was no mention of the NHS, but as I have said repeatedly, I believe that although it serves us well and I wish it to continue, it needs to be overhauled. As Allister Heath pointed out in a recent article in The Daily Telegraph, which I thought was very good, all reform is stymied by the lie that any improvement is privatisation by stealth. It simply is not.
I am delighted, too, that protestors will finally be challenged when gluing themselves to each other, roads or anything else they can find and stopping people going about their daily lives, jobs, medical appointments or whatever they want to do. I am delighted that, at last, that Bill has come forward.
In conclusion, there is much to welcome. I do not believe that a huge number of Bills—this point has been picked up—is always necessarily the right thing. My father was a great believer in less is more. What matters is the significance of a Bill and what it delivers, rather than the number of them. Having said that, I support many of the Bills in the Queen’s Speech.
However, I must end by warning the Government that we must return to our traditional Conservative philosophy if we are to turn the country around, regenerate the economy and, importantly, win the next election. That means giving people more of their own money, especially during hard times. What happened to the Singapore-style low-tax economy we boasted about, hoped for, fought for and were looking to deliver, which will create the wealth, prosperity and jobs we all need? It is there for the taking now and I urge the Government to grab it.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I was reminded by my staff that I have been present at 42 Queen’s Speeches—this is the 42nd. May I say how concerned I am that the Government seem to be downgrading Parliament all the time? I cannot remember one of these debates without a Secretary of State on the Government Front Bench defending the Queen’s Speech and the elements within it. As a long-serving Member, their consistent and persistent downgrading of Parliament worries me very much indeed.
The Queen’s Speech is deeply disappointing. So many things have been missed out. I disagree with almost everything said by the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), except—Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure you would like some bipartisan remarks—on the strength of our Army. I have stood up in this Chamber for a long time to say that it was dangerous to have fewer than 100,000 personnel in our armed forces. We are now planning to go down to 72,000 at a time when the world is a very worrying place and we have to take that very, very seriously indeed. It is what is missing from the Queen’s Speech that worries me so much.
One of the greatest challenges we have is health and social care. We have been promised, have we not, a Bill and firm Government action to do something about social care. I do not know about Doncaster in your constituency, Madam Deputy Speaker, but in Huddersfield one big problem in the health sector is that people are taken into accident and emergency and into hospital but cannot be released because there is no suitable supported housing for them in our communities. There has been nothing about social care and, on housing, nothing about building appropriate housing for supported living. That is a very big miss in this Queen’s Speech.
The other big miss is a moral miss. The fact of the matter is that all of us in politics know that our country has been in terrible trouble. Our constituents have had a tough time. They have had covid, years of austerity and now the higher cost of energy to heat their homes and the higher cost of food to fill the tummies of their children and other members of their families. That traumatic background is the truth of it. I was expecting a Queen’s Speech that said, “This is a national crisis. Let us get together and sort it.” What is missing in this debate is honesty. We are promised lower taxation. All of us know in our hearts that somebody has to pay to put the country right and to do all the things we want in health and social care, and to rebuild the welfare state that was found wanting as we faced covid. This country has one of the lowest rates of unemployment benefit. People who never thought they would lose their jobs or be made unemployed were shocked when they realised how weak the support was for their family.
Mr Sheerman
In a second.
I meet a lot of people who are earning pretty good money, professional people with good salaries, and they tell me, “We should be paying more tax.” They say, “We want a decent society, so we want to pay more tax.” Can I just put that on the record? Let us be honest with people. If we want a decent welfare state, decent services and decent local government, we must be willing to pay for them.
Mr Sheerman
Two minutes.
We have demoralised so many people on the frontline. I do not use that in a military sense; I mean our health workers, nurses, doctors, care workers and local authority workers who do everything to make our local society and local community viable and decent to live in. They have all felt undervalued. They have all felt that nobody really values the service they provide, whether emptying bins or running schools. When local government had decent resources they did believe that, and we believed that that was the right thing to do.
We were expecting great things from the Queen’s Speech, but we do not have them. We have an environmental crisis. We have had COP26. We have aspirations to say that the other great challenge, apart from health, is our environment. We have a country where in many of the communities we represent we are poisoning children, poisoning pregnant women and poisoning our constituents with the filthy air they breathe. Nothing in the Queen’s Speech will meet that challenge—there was very little to touch it. There was little reference to a cleaner transport system. That is not enough when, as we were reminded only yesterday, we face global warning and climate change and we will get the increase in temperature that will eventually destroy life on this planet. Nothing in the Queen’s Speech will address that. It is as though it does not exist and there is no threat.
As well as health and social care, there is education. I am very proud that I went to the London School of Economics, both as an undergraduate and a postgraduate, and our motto was “to understand the causes of things”. When I look at the causes of inequality in our country, I immediately see education and levels of child poverty. I worked with Tony Blair and his 1997 Government and, as we remember, the main thrust of the campaign was “education, education, education”. We know from the system we have had that if we want to tackle underprivilege, poor attainment at school and poor attainment of skills, we have to invest in early education—in pre-school and early years—and in supporting families in literacy, numeracy and using the English language. The fact is that there is nothing in the Queen’s speech about levelling up. Where is the determination to bring back children’s centres? Where is a policy like the one we used to have to try to give every child a proper chance in their lives? It is not there. It is an appalling missed opportunity.
Turning to some positive things, we have seen cross-party unity in how we have faced covid together and we have had cross-party co-operation on the support for Ukraine—thank goodness—so surely there are things that we could have done in this Queen’s Speech. We could have agreed that we need 500 sustainable towns and cities in this country, based on the United Nations sustainable development goals. That would have lifted us up and given people the chance to roll up their sleeves and change their environment, not just on a global level, but in their communities locally. That is what is missing. We have wonderful vision, passion and commitment in some areas, but this Queen’s Speech has failed to deliver on the environment, education and aspiration, and I am very sad that that is the case.
Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)
If I may, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will pause for a moment; I hope Members will join me.
That was just five seconds, but imagine if that had been an hour, a week or a month in which we had no one to speak to and no one to listen to us. Loneliness is one of the worst parts of the injustice in our society, and we have an opportunity, as a nation and as parliamentarians, to tackle it.
Although the first year of the pandemic was such an awful time, a lot of light was brought out during that darkness. I was fortunate to go out to campaign and work with local charities, including One Vision, of which I am now a trustee, Small Acts of Kindness, the Salvation Army and many others. In the first year, I found myself in a rather bizarre situation in that I delivered more bags of shopping to vulnerable people than I did political leaflets. That was so important, because it was not just about taking food to people; when we were knocking on people’s doors, there was a sense that they knew that somebody cared. For me, that was about feeding their soul and their spiritual needs as much as it was about feeding their stomachs—I know, because I certainly have one to feed.
During that time, I saw communities getting on and supporting one another, helping their neighbours, and looking up from their phones and seeing the doors that they had perhaps not seen neighbours behind for a long time. People’s action to help and support one another was so important. It was about the community acting not just on behalf of national or local government, but on its own behalf. There is a huge role for that. I was pleased, therefore, that trying to cut more red tape was part of the Queen’s Speech so that there is more levelling up at a local level and communities have more say in what they want to do and where they work.
Mental health was a big aspect of that. I was pleased that mental health first aid in the workplace was raised in the opening speeches today; I introduced a ten-minute rule Bill on that a year or two ago. I have continued to lobby and to work on that with Government to ensure that people in the workplace can speak to somebody—just as they would ask for first aid if they cut their thumb—and be signposted to the right guidance and correct information to tell them how to support themselves if they have mental wellbeing or even mental health issues.
That is so important because, in the post-pandemic world, we need to start having a holistic view of a person, and that includes their mental and physical health. We need to ensure that there is justice and fairness in the workplace. That is why have I been pushing my Tips Bill since last year. It would make sure that people who work in hospitality—they make up a big part of my Watford constituency—could fairly access the tips that they are given by people who want to thank them, and that businesses were not allowed to take that money from them. I will continue to push that, and I intend to move forward with another such Bill again this year, post Queen’s Speech.
I have seen the important role of creative services in the hospitality sector. Often, bars and restaurants are part of theatres, and in Watford, we have a fabulous theatre called the Pump House, which is celebrating its 50th year. I have seen the creativity there; it is a place where young people are given hope and the opportunity to unleash their skills, and to level up—because levelling up is not just about planning and building; it is about people’s future and opportunities. I think about when I was growing up. As a kid, I never thought that I would visit London. I definitely never thought that I would visit Parliament and that I would one day be an MP. I want to reach out to kids like me and say, “You know what? Wherever you live in the country, there is an opportunity for you to level up, to unleash your potential and to inspire others in your community.”
There is also the built environment. In Watford, we have lots of debates about planning and how we make sure that we do not have overdevelopment. Tall buildings are one of my concerns, and I have been pushing that with Government. Local people should have a say in what happens in their community and on their streets, and especially about the height of buildings. I was pleased that the Queen’s Speech seemed to indicate that people will have more say on a street level, and perhaps even street votes, so that they can say, “This is what I want in my area and to happen on my street.” Building beautifully is very much part of the answer.
This Queen’s Speech is also about tackling really serious issues. I am pleased that the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes), who is responsible for homelessness, is on the Front Bench because, through our work with him, we in Watford have managed to get rough sleeping pretty much down to zero during the past two years. We will always need to continue to work on that, and to make sure that people are being supported. However, we do not just want to get people off the streets; we want to give them opportunities and ensure that they are not just surviving, but thriving as they look to the future. The Queen’s Speech offers an opportunity to do that.
As well as thinking about the built environment for the next generation, we should also think about the virtual environment. Last year, as a member of the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill, I was much involved in the cross-party work done across both Houses to scrutinise the Bill and come up with suggestions. The Government took on board 66 suggestions from our report, and I look forward to the Bill passing through Parliament, because when we think about mental health, exercise or how people work together as a community, we need to look at the way the world is going; things are being done much more virtually and technologically. Kids are not like I was 30 or 40 years ago; they see the world in a totally different way. They see not just the community on their road, but the whole global community. We need to ensure that people who want to do them harm are prevented from doing so, but still need to enable innovation and opportunity.
There are great opportunities and great things coming forward, but I urge the Government to push forward with my Tips Bill, because it is a great opportunity to tackle the cost of living and help people on low incomes to get the money that they have been given and deserve; to ensure that we push forward with mental health first aid and awareness in the workplace, and that people at work are supported and signposted to the right guidance; and to ensure that when we look at society, we look at the entirety of communities, not only in the built environment and in our neighbourhoods but online, so that people are safe, and so that this Government can support them in aspiring to be the best they can be. I support this Queen’s Speech.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
Fairness at work should be an absolute basic right. I am sorry if that offends the hon. Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax).
Nia Griffith
The hon. Gentleman did not wish to give way to the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald), so I am afraid he will not get the opportunity to intervene now.
Everyone should have a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, but that is simply not happening in Britain today. Far too many people who are working hard, often taking on more than one job, still cannot make ends meet. They are constantly worrying about how they will provide for their family and pay the next bill, and they often have to go short on heating or eating. Furthermore, low wages are clearly linked to the scourge of insecurity at work. There is insecurity because of zero-hours contracts, with no guarantee of work each week and therefore no guarantee of income, and because of the growth of the fire and rehire culture, in which it seems that even long-standing contracts with loyal workers can be ripped up at a moment’s notice, as we saw in the appalling P&O scandal.
Fairness at work is important not only for workers, but for responsible business owners and companies. No one benefits from a race to the bottom. Good firms and employers who are trying to do the right thing should not have to worry about being undercut by rogue companies that cut corners, depress wages and ride roughshod over health and safety. Good companies recognise that they benefit from fairness at work. A workforce that is treated properly and remunerated fairly and feels secure at work is more productive and loyal, which is good for recruitment and retention. As other hon. Members have highlighted, fairness at work also saves the public purse on healthcare bills and social security bills.
I am absolutely appalled that the Government have not included any form of employment Bill in the Queen’s Speech. We have had promises of an employment Bill time and again. The Prime Minister himself purports to condemn fire and rehire culture, yet even after the P&O fire and rehire scandal, which should have been a wake-up call, there is nothing in the Queen’s Speech that addresses the many issues with employment law.
Not only are the Government showing utter contempt for workers in this country, but they are out of step with employers who want to do the right thing. Businesses have come to Parliament to celebrate paying the real living wage: only a couple of weeks ago, Mary Portas was here with businesses that are part of the better business Act campaign, which were keen to say how implementing fairness at work means having a happy, loyal workforce. When the Welsh Labour Government give support to a business, they require it to demonstrate not only its prospects for growth, but its commitment to net zero, to workers’ rights and to workers’ mental health and wellbeing.
In opposition, it is sometimes difficult to visualise the things we propose, but the Welsh Labour Government are actually implementing our better deal for carers. It was a Welsh Labour party manifesto commitment in last year’s election to make sure that by the end of this Senedd term, all care workers would receive the real living wage, which from April this year is £9.90. It is absolutely right that carers be properly paid and that we value the people they look after, including people who are elderly, people who have particular difficulties, children and young people. What we pay care workers is a measure of how our society regards and treats the people they care for.
Such a policy cannot be implemented overnight. It has to be properly planned so that it can be budgeted for, which is not easy when the Welsh Labour Government have been hit year after year by cumulative real-terms budget cuts from this Tory Government. Nevertheless, the Welsh Labour Government set to work straightaway with stakeholders to work out how the policy could be brought about, and they have made the money available from last month. Some care workers are employed directly by the public sector, but where services are provided by private or third sector providers, the Welsh Government have flagged up the fact that those who commission them, namely local authorities and health boards, will need to build in an uplift accordingly.
I mention that policy to show what can be done when there is real will to do it. It is just one example of putting into practice something that makes people’s lives better and is the right thing to do. When it is carefully planned with the providers, when the additional costs to the public purse are recognised and when it is properly implemented, it can be done, and done well. There is a real contrast between the Welsh Labour Government, who are improving the wages of carers, and this Tory Government, who are not addressing fairness at work at all, and have made no mention of a Bill about it in the Queen’s Speech.
There has also been an appalling failure to do anything to help people with the cost of living crisis. As hon. Friends have pointed out, the Opposition have made many suggestions, including a windfall tax on the gas and oil companies to give immediate relief to our constituents with fuel bills. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers has shown that there can be workable solutions that give employers some flexibility without using zero-hours contracts; they have negotiated guaranteed minimum hours per week or per month with some employers so that at least workers know that they will get regular pay. These are all practical actions that we are taking even though we are not in government.
What we would like from the Government, of course, is improved workers’ rights, an end to fire and rehire, proper rights from day one at work so that everybody is treated properly and cannot just be thrown on the rubbish heap, family-friendly working hours, an improvement to the reforms made to date, stronger union rights and proper ways of negotiating pay and conditions with the workforce—and not only all that, but a complete change in attitudes to procurement. The Government have been failing miserably, with appalling losses to the public purse. Their dreadful audit report contrasts with the clean audit report on the Welsh Labour Government’s purchasing during the covid crisis.
We want to ensure not only that purchasing is done fairly and that we have an anti-corruption commissioner to oversee it, but that the procurement process looks at the value of our businesses and companies in this country and does more to make, buy and sell British. When we were in the European Union, it was absolutely possible—even if there had been restrictions under EU law, which there were not—for the social benefit clause to be invoked when giving out contracts to companies, so how much truer that is now! It is perfectly possible to take social value into account, which is exactly what we should be doing.
The Government also need an industrial strategy that ensures a supply chain working towards our strategic objectives. We need an energy policy that means building our own wind turbines, rather than having to rely on imports. We need to think ahead and have a strategy that works, that builds in the supply chains, and that buys British, so that we can provide more high-quality jobs. The combination of high-quality jobs in a secure economy with secure rights for workers in work, wherever they are in the private or public sector, is the way forward.
Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)
I welcome the measures in the Queen’s Speech. Given that it contains more than 30 proposed Bills, there is much to talk about, but this afternoon I will confine my remarks to three points about housing.
The term “property-owning democracy” is well known, but perhaps less well known is the name of Noel Skelton, the Conservative MP who coined the phrase and the underlying concept in 1923. That concept was later built upon by Sir Anthony Eden, who skewed it towards the home rather than industrial property. Skelton’s and Eden’s thoughts have formed the backbone of Conservative domestic policy ever since, and rightly so.
The theme of today’s debate is empowering communities. They are strengthened, I submit, when residents are financially and emotionally invested in where they live, and that is something that home ownership achieves; but there is a tension. Prices have put homes out of reach for many, supply does not match demand, and for those on the property ladder, significant change in the form of development threatens—in their eyes—to fundamentally alter the character of the community in which they have become so emotionally invested.
Growing up on the edge of Arnold, in my constituency, I saw this at first hand. Nottingham, one of England’s greatest cities, was on my doorstep, but a few hundred yards up the road were the Hobbucks, an area of woodland and hedgerow with open countryside beyond it. Some of that has been built on, and, while there is now a Hobbucks designated nature reserve protecting some of the land under Gedling Borough Council’s local plan, other areas have been allocated to housing. Similarly, on the other side of the constituency, residents of Gedling village fear that development means they will become subsumed into the Greater Nottingham conurbation. Bridging this conflict is a key challenge for the Government, if not the key challenge for our generation, and I welcome the inclusion in the Queen’s Speech of several pieces of legislation on the subject.
I suggest that one way of making development more palatable for the public would be ensuring that what is proposed will look nice. I start from the rather cynical position that most if not all post-war architecture is ugly, and that were all post-war buildings to be removed, our towns and cities would look no worse and some might well be much improved. I therefore welcome the renewed emphasis on design and beauty, and, locally, I particularly welcome the money that Gedling Borough Council has received to fund and support a 12-month programme to enable the council and neighbourhood planning groups to produce exemplar design codes. I have not yet received from the council the details of how it will spend the money, but I hope it will result in better, more beautiful building in Gedling.
I also want to speak about a problem that affects some of those who have bought their houses: estate rent charges. It is relatively common for private estates with freehold houses to include a provision in the deed of transfer that places a duty on the owners to contribute to the maintenance of the estate’s communal areas and facilities, such as green spaces, play areas or roads. However, as I have been told by residents of the Spring Park development in Mapperley, problems arise when it is thought that the management company is not offering value for money or doing the work that is required. Freeholders’ rights are limited in this regard, and indeed they do not have rights equivalent to those of leaseholders. The Government have promised to take action—the Queen’s Speech of 2019 contained a promise to give homeowners new rights to challenge unfair charges, which was repeated in a written answer in February this year—but as far as I can tell there is nothing about it in this Queen’s Speech, and I see no evidence that the problem will be addressed in the current raft of legislation. If I am right about that, I hope that the Government will consider reform in this Session of Parliament, and I hope to be able to explore the issue in more detail in the House.
Let me conclude on a more positive note. I welcome the announcement that reforms of the planning system will, in the Government’s words,
“give communities a louder voice, making sure developments are beautiful, green and accompanied by new infrastructure and affordable housing.”
I look forward to scrutinising that further, particularly in relation to houses in multiple occupation. Residents of Netherfield, in my constituency, are concerned that developers are turning Victorian family homes into HMOs accommodating several people, with a consequent increase in traffic and a reduction in family housing stock. I have asked the council to make an article 4 direction, which would subject any such conversions to a planning permission application, but the council has demurred, citing possible legal challenge. If the Government’s proposals allow the people of Netherfield to take back control of their neighbourhood, that will be for the better.
I broadly welcome the proposals in the Queen’s Speech, and look forward to scrutinising them further in the current Session.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
For the first time in four years, I will not be declaring an interest as the Mayor of South Yorkshire. I will, however, take this opportunity to congratulate my successor: I know that the new Labour Mayor, Oliver Coppard, will be a tireless champion for our region.
Working with a dedicated team to improve people’s lives was an immense honour and a great privilege, and I am proud to say that South Yorkshire is in a much better position now than it was when I was elected back in 2018. We created a renewal fund of half a billion pounds. We set up an ownership hub, the first of its kind anywhere, to support co-operatives and employee ownership. We invested heavily in cycling and walking as part of an integrated, accessible and sustainable transport plan. We gave young people affordable bus fares, and began the work of bringing our buses back under public control. We agreed a groundbreaking flood prevention strategy, and started work on a housing retrofit programme. But for all the good that we achieved, I also saw just how much potential was being wasted.
After a while, we learn to read the small print in all the promises. The flagship shared prosperity fund will eventually reach £1.5 billion a year, but not until 2024, which means that it will be worth significantly less over its lifetime than would otherwise have been the case. Meanwhile, the levelling-up fund, which replaces the local growth fund, will do so at a reduced level. The Government promised £3 billion for bus renewal, but delivered just a third of that. South Yorkshire got nothing at all—but then, so did the majority of places that applied. It is levelling up for the lucky few.
All this can be measured against a baseline of deep cuts in council coffers: that, right there, is the reality behind the rhetoric. As for devolving control, most cash still goes through inadequate, politicised, short-term, competitive pots. That makes strategic planning impossible, and wastes precious time and limited resources.
It is only fair to say that the levelling up White Paper did set out some welcome, albeit modest, aspirations. No one on the Labour Benches will oppose efforts to increase life expectancy or eradicate illiteracy. As it stands, however, those aspirations are just that—aspirations—and, with no details on how they will be funded, we will not arrive where the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities wants to go on the current trajectory. He is not present at the moment, but I can tell him that if he wants to be this generation’s Michael Heseltine, he needs to change course.
I accept that none of this is easy. We are dealing with entrenched socioeconomic problems, decades of chronic underfunding, and layer upon layer of patchwork approaches. It will take a lot more than a commitment to ensuring that everyone can benefit from al fresco dining—however laudable that may be—to transform our economy. Let me tell the House, in a constructive spirit, what I think needs to change.
The first item is funding. If the Secretary of State needs an example of where levelling up has succeeded, he should look to German reunification. It is estimated that €2 trillion was spent on the project between 1990 and 2014. Most East German federal states are still the largest recipients of investment from central Government. Despite huge progress, East Germany has still not fully closed the gap with the former West Germany, but its GDP per capita is now higher than Yorkshire’s.
Secondly, there is the issue of control. We need an increase in fiscal devolution and a major shift towards allocating central funds according to automatic, genuinely fair formulas. We must let go of the purse strings and trust local decision makers.
Thirdly, there is the question of powers: we need a step change in devolved powers, with skills, transport and policing among the priorities. Regional governments need to be in the driving seat of a local industrial strategy. That does not mean one size fits all. Greater power and funding must be integrated with wider reforms, both here at Westminster so that the centre also reflects the place of regions and nations, and locally to ensure that stronger local and regional government is held accountable. Finally, on democracy, we need basic safeguards for the continued solidarity and redistribution between the nations and regions that make us a United Kingdom and against a race to the bottom on standards or tax. If we can do all that, we will have built not an empty façade but a solid foundation for our country’s future.
Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I think it was correct for the Prime Minister to make the cost of living so central to the Queen’s Speech. I appreciate that some steps have been taken by the Government already, and I appreciate the fiscal position that the Government face is challenging, but I am of the view that more needs to be done, and I am glad that the Prime Minister and the Chancellor have indicated that this will be the case. I will be watching the situation with interest. Like many colleagues, I have knocked on huge numbers of doors across my constituency and other local areas in the last few weeks, and we have had conversations with people who are struggling to get by at the moment. Of course, that will also be supplemented with our surgeries and casework, so I think we really need to grapple that.
There was much I welcomed in the Queen’s Speech. One of the other issues that always comes up for me is our town centre. It is of great concern to many of my constituents, who feel that the town centre has gone downhill. It is our main civic place, and it is something of great passion. The most frustrating thing about the town centre at the moment is that it does not quite seem to work, even though we have so many brilliant small independent businesspeople and entrepreneurs trying to make it work. Just this Monday, I was fortunate enough to have the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ipswich, and he met a number of those business owners. We went to Microshops in Carr Street, which is basically a pop-up facility so that local people who have an idea can get a foothold and try it out. If it works, it works, and if it does not, it is less high risk. For most of them it has worked, and 17 small independent businesses are now in there, and a number have got other premises in the town or are expanding. I was very pleased that the Chancellor was able to meet them.
There are too many significant buildings in Ipswich that are empty and have been allowed to collect dust for far too long. It is very pleasing to see that, in the old post office building that had been empty for years, the Botanist, a quite high-end cocktail bar, has opened up. Speaking of al fresco, it has lovely outdoor seating spilling on to the Cornhill. I was pleased to be able to attend its soft launch and its hard launch. At the first one I had completely non-alcoholic cocktails, and at the second one I was convinced to have one alcoholic cocktail. I very much advise everybody to go there if they are in Ipswich.
I welcome the measures relating to compulsory rental auctions and the powers that local authorities can use. Sadly, it has been too difficult to get many of these important buildings back into use, and as much as I would like to just blame the Labour council for all that, it would be wrong for me to do so because it is far more complicated than that. Often it is the owners of these buildings who, frankly, have not done enough. The owners of the building on Carr Street that is now the home of Microshops deserve credit for showing the initiative to get that going, but it is frustrating that it has taken so long to get off the ground.
To get our town centre thriving again, we also need to try to address my constituents’ concerns about the persistent antisocial behaviour in the town centre. Many of my long-term Ipswich residents do not go into the town centre, particularly at certain times of night, because they do not feel safe or secure. Having a good, high police presence in key parts of the town is important. If large groups, invariably of young men, are gathering and drinking alcohol when they ought not to be, and making inappropriate lurid comments to women of all ages going into the town centre, we need the police to be incredibly hands-on and interventionist to disperse and disrupt those groups and enforce the no-alcohol zones. That has not been happening to the extent that I would like, and that desperately needs to be addressed. Our town centre is of immense importance to my constituents.
Another key point that I was pleased to see in the Queen’s Speech was the issue of the small boat crossings. It is right that as a country we are being as generous as we are to refugees fleeing from Ukraine, as we were to those from Afghanistan. A number of constituents have taken in Ukrainian families, and it is the same for colleagues across this House. That is a tribute to them. It is the right thing to do, but of course it will place significant pressure on many of our public services. That is just a reality. We already have quite a long council housing waiting list in the borough, and the pressure on that over time will likely go up as a consequence of this, but it is still the right thing to do. The extra money we provided for school places was the right thing to do.
The challenge is made much more difficult when we have a parallel illegal flow of, invariably, young men arriving here from another safe European country. The reality is that those individuals who are coming here illegally and not claiming asylum in the other numerous safe countries they have come through are working directly against the interests of some of the most desperate families who are fleeing persecution. The more we can state that, the better. That is very much my view, and it is important that the Government have gripped that. Actually, I think it is the view of most of the country, who make the distinction between those fleeing areas of persecution and coming here and those who have refused to apply for asylum in France and other safe countries. It is important that we draw that distinction.
Tom Hunt
I will not be taking an intervention on this topic from the SNP. [Interruption.] I am so terrified of their illogical arguments that I could not possibly counter them.
The movement away from the Human Rights Act is also very welcome. A British Bill of Rights is a step in the right direction. Frankly, if we are subscribed to an international treaty that prevents us from being able to control our borders and therefore be a sovereign country, of course we need to review our membership of it—[Interruption.] I understand that Labour Members will find that difficult to understand, because most of them support open borders and do not believe in border controls, but I think that this is where most of my constituents are at.
I also want quickly to touch on the Public Order Bill, which I think builds on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. I was immensely frustrated by the Just Stop Oil protests, as I know most of us were—at least on this side of the House. People who were trying to get to work and go about their daily business were being disrupted by those self-righteous individuals who had no concern for the effect their reckless behaviour was having on others. I really struggle to explain to my constituents why, when individuals are carrying out criminal damage at petrol stations or chaining themselves to public buildings, our police force cannot just get in there and immediately remove them. Why are we dancing around? Just get on with it! Frankly, the stronger we can be in that area, the better.
The Public Order Bill is the right thing to do, but of course it would be voted against by the Opposition, who do not support it and who probably side with the reckless behaviour of those individuals. I know for a fact that the eastern region was one of the worst affected parts of the country during the recent protests. Only the seventh petrol station I went to had petrol, because of that behaviour. I had vulnerable constituents contacting me whose carers could not get to them because they could not fill up their motor vehicles. We should be completely intolerant of these reckless protesters, and I am pleased that the Public Order Bill will get us closer to that.
On a final note, I was pleased to see the point about education and opportunity for all. That is an objective that I, and the vast majority of Members in this place, believe in. On the topic of special educational needs, we have obviously had the Green Paper, which has been published. I have heard it referred to by some as a very, very Green Paper, which took a very, very long time to bring forward. The SEND review took too long, but we are where we are; we have a Green Paper in front of us and there is much in it that is positive. My desire is for that to happen as quickly as possible, so I urge the Government to place a huge priority on the SEN Green Paper, having the consultation and talking to stakeholders, but putting the action in place as soon as possible. Certainly in Suffolk, and in other parts of the country, there is a postcode lottery when it comes to SEN provision, and too many young people with great potential who have learning disabilities are being let down. We can never put enough money into SEN, as far as I am concerned. It is always an investment.
On the whole, I welcome this Queen’s Speech.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
In Her Majesty’s platinum jubilee year, it is an honour to make my first contribution to a Queen’s Speech debate. I very much look forward to celebrating the platinum jubilee with my constituents.
The topic of today’s debate is fairness at work and power in communities, and as I am sure the House would expect, I will focus on rural communities. I am incredibly proud of my rural community of North Shropshire. On Sunday, I was lucky enough to attend a “Songs for Ukraine” concert in Oswestry involving nearly 200 local schoolchildren, brilliantly hosted by Ukrainian sixth-formers Lisa and Myra, showcasing the amazing talent of young performers from across North Shropshire and bringing together hundreds of families to raise over £11,000 for vulnerable people fleeing a dreadful war. This is North Shropshire at its best.
It is abundantly clear to me that rural communities like mine and so many others across the country, from Shetland to Somerset, feel taken for granted by this Conservative Government. “Levelling up” is a catchy slogan we have heard time and again, but there is very little of substance for those in rural areas, and I am afraid that the Queen’s Speech offers nothing to help them. In fact, the Government compiled a 140-page background briefing note on the Queen’s Speech, but the world “rural” is used only four times, and two of those were in a list of Government Departments.
I will describe the situation in the lovely town of Market Drayton, which is a fantastic place to visit for those who can get there. It is a pretty, medieval town with attractive buildings and, since fairly recently, a large amount of housing development, but it has only one, very infrequent, bus service, which is being reduced. By the end of August, there will be no weekend bus services at all. Those who do not drive will have to rely on friends and family to make the 25-minute journey for out-patient appointments at the hospital in Telford. A taxi costs more than £50 and, on the minimal public transport available, the round trip will be in excess of four hours. It may as well be an island. Young people here struggle to access work, let alone achieve fairness when they get there.
Limited and decreasing public transport is not unique to Market Drayton. Across the market towns of North Shropshire and the rest of rural Britain, isolation from work, social opportunities and health services are limiting opportunity and quality of life for rural communities, which need access to reliable bus services.
Colleagues might think that the Government are on this—after all, they committed to “bus back better”—but I am afraid to report that this is yet another catchy slogan with no meaning. How many times does the briefing paper on the Queen’s Speech mention buses? Have a guess. The words “bus” and “buses” appear once, which highlights this Government’s complete disregard for rural communities like mine that are seeing their local public transport cut to the bone. The “bus back better” funding, as with other levelling-up funding, has been allocated via a bidding process in which money is apparently allocated with very little direct reference to need. There is nothing for Shropshire.
Since being elected in December, much of my time on the Floor of the House has been spent on ambulance waiting times, so I will not repeat the shocking stories of dangerous delays, but I note that a report by the all-party parliamentary group on rural health and social care and the National Centre for Rural Health and Care found stark levels of inequality between rural and urban areas when it comes to health and social care services. This resonates strongly with the emails in my inbox from concerned constituents who are struggling to access GPs, dentists and even domiciliary care in an increasingly centralised model.
There is a theme emerging for rural communities in which critical infrastructure—whether public transport, adult social care, community ambulance stations, banks, post offices, swimming pools or even driving test centres—is being shut down, centralised and removed from where it is most urgently needed. If we need anything in our market towns and villages, we are expected to get in our petrol car—there are no electric charging facilities—and drive to reach the most basic services. Those who cannot drive, for whatever reason, are being isolated in these rural islands. They are far from empowered, and I am afraid that voting on their neighbour’s extension will not compensate for waiting 17 hours for an ambulance when they need one.
The Conservatives have taken rural Britain for granted. The farming industry forms the backbone of the rural economy, producing our food, protecting our countryside and gluing rural communities together, but the Government are dicing with its future. Offering trade deals to countries with lower standards and phasing out the basic farm payment scheme before its replacement is in place would be bad enough, but there has been no response at all to the rising costs of feed, fuel and fertiliser that are leading farmers to shut up shop altogether.
When many of these critical businesses are facing the biggest challenges for a decade, the Conservatives are cutting their lifeline, taking their votes for granted and refusing to consider other options, even in the short term, to save this critical industry, but they have cut taxes for banks. That shows us all we need to know about the Conservatives’ commitment to rural Britain: cuts for farmers, shortages in healthcare, cuts to public transport and tax breaks for bankers. We have 140 pages, thousands of words and barely a mention of rural Britain and the problems facing it.
My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I are proudly championing rural Britain. We have tabled an amendment to the Humble Address that focuses specifically on rural issues. We are calling on the Government to protect farmers from the effect of new trade deals that would lower environmental and animal welfare standards. We are urging them to use this Queen’s Speech to reverse the closure of rural ambulance stations and to do far more to tackle the chronic shortage of GPs, dentists, consultants, nurses and the other clinical professionals that we so desperately need. We are calling on the Government to protect our rivers by preventing water companies from dumping raw sewage into them, damaging our wildlife and reducing our access.
I am proud to represent the rural constituency of North Shropshire. In my very biased view, it is the best rural constituency in Britain. The people there are caring, creative and extremely resilient, but the Conservatives are taking the good, hard-working people of rural Britain for granted. Far from levelling up, they are risking decline. I urge them to think again and to act now to prevent that from happening. Act now on the crisis in rural healthcare, of which dire ambulance response times are simply a symptom. Act now to save our farming industry and improve our food security. Act now to improve the services and transport infrastructure that are critical to growing the rural economy. And act now to give rural constituencies the fair deal they deserve.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) in her first Queen’s Speech debate.
There is a gaping hole at the heart of Tuesday’s Queen’s Speech, as it fails to address the desperate circumstances of families who are, frankly, facing destitution. Yesterday’s report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research shows the devastating effect of soaring bills and real-terms benefit cuts, and it should be a wake-up call for the Government. I implore Ministers, and especially the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to take the emergency action that is needed now to protect those families from poverty.
Of course the Government will say that work is the best route out of poverty, and of course I agree that it should be for those families who can work, but low wages and job insecurity mean that, for many, it is not. That is why the failure to include an employment Bill in the Queen’s Speech is so devastatingly disappointing. It leaves pregnant women, new dads, unpaid carers, those who need to work flexibly, people from minority communities and disabled people without the protection to which they should be entitled. It allows unscrupulous employers to continue with fire and rehire practices that even the Prime Minister claimed he found unacceptable. So what we have is the rhetoric of levelling up but inadequate action to support our local communities. Regenerating local economies is essential to achieving the Government’s levelling up ambitions, enabling these economies to attract and retain successful businesses and creating good jobs for local people. As colleagues have said today, education and skills will be essential to ensuring that people are equipped to take those jobs, so I particularly wish to speak about two Bills that are relevant to that: the Schools Bill; and the higher education Bill.
The Schools Bill paves the way for all schools to become part of multi-academy trusts. Most secondary schools in my constituency and almost all primaries are not in MATs currently, so this implies a lot of structural upheaval. I am all for families of schools supporting one another to raise standards and narrow attainment gaps, but we know that it is the quality of teaching and school leadership, not structures, that drives school improvement. So how will Ministers ensure that we have the local infrastructure in place to support local school leaders? Rightly, the Government’s levelling-up agenda focuses on the importance of locality, and I acknowledge that some large MATs have shown that they can work in partnership with local organisations and communities, but how will Ministers ensure that all national multi-academy chains are responsive to all the local communities in which each of their schools are located? That goes to questions about accountability and transparency. For example, MATs can pool their funding, reallocate it to different schools right across their chain or put it into reserves, so how are we going to secure the accountability to local communities that MATs serve and ensure that funds reach local pupils?
Like other colleagues, I welcome the focus in the Schools Bill on attendance, and I am pleased that colleagues from across the House and in the House of Lords have had their pleas for a much more rigorous approach to children missing from school rolls being responded to. But we can do more than simply act to register children. The Commission on Young Lives has pointed to the need for an “inclusion” approach to supporting all young people to succeed in school, with schools working in partnership with youth and community workers and community organisations; this is about a local, community-led approach to keeping children in school.
Turning to the higher education Bill, let me first put on record my interest as a member of the governing body of Manchester Metropolitan University. Our universities are vital to our global reputation and fundamental to the success of our local economies where they are located, and not just in our traditional university cities. So there will be much interest in local communities in the details of the lifelong loan entitlement, as the devil will lie very much in the detail. It will be particularly important that students can obtain the advice to make the right subject choices at school, to plan their route through their post-18 education and to use their lifelong loan entitlement to access the right courses as their career needs develop. It will also be important that our skills strategies and higher education strategies for those communities are aligned with the way in which students make their lifelong loan entitlement choices. In the meantime, the Government have sought to reassure us that minimum entry requirements, student numbers caps, and the reduction of funding for foundation courses, will not disproportionately affect students from disadvantaged backgrounds and from black and ethnic minority backgrounds, or universities catering predominantly to commuter students. Yet the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and indeed the Department for Education’s own impact assessment, has sounded the alarm that that is exactly what will happen. No one wants students to experience poor-quality teaching or to leave university without the skills they will need to succeed at work or in life, but if students of all backgrounds are to have the opportunity to access and make the most of university education, it will be important that the Government and the Office for Students develop a careful approach to address the concerns that exist about course quality and outcomes. That means understanding in detail what is happening on individual courses and student destinations, protecting the university foundation courses that are an integral first step in the undergraduate journey for some students and recognising the impact that failure of a local higher education institution would have on local students and on the wider economic position of that community.
I echo the comments that have been made today about housing supply and I do so particularly in the context of my borough of Trafford, where we have a desperate shortage of housing for local families, extremely high private rents by the standards of the north of the country, far too many families still living in overcrowded or substandard homes, and too many in unsuitable, poor-quality, temporary accommodation. We desperately needed a holistic strategy to secure the housing supply that we need for today and into the future. Instead, what we get again and again are stop-go approaches—on targets, on planning law and on developer obligations. I hope that the Government will listen carefully to the pleas made by the Chair of the Select Committee this morning and others to secure both the right strategy and the right funding to enable local authorities such as mine to secure the housing we need to meet the needs of local families.
Finally, I wish to say a little about the economic crime Bill. I was glad to have the chance to raise this issue with the Minister during the opening speeches. I am pleased that the Bill will provide Companies House with more effective investigatory and enforcement powers, and that the registrar is to become a more active gatekeeper. That will, of course, also require more resources. Let me particularly emphasise the need to strengthen the approach taken by Companies House to compulsory strike-off, which is too often used by unscrupulous directors to avoid complying with their obligations, by allowing a company to be struck off for non-compliance with information requirements and those same directors then going on to establish new companies again and again to carry on their business. I would very much like to see a much more proactive approach from Companies House where it ought to be aware of numerous and repeated failures by companies with common directors to file the legally required documents. I hope that the economic crime Bill will give us an opportunity to address that.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
It is pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green). The Queen’s Speech contains the most dispiriting programme of legislation that I have known during my time in Parliament. Following a pandemic that has ripped through our communities, killing upwards of 175,000 of our fellow citizens, and as we now face a cost of living crisis, with people being left in the dreadful situation of having to choose between heating their home or eating, this Government have proposed a programme that will do absolutely nothing meaningful to help. Instead, they have decided to spend the next year enacting what can only be described as some of the most reactionary and authoritarian legislation in living memory. It follows a raft of recent laws passed at the very end of the last Session designed to drive a coach and horses through our civil liberties: the Elections Act 2022 contained measures to deter people from voting; the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 banned noisy protests, and criminalised Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities; and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 gave the Home Secretary powers to strip dual citizens of their British citizenship without notice, in contravention of the UK’s international obligations, criminalising many of those seeking asylum, who now risk being shipped off to Rwanda thanks to the Home Secretary’s cruel and inhumane scheme.
The Government have now said they intend to bring forward yet more draconian laws to stifle our democracy: the Orwellian “Bill of Rights” is pure doublespeak. a terrifying attack on our hard-won human rights laws; the Public Order Bill is an outright assault on peaceful protest, and tries to push through a matter that has already been voted down by this Parliament; and the boycotts, divestment and sanctions Bill seeks to criminalise a legitimate form of political dissent, while also smearing the campaign for Palestinian human rights. It ought to worry any person who cares about this issue, or about other human rights abuses, climate activism, the arms trade, or indeed any expression of solidarity with oppressed peoples struggling for justice across the world. Not one jot or scintilla of those Bills will do anything to support hard-pressed families facing the cost of living crisis, including the many thousands living in poverty in Middlesbrough. They will have been sick to the pits of their stomachs—as I was—to have heard from those on the Government Benches yesterday that their crises are of their own making and because they cannot budget, cook properly and manage to live on 30p a day.
One thing that could have been of help to working people is the introduction of the long-promised employment Bill. Since legislation was announced three years ago, Ministers have committed to bringing forward a Bill no fewer than 20 times, yet when it came to the Queen’s Speech on Tuesday, such a Bill was nowhere to be found.
Whether in respect of the lies about widespread law-breaking under the Prime Minister’s own roof or the hollow promise to make Britain the best place to work, why should the public have any trust in a word that Conservative politicians have to say? It appears that measures that had been announced—such as the creation of a single enforcement body, offering greater protections for workers; provision to make flexible working the default; and the extension of redundancy protection to prevent pregnancy and maternity discrimination—have all since fallen by the wayside. The Government are clearly more focused on attacking those protesting against the climate catastrophe or the crime of apartheid than they are on caring for those who are most in need across our country.
The strengthening of employment rights and protections is critically urgent, yet the Government are not taking the necessary steps to address the stark imbalances of power in the workplace. The sorry situation we now find ourselves in was made plain for us all to see in March this year, with the unlawful and utterly disgraceful decision of P&O Ferries bosses to make almost 800 of their workforce redundant over Zoom in a pre-recorded message, having chosen to break the law and not consult or engage with trade unions, as required by the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. Those loyal and hard-working seafarers, some of whom had been with the company for decades, were removed from vessels by security guards with handcuffs, while agency workers on as little as £1.80 an hour were brought on board to replace them.
Ministers have heralded the proposed harbours (seafarers’ remuneration) Bill as a silver bullet to protect seafarers from such bully-boy tactics on the part of rogue employers, yet the British Ports Association and the TUC have dismissed the plans as unworkable or insufficient. The announcement of a consultation process means there will be further delays. All the while, as the Government kick the can down the road, they have freely admitted that P&O Ferries has got away with forcing out its unionised workforce, either by making them redundant or through the pernicious practice of firing and rehiring seafarers on less-favourable agency contracts.
Back in March, the Prime Minister said that his Government were taking legal action against P&O Ferries bosses; well, we are two months on, so where is it? Ministers could and should have immediately taken concrete action to seize the vessels, reinstate the workers and impose unlimited fines on the company. Instead, those on the Government Benches have sat on their hands as hundreds of lives and livelihoods have been turned upside down, because when it comes down to it, the only thing that matters to them and their fat-cat friends is profit, not people.
The Government’s inaction has not just let P&O Ferries off the hook: it has given other businesses the green light to trample over workers’ rights, and that will continue for so long as the situation exists in which law-breaking is good for a company’s bottom line. This “break the law and pay people off later” Bullingdon Club mentality runs through the upper classes and establishment in our society. Be it the bosses of big business or the Prime Minister, they know that they can get away with acting unlawfully, either because they will not get caught and held to account, or because they know that if they do, they will still come up trumps in a system that always has their backs.
If the situation is allowed to go on without correction, it will not just be operators across the maritime industry that feel compelled to follow suit, spelling an end to any residual UK maritime workforce; we will see a race to the bottom right across the economy, as businesses take the lead from P&O, knowing that they can blithely commit crimes of corporate thuggery, and decimate workers’ rights and protections in the process.
If we are to see an end to this corrupt, immoral system, in the first instance we need a strengthening of employment rights and protections, including the total outlawing of fire and rehire tactics. Legislation must be passed that stops such injurious industrial practices being profitable. The fact that the Government stood in the way of the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) in the previous Session, and their failure time and again to vote in favour of motions to outlaw fire and rehire, has done much to create a culture of impunity among predatory exploitative businesses that will use “greed is good” opportunities to steal a march on those good and decent businesses that behave ethically and care for the people who work for them.
If we are to rebalance the economy, improve wages and save working people and those most in need from bearing the brunt of soaring inflation, now more than ever we need a new deal for working people, as we set out in the Green Paper that we published last year. Our programme would not only outlaw fire and rehire tactics but transform the world of work. It would ensure that people were treated with dignity and respect, and address the imbalance of power by unshackling trade unions to do their job: bargaining for and protecting their members. I am gravely fearful that the Government plan to move in the opposite direction and further weaken working people’s rights and protections.
The provisions that have been outlined in respect of the so-called Brexit freedoms Bill to amend, repeal or replace retained EU law—including, I expect, those laws that protect workers’ rights—are deeply concerning. The Minister for Levelling Up Communities is not in her place, but I wanted to offer her the opportunity to intervene and state categorically that the Government will not permit regression on a single piece of employment legislation, be it on the transfer of undertakings regulations or limits on working time. We will get no answer, but this is a dark and desperate moment. I can only assume from the Government’s continued refusal to rule out such measures that our fears are well founded.
This is the moment for working people across the country to realise that, far from representing their interests, this Government are coming after their rights, which generations have fought so hard to win. If we on the Opposition Benches can come together, hopefully with some Government Members, in opposition, we stand a chance of defeating the Government’s devastatingly draconian plans and the betrayal of working people that lies within them.
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)
My constituents in Enfield North want a Government who deliver for them. They want the financial security they need in the face of the cost of living crisis, the prosperity of a thriving high street, and the respect of properly funded local services that can deliver for them. The Queen’s Speech offered none of those things. It is wrapped up in an empty slogan that provides nothing to the people of my borough—a borough that has the 11th highest rate of child poverty in the country, and where one in five workers is on low pay. Enfield also has the highest rate of private rental evictions of any borough in London, mainly due to section 21 notices, which the Government have been promising to reform for years, but have failed to—yet we are still ignored.
It has become abundantly clear that the Government will not be levelling up this country. It smacks of total arrogance to talk about a “Medici-style renaissance” of our town centres when inflation is at a 30-year high. Only by our getting money back into people’s pockets will high streets and town centres, such as mine in Enfield North, be able to thrive again.
When it comes to levelling up, it is as if Enfield was the land that time forgot for this Government. Since 2018, Enfield Council’s budget has been cut by £70.2 million. The council has tried to work with central Government to help make up some of that shortfall through applying for the towns fund, the levelling up fund, and the community renewal fund. The result? A grand total of zero extra funding for Enfield—not a single penny. Frankly, after the emptiness of the Queen’s Speech, what hope do we have of that changing any time soon?
With more than 88% of the towns fund being allocated to areas with Tory MPs, is it any wonder that people in my borough are somewhat cynical about the Government’s agenda? The levelling up Bills in the Queen’s Speech are still desperately lacking in ambition, and as thin as the White Paper. The substance amounts to little more than the Government marking their own homework; there is nothing by way of new money or new ideas. Power could not be further away from the communities who are having to compete with each other over pots of funding sporadically handed out—or not, in Enfield’s case—by Tory Ministers. If levelling up is to mean anything, it should be about empowering local communities to take decisions in their own interest. Under this Government, it means paying lip-service to communities up and down the country, while continuing to hoard power in Whitehall.
Enfield, like the rest of the country, cannot carry on with more of the same. We need action to deal with the cost of living crisis now. We need a far more fundamental rethink of our economic settlement, with real power handed to communities. We need much better than what this Government are offering to the people of Enfield North and to the whole country.
As I have mentioned, the Government have been talking about abolishing section 21 for many years, but we are still waiting. Thousands of people in Enfield North are being evicted from their home for no good reason, and that puts pressure on local council housing lists. With thousands on the housing waiting list, it was very surprising that the Secretary of State for Transport intervened to stop a housing development on the car park next to the station, in order to protect parking facilities. It is absolutely beyond belief. Not only do the Government not have a plan to tackle the housing crisis, but they are actively preventing local authorities from dealing with the crisis; it is really disappointing. This Government continue to fail Enfield North residents on everything from housing to levelling up.
Finally, local councils, including mine, are doing a great job of delivering public health programmes focused on preventive measures. However, the funding formula for public health spending in local authorities was devised in 2013 and has not been reformed since. That means that boroughs such as mine are not getting the funding that they so desperately need to deliver preventive measures for their communities. It is unfair that my borough receives £39 per head, when the borough next door receives £139 per head. The disparity is ludicrous and there is no good reason for it. This was an opportunity for the Government to provide a fair funding formula, so that the residents of Enfield are not let down, but they have failed to do that. This Government do not fail to disappoint. The levelling up Bills do not deliver for Enfield, and, as I have said, everything that has been set out in the Queen’s Speech is just really disappointing.
Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark). I will concentrate much of my speech on employment, which is ironic, given the collective industrial action that appears to be taking place on the Conservative Benches. I just hope that the ballot was conducted in a legal way.
I may be alone in this, but I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) is no longer in his place. The anti-immigration rhetoric that he was using is in stark contrast to the reality of the situation. I do not believe that any human being is illegal. When we use words like “illegal” about fellow human beings, we are on very dangerous ground indeed.
In stark contrast, though, I have been in tears of joy over the past few days, but I can assure Members that it is not over the Queen’s Speech. I am delighted to say that it is over the great news of the council elections. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, the good people of Glasgow South West are among the most sophisticated electorate in these islands. In the Greater Pollok ward, they hit it out of the park. They have elected the great Roza Salih, who becomes the first refugee elected as a councillor in Scotland. What a wonderful achievement that is for this “brilliant young woman”, as the First Minister of Scotland said. This is someone who has served with distinction in the Glasgow South West constituency office. She was so good that she has been promoted twice: she is currently the office manager, and has helped to serve constituents diligently. She will make a fantastic councillor. Is that not something, when we hear the rhetoric from some on the Government Benches about “immigrants”? They use this anti-immigrant language, when we have a brilliant young woman who is now engaging in public service. That is why I want asylum seekers to be given the right to work.
The Blair Government made a mistake when they stopped asylum seekers having the right to work. It is absolutely scandalous that we allow asylum seekers to live on the equivalent of what I was earning as a youth trainee with Strathclyde Regional Council 30 years ago. It is not right. After a period of time—say, six months—asylum seekers should have the right to work and make their contribution to this economy.
Andy McDonald
The hon. Gentleman is right to focus on this issue. The Government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme has a lot to recommend it, if only it worked properly for everybody. It is absolutely right that people should have recourse to public funds and to work, but surely that should apply to every refugee; it should not simply be restricted to one group. I am delighted that this group has that, but should it not go across the board universally?
Chris Stephens
I agree with the hon. Member. People who seek sanctuary in this country want to make a positive contribution across these islands. There should be a right to work.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
I associate myself with the hon. Gentleman’s comments about his office manager who has been elected to Glasgow City Council; I was on a Unite trade delegation with her many years ago and know her well. On his point about refugees and asylum seekers, does he agree that the Home Office has serious issues when it comes to dealing with those people, not only under the current Home Secretary, but under the former Home Secretary and former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), who was the architect of the hostile environment against people of colour? The Home Office has had long-standing issues under this Conservative Government, and it needs root and branch reform.
Chris Stephens
I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for that. I should say, if I have not already, that Roza is indeed a Unite activist and former member of the Scottish Trades Union Congress general council, Scotland’s workers’ parliament, and she was indeed in Cuba with him on a delegation.
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Home Office must be one of the most dysfunctional Government Departments—I know it is a competition, but we only need to ask people who are looking for a passport at the moment. I associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman); she was quite right about the challenges around EU law and EU workers’ protections. I mentioned Strathclyde Regional Council earlier, which the Tory Government decided to abolish, and I remember when TUPE was good legislation and protected workers on that basis.
I will focus my remarks on my first intervention on the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully). The fact that the Government picked the Under-Secretary of State to lead for them on fairness at work tells us a lot about their priorities.
Many hon. Members have talked about the promised employment Bill, so I will quote directly from a Delegated Legislation Committee. On 25 January—Burns Day, not a date anyone Scottish can forget—at 10.46 am, the Under-Secretary of State said:
“Clearly, the employment Bill, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West knows, is primary legislation. It will be announced, when it comes forward in parliamentary time, in the Queen’s Speech.”—[Official Report, Third Delegated Legislation Committee, 25 January 2022; c. 24.]
I believe Hansard is accurate, and the record has not been corrected in any way. That tells us that an employment Bill is not a priority for this Government, and I want to know why it is not.
Many hon. Members have spoken, and we hear regularly on the Work and Pensions Committee, about the impact on women and black and minority ethnic workers of unfair working practices and indignities at work. That starts with zero hours contracts. We had the Under-Secretary of State telling us that zero hours contracts are a good thing but simultaneously that they are exploitative. They cannot be both. Perhaps we should take on the argument that zero hours contracts are a good thing and people want them. Let us only allow zero hours contracts where there is a collective agreement with a recognised trade union, and then we will find out how many people actually want them.
There is no legislation on short-term shift changes, as many hon. Members have said. People can turn up to their work expecting to have a five-hour shift, only to be told they have to work 10 hours that day or, worse, to be told that there are no hours for them to work that day, while they still have to pay out transport and childcare costs. We need legislation to tackle that and to ensure that, where it happens, it means double time for workers.
There is no protection where a company ceases trading. We had a good example in Scotland where a hairdresser operating out of a hotel upped and left for Portugal, leaving the workers with no wages. Those workers had no protection at all. They went to the hotel to ask for wages and the hotel said, “Not our responsibility.” I want to see legislation to fix those sorts of issues, because that is the reality of what is happening. The pandemic amplified those issues. They did not go away with the pandemic; the pandemic emphasised them. I am sure my friend the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) would agree, because he and I have proposed similar legislation on this.
We really need to sort out the status of workers in this country. There are far too many workers who are bogusly self-employed. That leads to the double hit of people being caught up in the loan charge scandal as well, because they think they are directly employed and they are not. I remember sitting here in the debate on the private Member’s Bill, the Employment and Trade Union Rights (Dismissal and Re-engagement) Bill, when we were promised there would be a better way of doing it, and I do not see that either.
I will conclude with two quick things. I am concerned at the Government’s changes, announced just before the end of the last Session, that will make sanctions on benefit claimants easier. That is going the wrong way, and I believe it goes against what the Government promised. They promised they would start introducing warnings before sanctioning people. We were given commitments that that would be the case, but those commitments seem to have disappeared.
Marsha De Cordova
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the excellent speech he is making. On the subject of sanctions, does he agree that all the evidence shows that sanctions and conditionality do not work, especially when they pertain to disabled people, and that the Government should be seeking to scrap the sanctions regime?
Chris Stephens
I do want to see the end of the sanctions regime, and I agree that conditionality is not working. As a bare minimum, the Government could introduce what is known as a yellow card or warning system before someone is sanctioned, rather than people just turning up and being sanctioned because they were five minutes late. We are politicians, and we are late for meetings all the time—that is just the way the world works. Would we be sanctioned for being five minutes late? I do not think so.
Lastly, I join others in supporting the principle of freedom of peaceful assembly. It was a year ago that fellow Glaswegians and I were on Kenmure Street to stop the Home Office taking away two people in an immigration van. I congratulate the good people of Edinburgh on stopping an immigration raid last week. The principle that people are able to assemble freely and peacefully must remain in these islands.
I support and join with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North: we need employment law to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament if this Government will not act. If they will not act, when the people of Scotland get a choice and they look at employment law, they will choose independence over this Government any day of the week.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
I pay tribute first of all to Her Majesty the Queen. It was a great sorrow to me that she was not able to give the Gracious Speech in person earlier this week. We have been privileged to live in the Elizabethan age. Most Members of Parliament serve many sovereigns; we have had the privilege of only serving one.
The Elizabethan age began as one of upheaval after the second world war. It became an age of opportunity and equality with the Labour Government and the equalities Acts from the 1960s. Now, however, it is becoming an age of insecurity—insecurity of income, insecurity of housing and insecurity in health, food and work.
Since the Prime Minister boasted last year that the UK was the fastest-growing economy in the G7, it has become the slowest-growing economy in the first quarter of this year. Indeed, we now find that we are the fastest-shrinking economy. We have gone from 0.8% growth at the beginning of this year to -0.1%. That is a shrinking economy.
The Bank of England projects 10% inflation by the end of the year. Meanwhile, real wages have been falling and 2 million people are going without food for more than a day, sometimes because they do not have the money to buy it, sometimes because they do not have the money to cook it and sometimes because they do not have the will to take it out of the mouths of their children. [Interruption.] It is shameful, as my hon. Friends say. We are the fifth-richest economy in the world, and it is shameful.
Let us examine these insecurities. This year’s Queen’s Speech, coming from any Government with any compassion, would have put at its core a right to food, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) has been calling for for months. That should have been at the very centre of the Gracious Speech, because we cannot feel that we are doing our job as politicians, and I hope that Government Ministers feel that they cannot be doing their job as a Government, when there are people facing hunger on that scale in our country and when so many of our fellow citizens—millions—are reliant on food banks. This is not the Britain that we should aspire to be part of, and it is certainly not the Britain that any Government Minister should aspire to be a Minister in charge of. The insecurity in income is extreme, and it has been exacerbated by the fact that, even on the Government’s own figures, 900,000 individuals, many of whom have disabilities, will become worse off as a result of the transition from legacy benefits to universal credit. That is why the Government should have had at the heart of the Gracious Speech the need to restore the £20 cut to universal credit to protect the income of those adversely affected and to make sure that any recovery was not on the backs of the poor.
There is insecurity in work. This debate is entitled “Fairness at Work and Power in Communities”. Well, as so many of my colleagues have said, the gaping hole at the centre of the Queen’s Speech is the fact that there is no employment Bill, promised 20 times by Government Ministers—no legislative solution. I almost felt sorry for the Minister who opened the debate, because, as must have been obvious to so many of us, he was embarrassed because he knew that what had been committed to—what had been promised—had just slipped away, and he knew that he had no power to do anything about it. But there are people in the Government, in the Cabinet, who did have the power to do something about it, and they failed. These choices should have been made in the Queen’s Speech to protect people in work.
This week, 127 people at Richmond upon Thames College—the entire teaching staff—were told, “You’re fired unless you sign a new contract taking 10 days off your entitlement. Go away and think about it.” Of course, because of the trade union legislation it was not possible for the union to fight back immediately—it had to consult, ballot and notify. But it has balloted, and, on an 88% turnout, 97% voted in favour of strike action, because the situation is disgraceful. Yet the management of the college are now calling in those workers one by one, putting pressure on them by saying, “What are you going to do if you don’t have a job because you’re failing to sign this new contract? What are you going to do at the end of the week if you can’t pay your rent or feed your kids—if you’re one of those people who need to use food banks?” That is the pressure that is being put on people by insecurity in employment. That is why all the things that my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) talked about—all the things that he put together in the employment rights green paper—are so vital if we want to have equality and fairness at work, as the title of this debate says we should. We do not have it; we need to.
There is insecurity in health. I tabled an amendment to the Queen’s Speech in which I talked of the 6.1 million people who have been referred to a consultant and are waiting for treatment. Today that figure was uprated by 300,000, with now 6.4 million people who have been referred to a consultant still waiting for treatment, over 2 million of them waiting more than the 18-week maximum period and 300,000 waiting for more than a year. When the Minister winds up, let them not say that this is because of the pandemic, because we already knew that it was building up. The figure was 4.43 million before the pandemic even started—and that was because of a decade of underfunding of our health service.
We have insecurity of income, we have insecurity at work, we have insecurity in health, and we have insecurity in housing. How many times have we had to stand in this Chamber and talk about the plight of those trapped in accommodation where there are known fire safety defects? They are unable to move on with their lives, unable to sell— partly because the EWS1 forms but not only that—unable even to get insurance on their properties, and being charged through the nose by unscrupulous managing agents for scaffolding or waking watches. They wait just to get on with their lives. They cannot have a new child because they do not have the bedroom space. They cannot separate if they want to get divorced. They cannot move to go to a new job. Their lives are frozen because of the failure of the Government to act.
The insecurity that climate change puts over all our lives needs to be tackled in a comprehensive housing policy. For all the talk about a windfall tax—and we should talk about it—the cheapest energy is the energy that we do not use, so we should insulate the 19 million homes that need insulation. The Government have known this for years. Every Select Committee of this House has told them what to do and there has been complete inaction. Where in the Gracious Address is the real sense of commitment to tackling this as part of the housing crisis? There has been a 38% rise in street homelessness and a net loss of 22,000 social homes across England. We need the Government to tackle the housing crisis.
Looking to the second part of the debate’s title—“Power in Communities”—how do we give power to communities? By making their lives secure and by enabling them to stand up for themselves. That means having security of income and security of health, and it means someone having the security of having a home they are confident in, where they do not feel trapped and in danger.
Power is something that resides in land. It is extraordinary that 1,000 years on from the Domesday Book in 1086, half of the land of the United Kingdom is still owned by fewer than 6,000 individuals. That is why we urgently need land reform. I was delighted when the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) this morning agreed with me that we need reform of the Land Compensation Act 1961 so that councils can buy land at a price closer to its existing value, rather than its hoped-for value. That would free up land in this country for housing, but we need to go much further.
We need to look at what Milton Friedman—quoted by the right hon. Member this morning—described as the “least bad tax”. He was referring to the land value tax. Unless we challenge the 1,000-year land ownership that has given so few people in this country the power over their communities—I note that one such magnate spoke earlier in the debate—and give that power back to the people through a genuine programme of land reform, we will not have the right to talk about power in communities and fairness in our society.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
What a pleasure it is to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), who gave an outstanding and incredibly powerful speech.
The Queen’s Speech was a real opportunity for the Government to reset and to deliver legislation that would increase living standards, create communities of opportunity and remove social inequalities. Instead, the Government decided to put political and party interests over the interests of people, but the public clearly see that. They are tired of this out-of-touch Government, and that is why the Conservatives suffered losses in last week’s local elections, including losing Conservative flagship councils such as Wandsworth Borough Council, which was won by the Labour party. That has provided us with the opportunity to show how a Labour-run administration can do things differently, being ambitious for everyone. I know that the new Labour leader and councillors of Wandsworth Borough Council will do an excellent job in serving the people of Battersea and Wandsworth.
The Government speak of levelling up, but in reality they are levelling down. Growth has stagnated under the Conservatives since 2010; meanwhile inflation is predicted to rise to 10% later this year. Research by the Resolution Foundation found that average earnings are forecast to be just £2 a week higher than they were before the financial crisis, leading to this Parliament being the worst on record for living standards.
Across the country, people are seeing their household incomes and purchasing power fall, and many are falling into poverty, especially disabled people and women—and we know that many of these groups are experiencing some of the worst impacts of this cost of living crisis. Just this week, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said that a further 250,000 households face destitution, which would take the number of people in extreme poverty to 1.2 million.
London, our wonderful city, is one of the most prosperous regions in the UK. However, a lot of people are still struggling with the high cost of buying or renting and the high cost of living, which is reflected in high levels of poverty, especially for children stuck below the poverty breadline. In my constituency, people are experiencing huge increases in their energy bills. We know that 55% of them are spending more on transport and 69% are spending more on groceries. The Tories’ national insurance tax rise is also set to hit people’s incomes. That is the reality for many people not just in my constituency but across the country.
A pro-growth and in-touch Government who governed in the people’s interest would have changed direction and introduced an emergency Budget that included a windfall tax on the oil and gas companies, but this Government are not serious about helping people. It is clear that they are not committed to levelling up, as shown by them leaving out a vital piece of legislation—the employment Bill.
The employment Bill could have protected workers’ rights, outlawed bad practices such as fire and rehire, and even introduced proper mandatory pay gap reporting for disabled people and people from black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds. That is a choice and a failed promise that the Government have made several times.
The Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill lacks ambition and is incredibly thin on detail. Communities will have to compete for small pots of money handed out by central Government. If the Government were serious about tackling inequalities and levelling up this country, they would seek to give real power to communities. There is evidence across all areas that levelling up is not happening, as shown if we look at the Government’s policies on Brexit, industrial strategy, employment, housing, education and equality.
As for the Brexit freedoms Bill, research and many conversations with my constituents show that Brexit has created more red tape and regulations that are hurting economic growth and having an impact on business and people’s lives. The Government must be honest with businesses about the true cost of Brexit. Why will they not publish the real economic impact of Brexit, for which the Opposition have been calling? Furthermore, when the Minister responds, she needs to reassure the House that the Bill will not seek to row back on the rights that many have fought hard for.
We need to support businesses such as those in my constituency, which are key to local growth, innovation and investment in our communities. The Queen’s Speech showed, however, that businesses cannot afford the Conservatives, because there was nothing to deal with the high costs and soaring energy bills that businesses face. The Government should do what Labour have been calling for, and what Labour would do, and scrap business rates as we know that they are outdated.
On the regeneration of our high streets, there was no mention of how the Government will protect essential face-to-face services that many of my constituents rely on, especially disabled people. Since the Conservatives took power, more than 6,000 bank branches have closed, including some in my constituency, which has left thousands of people without access to banking services. We know the role that banks can play on our high streets.
The social housing regulation Bill will be successful only if reforms deliver high-quality, zero-carbon, genuinely affordable new homes in places that desperately need them. The Government have rowed back on their 300,000 target, but we do not know whether they will stick to it or whether they are throwing another promise down the drain. When it comes to social housing and those commitments, which can be welcome, the devil will be in the important detail as to whether the Bill will lead to better standards in social housing, especially after decades of under-investment by the Tories in Battersea and Wandsworth. Will the Bill ensure that tenants’ voices are heard, and will it provide them with effective redress?
It is good that the Government have committed to a renters reform Bill, including a ban on no-fault evictions, but again, the devil will be in the detail and in the timing of its being enforced. There are now 1 million more people living in private rented accommodation.
We are nearly five years on from the Grenfell fire, but yet again, in this Queen’s Speech there is no protection in law for those leaseholders having to pay tens of thousands of pounds in fire safety remedial costs. The Government have missed two opportunities to address this shortcoming. In the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Building Safety Act 2022, there was nothing to tackle this injustice and really help so many leaseholders—many in my constituency, but leaseholders up and down the country—who are living in homes that are unsafe and who are unable to move on with their lives, sell their properties or even just enjoy family life.
On education, the Schools Bill contains no plan to really support children’s recovery from the pandemic. We know that targeting the disparities that black, Asian and ethnic minority children and disabled children face, especially when it comes to exclusions and off-rolling, have not been addressed. Essentially, after the pandemic, it would mean so much more, if the Government are really serious about actually levelling up this country, if this Queen’s Speech made reference to the disproportionate impact the pandemic and the cost of living crisis are having on black, Asian and ethnic minority communities, women and disabled people, but yet again there is nothing in it to protect those groups of people.
Finally, instead of empowering people, the Government have focused on taking away hard-fought-for rights through the Public Order Bill and replacing the Human Rights Act 1998, which was introduced by the last Labour Government, with a British Bill of Rights. That rings alarm bells in everybody’s ears, particularly on the Opposition Benches, as we know that those will just be steps to try to reduce our hard-won and hard-fought-for rights.
I will say it again: this is not about levelling up; it is levelling down. The levelling-up agenda is a myth. It has nothing to do with removing inequalities or tackling the many burning injustices. It has division and culture wars written all over it, and it aims to divide our country into rural versus metropolitan or London versus red wall areas. The Queen’s Speech has shown that this Government are all about bluster and empty promises.
Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The announcements made in the Queen’s Speech do nothing to increase the trust that the people of North Tyneside have in the Tory Government, nor to alleviate their concerns about the rising cost of living, which is starting to bite really hard in North Tyneside. I have heard from so many of my constituents who are hurt and angered by the antics in No. 10 during partygate, while they rigidly followed covid rules. They were unable to be with relatives in hospitals or care homes and, worst of all for some, were not able to be with them in the last hours of their lives.
To add insult to injury, included in the estimated £4 billion of fraud in the furlough scheme is the North Tyneside Conservative party, with a furlough claim for a member of party staff who continued to work during lockdown. When I raised this sorry state of affairs with the Prime Minister at PMQs, he simply brushed the issue aside. Fortunately, the incident is now being properly investigated.
In North Tyneside, we have an excellent Labour council, led by our outstanding elected Mayor, Norma Redfearn. Thanks to the hard work of Norma, her cabinet and council officers, the council has fought hard to keep many important and vital services in place, despite fierce cuts from the Government. As a result of Government policy since 2010, North Tyneside has had to make savings of £131 million. The core spending per dwelling is only £1,984, compared with the average of £2,155. In this financial year, the council received £63.5 million of revenue support grant—a cut of 81.4% since 2014.
While the Government are making much of their levelling-up agenda in the Queen’s Speech, the reality is that their levelling-up plan has given North Tyneside—where unemployment runs at 6.5%, almost 2% above the national average—category 2 status while the Chancellor’s leafy Richmond constituency has been given category 1 status. Our area also missed out on the potential of 60,000 new jobs and £2.6 billion in new investment with the Treasury refusing freeport status; that affected the area from Blyth down to Wearside. I will never get over the missed opportunities from that, and nor will the people in our area. Of the 45 towns that received towns fund money, 39 were in Tory areas, leaving behind towns like Killingworth and Wallsend in my constituency.
The Tory Government have already failed the north-east on transport, cancelling the High Speed 2 north-east leg, refusing crucial upgrades to the east coast main line, and scrapping Northern Powerhouse Rail. Along with the North East chamber of commerce, I lament the fact that the transport Bill has no good news for our area. We all know good transport links are key to job creation and investment and surely should be part of any levelling-up agenda.
Despite promises, the Government have not given us a cast-iron guarantee that the electricity cables over the Tyne will be buried below the water or raised to allow world-renowned companies in Wallsend and along the rest of the Tyne to bring in potentially millions of pounds more in contracts and thousands of jobs. Smulders in Wallsend employs 600 people; it is desperate to have something done about the cables, and we have been pleading with the Government since 2017—again, no levelling up here, or, in the case of the cables, levelling down.
Far from levelling up in the north-east, the Government are levelling down the region, as in total we receive less from the levelling-up and shared prosperity funds than we did from the EU per year. With so many doubts and concerns about levelling up, perhaps the Government should listen to the chief executive of IPPR North, who warns that they
“must prioritise turning the levelling up rhetoric into reality… People need to feel the benefit of ambitious action with full accountability on this critical agenda.”
The IPPR is urging the Government to make themselves fully accountable by including in the Bill a new independent body outside London to hold the whole of Government to account against legally binding levelling-up missions. I hope to see that there will be some degree of levelling up and I want to see a level social and economic playing field for North Tyneside and the whole north-east. I doubt we will get that in this Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, but what we will see, I hope, in the not too distant future is a Labour Government who deliver for our area and keep their promises to the north-east.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
We meet today with our constituents struggling more than they have in my entire lifetime, and that comes off the back of a very difficult decade or more for people in my community, with anaemic growth in the economy, virtually no wage growth, stagnant pay and of course ever-increasing bills. Millions of people across the country have been just about managing for a decade, whether by not going on holiday, not buying things, having hand-me-down clothes or parents missing out so their kids can eat. They have been just about keeping their heads above water for a long period of time, but in the last six months that has changed for that entire category of people with startling speed. Millions in this country and many in my community have seen their viability blown away by the increase in their bills, whether through inflation, in energy bills or at the petrol pump. I do not like the “cost of living crisis” as a frame because it does not nearly state how serious it is. It is a poverty crisis.
When the Government set out their agenda, there should have been a helping hand for working people to get them through their hour of need, but, yet again, true to form, they have been unable to meet the moment. They could have introduced a windfall tax on oil and gas companies to take hundreds of pounds off the energy bills of millions, but they chose not to. They could have taxed online retailers fairly and given our struggling small and medium-sized entities discounts on their business rates, but they chose not to. They could have finally done the right thing and cancelled the national insurance rise, but again they chose not to. What we have instead is more of the same, with high taxes, high inflation, low growth and low pay.
In my community, low pay is a disease. Last Friday, I attended an event at the Jubilee LEAD Academy in Bilborough in my constituency. Its inspiring young students asked me to come to hear about their campaign to secure the real living wage—the proper one—for care workers. Many of them had parents who worked in care and saw the toll that hard work coupled with poor pay took on their lives. Many had relatives who were recipients of care and they saw how hard life was for those who ensured that their loved ones were looked after. They wanted to see those care workers looked after as well. They are fighting for better pay and the Government should listen to them. Those are six, seven and eight-year olds in a primary school who are well ahead of the adults chosen to lead the country. Instead, we get a promise of jam tomorrow, but there is no value in jam tomorrow when there is not bread today.
Just as pay is a core part of decent work, so is security. It is now five and a half years since the Taylor report and two and a half years since the 2019 Conservative manifesto promised employment legislation. We have heard Government Ministers promise an employment Bill 20 times. In opening the debate, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), said that the Government’s commitment was “undiminished”. I say gently—he is a good man and I like him a lot—that they cannot promise an employment Bill 20 times, fail to deliver it in the Queen’s Speech and say that their commitment is undiminished. That is simply beyond imagination. I am old enough to remember the commitment to the UK being the best place in the world to work—where is that in the Queen’s Speech?
Instead, as my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) raised so passionately, we are stuck with fire and rehire: a Victorian practice that is alive and kicking. In two years, we have seen it used on a large scale by British Airways, British Gas and P&O, and three times the Government have missed the opportunity to do something about it.
We should be cheered by the news this morning that Deliveroo and the GMB have reached a recognition agreement. That shows once again that the timeless and long-standing values of trade unionism are as relevant as ever in the modern economy. That will be good for Deliveroo’s staff and for its business. It is a partnership; one does not come at the expense of others. However, the Government should be introducing employment legislation rather than hoping that the answer for people in low-paid work is to work longer and harder, taking more jobs, operating in the wild west of zero-hours contracts and bogus self-employment—colleagues raised that—and not really knowing what they will earn from one week to the next. According to the TUC, the failure to act in this area is costing the Treasury £10 billion a year. What could we do with that £10 billion from people in regular employment paying tax and not reliant on social security? We could meet 40% of the social care budget from that alone.
If we want to talk about fairness at work, we should be chasing a more resilient economy and one that is less volatile to the markets. One of my passions—colleagues can look at my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—is building a co-operative economy with a new model of ownership. We know that co-operatives are more resilient. We got little hope or optimism from the Queen’s Speech, but we can look outwards to find that in the co-operative economy, because those businesses are at the coalface of the current crisis.
Co-operative and mutual enterprises are putting people before profit and supporting the vulnerable while the Government do not do their bit. They are building a fairer and more inclusive economy, but they need help. They could do so much more. We ought to have a Minister in Government who leads for co-ops. We should strengthen the credit union movement and support our building societies in providing affordable and accessible banking in all communities. We could have had a Marcora law, as they do in Italy, so that when a business is on the verge of collapse, workers have the right to buy it out. Instead of money being spent on employment benefits, resilient businesses that pay well could be putting that financial firepower back into communities, retaining good jobs, and keeping the economy going and thriving. Instead of money going to nondescript, distant and disinterested shareholders, we would be giving millions of working people a say in their own life and the services they use. That is a very exciting future, and the co-operative economy could do so much more in that area.
Instead, however, we see more of what has given us this decade of lost national growth. I am less excited about GDP than I am about what is in the pockets of my constituents. Their pay packets are, in real terms, less and less every month. That issue has grown exponentially in recent months. We should have had action to help them. Instead, we have vague promises of help in the future. That will not do. It is not good enough, and that is why I think there has been such anger about that, as there is on the Opposition Benches. We have to do better by our constituents.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
On International Nurses Day, I want to thank all nurses in Stockport and across the world, but in particular the members of Stockport Unison health branch, with whom I have a very good relationship. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and in particular to my trade union membership.
I associate myself with the comments made from those on the Opposition Benches regarding the cost of living crisis. Energy bills have gone up significantly. People on low incomes are impacted disproportionately, and it is they who need most support. The Government are failing our communities. I was in Blackpool on Monday last week for the USDAW—Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers—conference, the retail workers’ trade union. Before I cover the issues some of the retail workers mentioned to me—I am a former retail worker myself—I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) for all the work he has done on the “Freedom from Fear” campaign that USDAW has been running to protect shopworkers from verbal abuse, physical assault and all the terrible things that happen to shopworkers. Retail workers tend to be some of the lowest-paid people in our economy. They tend to work long hours and are often employed on zero-hour contracts. I am grateful that USDAW represents them.
There are two key points from a survey of retail workers on the cost of living that USDAW has sent to Members of Parliament. Two recommendations the trade union is making are a reduction in VAT from 20% to 17.5%, and an urgent and fundamental overhaul of universal credit. Several Opposition Members have already raised issues with universal credit and how it is having a negative impact on several people. I hope the Minister and other Government Members will listen and do something about that issue.
On the cost of living, Sue Peck from Stockport Car Scheme wrote to me recently. In case Members are not familiar with local car schemes, Stockport Car Scheme in Heaton Moor in my constituency is a door-to-door transport service for people living in Stockport who struggle to access public transport. Community transport schemes such as Stockport Car Scheme are always for a social purpose and never for profit. They support people who have mobility issues, cognitive impairments, disabilities, long-term health conditions and sensory loss. They use volunteer drivers, who source their own cars, to take people to their destination.
Stockport Car Scheme is calling for an immediate review of the approved mileage rate that can be claimed by volunteer drivers. There has been a significant increase in fuel costs, coupled with inflation, and that is having a negative impact on volunteer recruitment and retention. The approved mileage allowance payment was last reviewed in 2012 at 45p a mile. However, the RAC Foundation says that the cost of motoring has increased by 25% since 2012, and that is before we take into account the increase in fuel costs because of the crisis in Ukraine caused by Russia’s invasion. The higher fuel prices are having an impact on Stockport Car Scheme and, I am sure, services across the country, as some drivers feel they are unable to continue volunteering due the extra cost burden on them. I therefore hope that the Government will review that.
The issues with waiting lists have also been raised and are significant. Several charities, including Cancer Research UK and Macmillan, do very important work to support cancer patients’ families and communities. Cancer service provision across the UK often can be a postcode lottery. If someone lives near a hospital that has had capital investment and, sadly, they have cancer, or their loved one has cancer, they will be treated with the latest medical equipment. However, if someone’s hospital is older, perhaps they will not be that lucky. We need to tackle that. Cancer Research UK conducted research recently and informed me that 65,000 people in England are left waiting to find out if they have cancer. That is simply not acceptable in one of the world’s richest economies.
On waiting lists, I want to tackle the issue of NHS dentistry, because it has been deliberately underfunded by this Government, and that is pushing people into completing DIY remedies at home, often in a lot of pain. Yet again, it is a postcode lottery. In some areas of the country, people might be lucky enough to find a slot or two with their local dentist on an NHS placement, but otherwise, people have to pay an extremely large amount of money, and not everyone can afford to.
If you will allow me, Mr Deputy Speaker, I want to read out a piece of casework that I received regarding dentistry. I will quote it word for word:
“I have gum disease to the point all my teeth are very loose I have tried and tried to get a nhs dentists as I don’t work due to mental health issues. I stayed in my bedroom for six years I just couldn’t get out. To go private they want 64 pounds for me just to be seen. Then so much for my teeth to be taken out and then dentures. I have just started to get out with the help of my sport dog. If I loose my teeth I will not go out again. I have phoned so many nhs dentists and got know where. I’m on a list at King’s Gate House but that could take years. I really appreciate the waiting list but I will not have any teeth by then. I would really appreciate your help. I have phoned all the people I can. And I just don’t know which way to turn. I hope you can help me.”
It is actually quite upsetting to read that and to speak to that person.
Dentistry is a very serious issue. It has an impact on people’s physical health and also their mental health. We need to see the Government come forward with a plan. The British Dental Association has done really good research on this issue. I urge the Minister and the Government to pay attention to this issue, and to tackle it properly.
The housing crisis has also been covered by several colleagues. The local housing allowance is simply not adequate enough for the current rates in Stockport. Stockport is a fantastic place to live, but if people cannot afford a mortgage—the house prices have significantly increased anyway—rents are extremely high as well, and the housing allowance from the Government is simply not enough. There were 33,000 fewer socially rented homes built last year than in 2010. There has been a huge increase in private renting, with households paying even higher rents, and rough sleeping is up by 141%. I go back to what I said earlier: the UK simply cannot afford a Conservative Government. These stats are terrible.
There is some positive news on housing. I have two local charities that do excellent work. Mr Jonathan Billings recently set up the charity EGG—Engage Grow Go. He is a long-standing campaigner and worker in the housing sector, and he is doing really good work on that, so I am really pleased to have his guidance and support. Also, the Wellspring, a local institution in Stockport, has been helping homeless people and supporting them for several decades.
There are so many cases that I could mention, but I will mention just one briefly—I know that other Members want to get in to speak. This is from a woman who, sadly, was recently bereaved—her partner passed away. She has lived in a one-bedroom apartment for 44 years. I will read out the casework:
“She and late partner live in 1 bed apartment since…1970s. Therefore it is a protected tenancy. She informed the Landlord of the death of partner and Landlord”—
immediately—
“tried to increase rent by 86%. The Landlord (son of original Landlord) did not realise that to increase rent in a protected tenancy he would have to apply to the ‘RENT OFFICE’ for consent and valuation.”
There is no progress on this case yet, but she has lived in that property for 44 years. Very little work or maintenance has been done to the property, and in her words, it is a “hovel”. She is very worried, as she is currently paying only £350 a month, and there is no way that she could afford the new rent, or even the rent on social housing. What are people like her supposed to do when they cannot afford the rent? There are more than 7,000 households on the waiting list for my local housing provider, Stockport Homes, so it will take several years for her to get anywhere. Where are these people supposed to go?
I usually have lots to say about buses, but I will try to keep myself from going down that rabbit hole. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers is running a campaign to protect transport workers and ticket officers because there have been attacks on them in several places. In his former role, the current Prime Minister closed down ticket offices on the Transport for London network. We need to protect these jobs to ensure that people who have mobility or health issues can seek help and support on the platform if they need it.
There is a significant issue with the lack of disabled access and the lack of safety tiles at train stations. Network Rail says that 41 stations across the country will see a change, and there are a couple in my constituency that will have work done, but progress is not quick enough. Stockport constituency is in the north-west, where only 16% of train stations—the worst proportion in the UK—have accessible ticket machines. Similarly, only 18% of our ticket offices are accessible, compared with the national average of 21%, and only 8% of station toilets are national key toilets, compared with the national average of 18%. Those figures are simply shocking. The Government talk a lot about decarbonisation and levelling up, but when it comes to supporting people to get on the public transport network, they simply do not do enough.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Leagrave station in my constituency of Luton North is in exactly the same position: 1.8 million journeys a year were made from that station before the pandemic, but there is no lift access and no accessibility at all. It is about time that we saw the levelling up of our stations as well as our towns.
Navendu Mishra
My hon. Friend makes an important point. We need fewer public relations exercises from the Government and more investment in our communities.
I welcome the fact that Greater Manchester Combined Authority, led by Mayor Andy Burnham, is introducing bus franchising, which will mean lower fares and more reliable services. It will also mean that private bus operators cannot cherry-pick the most profitable routes and leave communities disconnected, so it is very good news.
I assure you that I will finish very shortly, Mr Deputy Speaker, but first I must get back to trains. Stockport station, the only mainline station in my constituency with trains to Manchester, Birmingham and London, is Victorian and is pretty much falling apart. When it rains heavily, the platforms flood. The lift is often broken, which makes life uncomfortable for passengers and gives the staff a difficult time. I hope that the Government will announce significant investment in northern train stations, in addition to those in Luton—north first, if that is okay.
I am proud to have three maintained nursery schools in Stockport constituency: Hollywood Park, Larkhill and Freshfield. They do a really important job and communities across our country benefit from our maintained nursery school system, but sadly National Education Union research reveals that there are only 389 such schools left in England, of which many are located in the most deprived areas in the country. I pay tribute to the hard work of our good friend the former Member for Birmingham, Erdington, who led the campaign to protect maintained nursery schools in Birmingham and across England. The solution is targeted support. The Government need to come forward with a funding formula that will support schools for the next decade, rather than with year-on-year solutions that create uncertainty and stress for the community.
I could say a lot more, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I do not want to disadvantage other speakers, so I will leave it there. Thank you for calling me.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I will concentrate my remarks on fairness at work. I am more than happy to declare my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: I am a proud member, and indeed the chair, of the Unite parliamentary group and a proud associate member of many trade union groups.
I believe that working conditions and fairness at work are a reflection of the power balance in society.
I recall that, just before Prorogation, the Chancellor reacted angrily to questions about his own family’s finances, but at kitchen tables in my constituency in the north-east of England they are not talking about offshore trusts and bank accounts in the Cayman islands. The talk among families at kitchen tables in east Durham is about increasing fuel prices, the cost of living, higher prices for food and other staple items, and having to pay more tax. There does not seem to be much discussion about hiding assets in offshore tax accounts.
Of course, the Government could help, but they choose not to. Politics, and party politics in particular, is about choices. I was quite impressed by the Government’s pledge, in response to the Gracious Speech, to make the United Kingdom the best possible place in which to live and work, but the facts belie that. We have had over 12 years of Conservative government. Many Conservative Members refer back to the last Labour Government, but I think it reasonable to assume that if the Conservatives had any intention of actually improving the quality of life, particularly for working people, there were ample opportunities to achieve that over a period of 12 years.
I was incredibly disappointed that, despite numerous assurances given to me and to my good friend the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), my hon. Friend—and good friend—the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) that an employment Bill would be included in the Queen’s Speech, that has not happened. There are 38 Bills, but sadly there is nothing for workers.
I think that fairness at work means being paid enough to be able to participate in the economy, and to buy your own food rather than being dependent on food banks. When my parents were small—my mother is celebrating her 86th birthday today, and I wish her a happy birthday—there were soup kitchens. Those have now been replaced by food banks. I do not think that food banks are a sign of economic success; I think that they are a sign of economic failure. Sadly, they also confirm that work does not always pay. There are many people in insecure, low-paid work who, sadly, are having to rely on food banks in order to put food on the table and feed their families.
I think that job security means being able to turn on the heating without being worried about whether you can afford the bill, or being able to give your child access to decent clothing, housing or even the internet. These are not luxuries; they are the basic essentials of a functioning modern economy in the 21st century. As a trade unionist, I believe that good businesses—and there are many examples of good businesses—should be standing side by side with their employees, as budget pressures and higher inflation are likely to lead to more industrial disputes and higher pay demands. People who are in work will obviously try to secure better pay rises.
There have been opportunities for the Government to act. On many occasions the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), who opened the debate, has condemned the bully-boy tactics of fire and rehire and unscrupulous employers. But then, incredibly, he himself talked out the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North, who is no longer in the Chamber. I am delighted to learn that Lord Woodley has been successful in the private Members’ Bill ballot in the other place, so there will be another opportunity to raise this issue.
We have had strong words from the Government, but sadly no action. We have witnessed the disgrace of P&O Ferries sacking British workers, breaking our laws and hiring private security firms to manhandle seafarers off the ships. The Queen’s Speech delivers the harbours (seafarers remuneration) Bill, but one thing it has been able to do is to unite the unions, the ports and the employers in criticising this plan as ineffective and unworkable. When the Transport Secretary said that he would “stop at nothing” in order to take P&O Ferries to task for its blatant disregard of UK employment legislation, I do not think any of us actually expected him to do nothing. We thought he would do something. This shows that the rich and powerful can break the law with impunity, whether it is the senior management of P&O or the Prime Minister, because it seems to many people that the system is built to protect the powerful and ignore their wrongdoing. Meanwhile, many working families in communities such as mine in Easington are struggling.
Police officers’ retirement plans are in tatters because of Government pension changes, and prison officers are leaving their jobs every day because of the terrible pay and the awful and reducing terms and conditions. The hon. Member for Watford (Dean Russell) expressed regret about the Government’s failure to support his Tips Bill. I also want to express regret that the Government did not support my Bill on prison violence, which aimed to place a duty on the Prison Service and the probation service, including private operators, to minimise violence in the workplace.
Dean Russell
I would just like to clarify that the Government and the Minister have actually has been incredibly supportive of my Tips Bill, and I know that work is continuing to ensure that it comes through, but I appreciate the nod and the mention from the hon. Gentleman, and I appreciate his support.
Grahame Morris
The hon. Member is very kind, and I appreciate the tip. I was under the impression that Ministers supported my Bill, because they were nodding as well, but unfortunately that was not the case. Anyway, I wish him every success.
I was talking about the way the Government have treated prison officers. They ignored the pay review board, they expect prison officers to work until they are 68 and they ignore the issue of workplace safety. In fact, they seem to be normalising workplace violence. So many prison officers are leaving the service that the Ministry of Justice itself has estimated that almost 87,000 cumulative years of prison officer experience have been lost since 2010. That loss of knowledge and experience is a problem that is replicated across many aspects of the public service. It is making workplaces less efficient and more insecure, and if we need proof, we need only to ask any constituent who has reported a crime, applied for a passport, sought to review a driving licence, reported antisocial behaviour to the council or is in urgent need of an ambulance. There are many examples of the Government’s mismanagement, lack of investment and simple lack of care for many of our communities. Under the Conservatives, the poorest are expected to work harder and longer and to receive less. This is a Government who seem to reward bad businesses such as P&O Ferries, and those who cheat, deceive and refuse to pay their taxes are rewarded.
Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)
In looking at the issue of power in our communities from a Scottish perspective, we cannot ignore this Government’s clear hostility to devolution in Scotland and the return of some powers to our country. They have clearly forgotten that it was devolution that revived any sort of Tory presence in Scotland after they lost all their seats there following the 1997 general election. Nevertheless, we hear that in 2020 the Prime Minister told a group of his MPs that the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament had been a “disaster” and a “mistake”. The Minister for Brexit Opportunities stated that he believed the constitution was vandalised with devolution and that the Tories must undo it. So I suppose it is no surprise that this programme for government includes more outright assaults on the devolved settlement. Take the ironically named Brexit freedoms Bill, which seeks to remove and restrict retained EU laws. This Bill, we are told, is to extend and apply across the UK, but many retained laws are incorporated into Acts of the Scottish Parliament. Many, indeed, focus on the standards this UK Government seem so determined to gut. Surely it should be for Holyrood to decide on their future, not this place and certainly not this Government.
The eternal quest of most Conservative Governments, the fabled bonfire of red tape, is promised so often but never really delivered. Indeed, we have seen the pile of red tape multiplied many times over by Brexit-created snarls, but the Prime Minister now promises a bonfire of retained EU legislation. That will see standards slump as the Tories rip away legislation that has protected Scottish interests for almost 50 years.
Brexiters have never shied away from hacking at workers’ rights, as we have heard from numerous hon. Members today. We in Scotland certainly do not trust this Government to maintain even our current standards in areas such as workers’ rights, food and the environment, and we have heard why from Conservative Members.
Remember, this is the Government who appointed the former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to the Board of Trade. Apparently, he once bragged that he was able to fast-track international trade deals because he is not sidetracked by details such as environmental standards and workers’ rights.
Devolution and the power it returns to our communities in Scotland are being further eaten away by this Government’s so-called levelling-up agenda. In January, the House of Lords Constitution Committee’s report on the plan said that the UK Government are simply ignoring devolution and the calls for greater transparency on funding decisions. The Scottish Government have no role in deciding how this funding is allocated, and so which projects might align with their priorities, in order to deliver maximum benefit. This runs completely counter to the principles of devolution. The fact it has been created by a Government of a political hue that we in Scotland have not supported since the 1950s, with priorities and values that we in Scotland do not embrace, illustrates again why the power to make all our own decisions is the way forward for our country.
What guarantees can the Minister give us that the Scottish Parliament will not be forced to amend retained EU law? The Scottish Government intend to stay as closely aligned to EU legislation as possible. What power do Scotland’s Government, Scotland’s Parliament and, ultimately, Scotland’s people have if those decisions are stripped from their hands and made by Westminster?
Why are the UK Government now concerned about retained EU law not having received full democratic scrutiny when they are certainly not bothered about, say, international trade deals returning to this Chamber to be considered by hon. Members before they are signed? That is another question on which I fear we will get no reply from the Dispatch Box.
We were also told that lost EU funding will be replaced with equal, if not greater, funds. Those, I am afraid, are just more fibs from the cast members of Vote Leave. The Scottish Government calculated that £183 million a year is needed to replace the different EU funding streams that Scotland had previously received. This should mean that Scotland receives £549 million over the next three years, but we are getting only £212 million through the shared prosperity fund—a 60% cut in real terms that leaves us with real fears for the future of numerous community groups across my constituency of Edinburgh North and Leith, and across Scotland.
A particularly alarming admission that I must mention is the lack of any replacement for one of the most valued EU-funded schemes in Scotland, the LEADER programme, which supports more than 900 projects across rural Scotland, including 400 initiatives for young people and disadvantaged groups. The shared prosperity fund does not replace it, and nor can we see obvious opportunities to access similar support. When questioned in the Scottish Parliament on the rationale for levelling-up fund priority groups, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said:
“The conclusion about whether funding has been distributed equitably will come at the end of the process.”
That is an extraordinary admission from a Minister. Surely allocations should be continuously reviewed, evaluated and then reported; I am pleased to hear that the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who is no longer in her place, agrees on that. Shortfalls in this funding will likely mean the end of many organisations and services that have provided vital services to communities for years or even decades, damaging even further the fabric of our society. In the midst of a cost of living crisis and the biggest fall in living standards in recent memory, the Government’s flagship policy to rebalance power and resources swerves Scotland’s elected Parliament and leaves our communities with many, many pounds less in funding than we had with the EU. How can this be justified in a country where every local authority, all 32 of them, rejected Brexit? All this is not to mention outstanding questions—which I will not go into in detail, although I could—about what appear to be politically motivated choices made on those funds.
The people of Scotland trust the Scottish Parliament to make these decisions. The Prime Minister and his wrecking crew of Brexiters seem to think that devolution was enacted merely at the whim of a previous Administration and that it can simply be reversed with a wave of their aristocratic hands. They have clearly forgotten, so I will remind them, that in the 1997 devolution referendum almost three quarters of voters backed the re-establishment of a Scottish Parliament. It was, as David Cameron acknowledged, the settled will of the people. In the years since, that support has mushroomed, with polling from 2019 showing that 93% of the Scottish public were in favour of the Parliament’s existence. That demonstrates clearly the continuing support from communities in Scotland for power being returned to them, after more than 300 years of it being locked away from them down here.
Policies such as free prescriptions for everything from HRT to medicines for those with long-term conditions, and tuition-free university education, have broken from Conservative ideology at Westminster and meant real benefits for the people of Scotland. While Tory Government free-marketeers stubbornly refuse to meaningfully support people amid the cost of living crisis, the Scottish Government have used their limited powers to take measures such as increasing Scottish social security payments by 6% and doubling the Scottish child payment to £20 per child per week, with plans to increase it further by the end of the year. We have mitigated the impact of hated UK Government policies such as the bedroom tax and the benefits cap, at a cost to our Government of hundreds of millions of pounds per year.
Every day the UK Government fail to use their reserved powers to tackle the cost of living crisis, they show again, starkly, why independence is the only way for Scotland to build that fairer society we all want to see. It is no wonder that in last week’s council election the fortunes of the SNP and the Conservatives were so contrasting. The Tories suffered their worst result since 1990, whereas the SNP won its 11th election in a row. Following consecutive emphatic election wins, as well as a clear majority in the Scottish Parliament for another independence referendum, the mandate for that second vote should be beyond dispute. Furthermore, a new report on last year’s Holyrood election by the Scottish Election Study, carried out by six academics across the UK, concluded that it was “Independence Wot Won It” for the SNP Government. The study shows not only that the SNP holds broad support across a number of demographics, but it won more than half of the constituency ballot among voters born outside the UK, as well as a plurality of those born in England. Surely that is a testament to our outward-looking and progressive vision for Scotland’s future.
Finally, it would be remiss to talk about empowering our communities without making some remarks on the Online Safety Bill, which, if amended, could play an important role in protecting and enhancing democracy at a national and local level. There is much in the Bill that the SNP can support, but it disappoints in its lack of a credible plan to tackle online misinformation and disinformation, which is doing so much to weaken our democracy. We think the Bill should include robust measures on misinformation and disinformation, and the UK Government should follow the example of countries such as Sweden, Finland and Latvia in building up national information resilience programmes.
The Government might point to self-regulation by online platforms via the ads transparency centre, but we have learned that tens of thousands of ads went missing from Facebook’s ad archive in the final days of the 2019 general election. There are requirements for businesses, charities and public sector organisations to communicate honestly with the public about their online activities and products, but no such provision exists for political parties or campaign groups.
Neither the Advertising Standards Authority nor the Electoral Commission has the powers to enforce basic standards of honesty in electoral online advertising. Currently, a bad actor can run a huge volume of misleading online adverts and invest large amounts of money in breach of electoral law, and if that bad actor does not report it, or its activities are not uncovered and reported, there is no record of that advertising having been placed.
The various campaign groups that were established as unincorporated associations and sprang up like weeds just before the most recent Scottish elections used Facebook ads in particular to push political links, and in most cases it was not possible to establish who paid for the ads or the groups’ political links. The Government must look into and close the loophole that allows donations under the spending limit or directly to political candidates.
In closing, I urge the Government to take the issues I have outlined much more seriously than they have been taking them. They should examine closely the dark side of political advertising and take some real action. Democracy is under threat like never before, and without democracy there is no real power for our communities.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield, Hallam) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, because although the Government talk abstractly about levelling up the country and addressing the housing emergency, people in my constituency and throughout the country are paying the price of years of failed policy and Government inaction.
The proposed renter reform and social housing regulation Bills in the Queen’s Speech are once-in-a-generation opportunities to build a new system in which everyone’s right to safe and secure housing is protected, respected and guaranteed in law. It is vital that this opportunity is not squandered, and I will hold the Government’s feet to the fire to ensure that it is not because, I am sorry to say, their record to date has hardly been inspiring. Throughout the pandemic, we saw Ministers’ willingness to cast aside people in the rented sector. The covid crisis only confirmed what we already knew: that rents are too high, that renters’ rights are too precarious and that too often rented accommodation is unsafe or in poor condition.
Since I was elected in 2019, not a week has gone by in which I have not heard horror story after horror story from people in my Sheffield constituency about mould, damp, exposed asbestos, broken appliances, rats, vermin and many other issues. Tenants are afraid to speak out in case they face eviction or cannot re-sign their contract the following year. Renters are being gradually priced out of areas by landlords who are unchecked, unchallenged and feel no consequence for their actions.
One family I have been working with cannot put furniture against the walls because it causes cavities where black mould builds up. This is not happening in just a handful of properties: according to a report by Shelter, across Sheffield 28% of private rentals and 4% in the social rented sector contain category 1 hazards such as excess cold or risk of falls. To make matters worse, my constituents themselves are often unfairly blamed for the hazards. I constantly hear of people being told that the black mould in their properties is because of their own ventilation problems and that they need to open their windows more and bleach their walls. Often, these families have been sitting in the cold with their windows open all year round, constantly running dehumidifiers, at great cost. One family has even innovatively —albeit sadly—been using sticky-back plastic on their walls and replacing it every few months to remove the mould.
Given the rising energy costs, problems such as those I have described are all the more concerning. The impacts are far-reaching: I have seen numerous cases of new or worsening asthma in children, formally recorded by doctors as likely to be linked to their living in mouldy or damp housing conditions. Other families have reported repeat infections. We are returning to the 1800s. My constituents are not only paying the price with their physical health; every single person I speak to with housing issues is also experiencing poor mental health. Living in conditions unfit for human habitation is devaluing. It makes people feel as if they do not matter. The stress of having constantly to complain and chase up repairs comes at a cost for people because they are having to take multiple days off work to try to resolve the issues and to protect their families.
Our housing market is fundamentally broken. This is not a new emergency, but the covid-19 pandemic has made the situation more acute, exposing worsening cracks in the private rented sector and pushing more people into long-term crises of homelessness, debt and precarity.
In Sheffield, we saw a 46% rise in the number of private renters claiming housing benefits to help pay their rent between February 2020 and 2021. Nearly 3,000 households were made homeless, or threatened with homelessness, over the same period. The main issue, as we know, is that not enough affordable housing is being built. Shelter’s recent report makes it clear that a key part of our solution must be to build more new, good quality social housing. Investing in social housing would deliver affordable homes in which local people can thrive, because genuinely affordable social rents allow people to save money and to build their lives.
Between 1946 and 1980, an average of 126,000 council homes were built every year. As of 2019, that figure was just 6,826. My city, once famed for the construction of great public housing works, including the streets-in-the-sky design of Park Hill, and the radical Gleadless Valley estate, now faces a year-on-year decline in social housing stock, largely as a result of Thatcher’s right to buy. Between March 2015 and April 2020, 1,812 social homes were sold in Sheffield through right to buy, and only 229 were built.
The situation is not just about the affordability of rents, but about the quality of housing and the affordability of day-to-day bills. I am pleased to say that Sheffield Labour group has pledged to spend £350 million to improve the quality of council housing to upgrade all council homes to EPC band C, retrofitting homes to make them warmer, and greatly cutting energy bills and emissions.
Our council now plans to build 3,100 new council homes—to the highest energy efficiency standards—but unfortunately it is nigh on impossible for local authorities to build enough to maintain that rate let alone carry out the investment in maintenance that is so desperately needed to improve council stock.
As Shelter’s “Levelling up with social housing” report states, in order to truly level up the city of Sheffield, it needs to be provided with the funding to ensure that it can build the good quality, genuinely affordable social homes that it needs. To date, however, the Government’s ambitions for levelling up have stopped far short of the action that we need to see even to maintain our current stock of social housing, let alone provide genuinely affordable, warm, new-build homes.
It is time that Ministers stepped up to the challenge. My constituents are tired of poor quality housing. They are tired of high rents and of struggling from pay cheque to pay cheque to pay their rent and bills. We need a housing revolution, and I will be fighting to ensure that that is what these two Bills provide.
I wish to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) for his work as the Mayor of South Yorkshire. It is incredibly brave of people to put themselves forward for election, and I congratulate Oliver Coppard on becoming the new Mayor. I thank all candidates up and down the country who have taken the brave step to represent and build power in their community.
There is much that is missing in this Queen’s Speech. I know that colleagues today have outlined very eloquently the issues that arise from not having the employment Bill. We have heard much today about taking away the ability of people in our communities to live independently and to be empowered to get the best out of their lives. It is incredibly telling that we see what I would call a Yorkshire mix of Bills—which is a bag of boiled sweets that are all different—because it is unclear what the Government’s ideology is. It seems that each Department has a different flavour of right-wing ideology going on. That is very confusing for people up and down the country who are facing a cost of living crisis when their clear demands are to live well, live healthily, live in warm homes and have good quality, well-paid jobs.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We come now to the last Back-Bench contribution, from Kirsten Oswald.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP)
People across the nations of the UK have had a difficult couple of years, and I fear that those difficulties—at least as the UK Government calculate it—provide the perfect cover for the Prime Minister’s current chaos and his Government’s failure to deliver on the promises set out in his party’s manifesto. He did, however, deliver a severely undercooked Brexit, which Scotland did not vote for but which we are all now paying a high price for.
This week was the Prime Minister’s opportunity to chart a way forward, if he intended to deliver on his promises. Instead, the Queen’s Speech showed him for what the people of Scotland have long known him to be. Instead of measures of substance to help people in challenging times, we have a Queen’s Speech of missed opportunities. We do not have anything that seriously addresses the themes of today’s debate, fairness at work and power in communities.
Of course, if the UK Government had any interest in delivering fairness at work or properly thinking about the future of work, the long-promised employment Bill would have been among the Bills in the Queen’s Speech—it was a Conservative manifesto pledge in 2019, after all—but, despite the numerous promises, yet again it is nowhere to be seen. That is a great shame, because for too many people the labour market in the UK is broken.
That was demonstrated during the pandemic, when millions of the self-employed and directors of small companies got no support because their place in the labour market did not fit the Treasury model. Some of the most vulnerable continued to work because statutory sick pay leaves people in poverty, and many just stopped receiving texts calling them to shifts and found themselves in limbo with nowhere to turn.
This was the UK Government’s line in 2019:
“The Prime Minister was clear that he is determined to make the UK the best place in the world to work… Once Brexit is done, we will continue to lead the way and set a high standard, building on existing employment law with measures which protect those in low paid work.”
To coin a phrase, what a load of baloney. It has proved, unsurprisingly, to be nonsense. Where are the measures to improve employment or fairness in the workplace? Where is the right to flexible working? They are all missing. Where is the stronger legal protection for pregnant employees, new parents or carers? Those things are missing too. Where is the single enforcement body to protect employee rights? It is missing.
The Queen’s Speech should have featured reform of the chronically failing shared parental leave scheme. Recent figures show that just 2% of new mothers used the scheme to transfer some of their paid leave to the child’s father. No one defends that scheme and no one pretends it works—it has been under evaluation by the UK Government since April 2018—but evidently addressing that undisputed failure does not merit legislation.
P&O Ferries sacking 800 workers without notice should have been a wake-up call for urgency in a wider reform of employment law. Instead, the Government have focused solely on the narrow issue of pay for seafarers, through the harbours (seafarers’ remuneration) Bill. Those plans been called “feeble and likely unworkable” by Frances O’Grady of the TUC, and the Bill leaves unaddressed the wider issues of fire and rehire.
The Parliamentary calendar being what it is, any interventions in the labour market that are not started this year stand little chance of ever seeing the light of day. Without the protection of EU law, much of which this Government intend to strip away, UK workers face greater unfairness in the workplace, not less. I echo my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman): the Labour party must step up and support our calls to devolve employment law, rather than enabling this Tory Government, which Scotland did not vote for, to sell our workers short.
The people of Scotland did not vote for this future at all. We in the SNP are committed to making sure that they have the opportunity to choose a different future in an independent Scotland, where delivering fairness is not just an electoral soundbite. I challenge the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats to recognise the right of the people in Scotland to choose that better, independent future, instead of once again siding with the Tories in their race to the bottom.
The other strand of this debate is power in communities. I must have a different understanding from the UK Government of what “community” means. I see little sign of them adopting a community focus and approach, either in response to the cost of living crisis or in the proposals—or rather the missing proposals—in the Queen’s Speech. I see that the Prime Minister has adopted the simple tactic of denying the link between the actions, or inaction, of his Government and people’s very understandable anxiety about their bills. That will not wash. Voters can see for themselves that the UK Government are actively choosing courses of action that affect their lives in the most challenging of ways. This UK Government are choosing to load on tax rises, choosing to cut universal credit by over £1,000, and choosing not to uprate benefits by something closer to the current rate of inflation. Contrast that with the Scottish Government’s prompt action to uprate the limited number of benefits they control and to support families via the groundbreaking Scottish child payment. Contrast the UK Government’s approach, with their missing employment Bill, with the Scottish Government’s focus on fair work.
The UK Government are actively choosing to damage communities in other ways too. They are taking a wrecking ball to human rights and the dignity of the individual. Having closed off legal routes to reach the UK in an emergency, the UK Government moved on to their abhorrent Nationality and Borders Act 2022, criminalising those who use another route. Now they have adopted the inhumane policy of paying a third country to take those who make it to the UK off their hands. Not only is that policy morally wrong and a shocking waste of taxpayers’ money, but there are serious questions about the safety of people under those plans, including LGBT people. I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) about the contrasting approach to refugees between the Scottish and UK Governments. Like him, I very much welcome the election of Roza Salih. I think that the way forward will surely be one where more people are included in our democratic systems.
But that is not the approach that the UK Government are taking. Their decision to continue with their hostile environment instead of building an immigration system founded on community, on decency and on fairness is, I fear, a sign of what is to come. The safeguards in the Human Rights Act are an essential feature of our democratic society and our commitment to the rule of law. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), they are also, whether the UK Government like it or not, at the heart of the devolution settlement, and changes must not be made without the consent of the Scottish Parliament. Looking at the report of the Independent Human Rights Act Review, it is difficult to disagree with this:
“Since its passage, the HRA has faced a steadily escalating series of attacks, designed not just to undermine the Act but, at times, the very concept of human rights. A genuine case can be made that the HRA has faced a series of attacks without precedent for a piece of legislation in modern British history.”
The Queen’s Speech was the next round in that series of attacks. It should really bring shame on the UK Government, but, having heard some of the remarks from Conservative Members today, it is clear that their approach to rights is to deny that they should exist.
The UK Government should also be ashamed by the way they have treated the issue of conversion therapy in the Queen’s Speech. There are no conversion practices that are acceptable, and provisions put in place must be trans-inclusive. We need to get a move on, too, given the serious harm that these practices cause. On 30 March, the Minister for Equalities, the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), said in this House:
“Both the national LGBT survey of over 100,000 LGBT people and the in-depth Coventry report demonstrated that violent and harmful talking conversion practices continue to take place. That is why we need to act.”—[Official Report, 30 March 2022; Vol. 711, c. 796.]
But shamefully, within hours, it became clear that the UK Government would not use their proposed ban to protect trans people. In fact, it took a public outcry to get them to row back on what looked like a refusal coming down the line to protect anyone at all. Their excuse for their decision was the need to clear the legislative decks for the cost of living crisis and the Ukraine war. However, looking at the Queen’s Speech, it is now clear to all of us that no significant bodies of legislation are being brought forward on those issues, so that excuse does not wash. What is the fig leaf for that discriminatory decision?
It is a dark road that this Government are travelling down, in many ways, with scant regard for people struggling to manage because of the Tory cost of living crisis, a race to the bottom on rights, and a woeful disregard for workers. I repeat what my colleagues have said today: the people of Scotland deserve better and they have a right to reject this.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
Out there in the country, a crisis is unfolding. We have the biggest fall in living standards since the 1950s, pensioners boarding buses to keep warm and food banks handing out cold boxes to families where both parents grind for a living that pays so little they cannot even heat the food handed out to them by charity, when it should be given as a right. We have had an uprising across the north of England and demands for more power in Scotland, in Wales, in the midlands and the south. We need to rewrite the script, ditch old orthodoxies and end the injustice of whole communities being written off and written out of the national story by Governments with far too little ambition.
In every corner of this country, people are crying out for change, and this Government’s big idea is referendums on street names and an alfresco dining revolution. Is this it? Seriously, is this it? Can they not see how absurd it is to tour TV studios talking about a Medici-style renaissance of our towns, villages and cities when high streets are falling apart, when many town centres in every part of this country are now no-go areas for people who live there, and when homes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) said, are cold and damp, and communities are broken apart by policies that force people to move into insecure housing miles away from friends and families? While they tour the country, reading out lists of leisure centres that have had a lick of paint funded by a small refund of our money that has been taken from us over a decade, on every measure—wages, homes, transport and life expectancy —the gap is growing and Britain is going backwards.
Are the Government not ashamed to stand there and say that they are getting the country firing on all cylinders, spreading prosperity and widening opportunity when Bloomberg this week showed that in nine out of 10 constituencies, the salary gap is widening, almost everywhere homes are unaffordable and public spending has fallen behind London in every single region of England in the two years since this Government were elected and took office with a promise to level us up? Are they not ashamed?
I thought it was pretty brave of this Government to enshrine the levelling-up missions in law, given that appalling record, but then I read the small print, and it turns out they are not even doing that. They are not even delivering the big flagship promise. Tucked away in this 325-page Bill, it states:
“The Minister…may revise the current statement of levelling-up missions so as to change the mission progress methodology and metrics or…target date”.
This is exactly what we have come to expect. They say they will build 300,000 houses a year, and then they do not. They promise Northern Powerhouse Rail 60 times in 60 press releases over seven years, and then they ditch it. They have given more money to fraudsters than they have to the whole of the north of England in the past year.
The bus subsidy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) said quite rightly, was quietly halved when no one was watching. The Government have closed Department for Work and Pensions offices across our regions. Remember that promise that when we left the European Union, we would take back control and the money that used to flow freely back to us through Brussels would be protected? That promise has been thrown in the bin.
The Cabinet is meeting in Stafford today. Frankly, I do not know how they have the nerve. Stafford is one of those places. Some £35 million has been lost from Stafford because of this Government’s decision to hold on to money that belongs to us. A billion pounds has been taken from communities in England. I am starting to think that the Government are just incapable of keeping any simple promise. After all the talk and all the spin, the only people who seem to have taken back control are a small group of Ministers in Whitehall. Any Government worth having would have used this Queen’s Speech to get money into people’s pockets, scrapping business rates and bringing in a windfall tax on the big oil and gas producers to get money off people’s energy bills.
It is not just that the Government do not back us when companies are making record profits and we are struggling to heat our homes; it is that they are actively working against us. This is the only Government in any G7 economy to put up taxes on workers during a cost of living crisis. I gave up looking for this Government’s moral compass a very long time ago, but the economic stupidity of that is breath-taking. Next year, we are forecast to have the slowest growth of any G7 country, which is why levelling up matters more, not less, at a time such as this. We should be turbocharging this programme and investing in our communities.
In the nine years leading up to the pandemic—in almost a decade of Tory rule—only two of the 38 OECD countries invested less than Britain, which is how we got high tax, low growth and a cost of living crisis. It turns out that if the Government slash solar, ban onshore wind and degrade gas storage, we get an energy bills crisis. It turns out that if an Education Secretary axes the scheme to build schools fit for the future, we end up with an £11-billion repair bill and one in six kids being in schools that are falling apart. Now the Government tell us that they want to raise school standards and enshrine them in law—give me a break!
The difference between us and the Conservatives is that we believe in our communities and we are prepared to back them. We would invest £28 billion a year, every year, for a decade to bring back the good jobs that underpin our local economies, so that kids from Barnsley to Aberdeen have choices: the chance to leave if they wish, and the chance to stay and contribute if they can. That way, geography is no longer destiny—do hon. Members remember that phrase?—and young people do not have to get out to get on.
This Bill is not a plan; it is a 325-page obituary of the Government’s levelling-up programme. The press release promises real power, but I think we have learned by now not to trust the spin. The Secretary of State promised to throw open the doors to welcome refugees from Ukraine, but he did not, did he? Some 200,000 families came forward in Britain to provide a home to people fleeing Vladimir Putin, but only 26,000 have been able to make a home here. After years of delay and agony for leaseholders, the Secretary of State said that he would make developers pay, but he did not, did he? We got a meeting, then another press release, but for all that, the agony continues.
What does the promise to implement the
“biggest shift of power from Whitehall in modern times”
actually amount to? The right to a better home was published literally—I am not joking—while the Secretary of State was on TV abandoning his commitment to build them. What on earth is the point of a right to something that does not exist? There was an announcement to make it easier for councils to bring boarded-up properties back into use, which is an idea so good that when we called for it back in September, the Government said that it was a “rehashed and failed” policy first proposed by the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn)—I did not realise that the Secretary of State took advice from him. They went on to say that it
“goes to show Labour…have absolutely nothing new to offer our country”.
I am pleased to see that they have come round to our way of thinking.
Seriously, how many times do the Government think they can do this? They make a flashy headline-grabbing offer, but then people read the small print. The “power” in question is a share of the infrastructure levy, but only if people set up a town or parish council; and more powers, but only if people have a Mayor and live in an area that the Chancellor has deemed “economically viable” and has not written off, as he has done large swathes of the country. Even then, only a privileged few friends of the Secretary of State seem to get any powers that they need. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) was an outstanding Mayor, but let us imagine what he could have delivered for the people of South Yorkshire if he had had the powers that he clamoured for throughout his entire time in office.
As I went through the Bill, it turned out that the only thing that we get the right to decide for ourselves is what our Mayor is called—I am not joking. Three whole pages of the Bill are dedicated to giving us the right to pick a new name for our Mayors. A Medici-style renaissance it is not. In fact, it is just patronising nonsense or, as the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) said, a load of baloney.
In the Secretary of State’s quote accompanying the press release, he brags that he will allow
“every part of England which wants a London-style mayor to have one.”
May I gently say again to Ministers that not everywhere in this country wants to be London? We are proud of London—we love London—but not everywhere wants to be the same.
Lisa Nandy
If I were the hon. Gentleman, I would be very careful about trying to give the Opposition lessons on bullying, given the allegations that were found to have merit against the Home Secretary and many other Members on the Government Front Bench. As they say, if you wrestle with a pig, you get covered in—stuff. I would be careful, if I were him, about using this place to try to throw mud at us.
If only the Secretary of State had come to us and said that he could not do what had been proposed. If only he had just said to us, “Look, the Treasury has blocked it, No. 10 has ditched it, and the Cabinet Office has laughed at it.” If he had come to us and said, “Work with me, because together we might achieve this,” we would have been more sympathetic today. Instead, what we get is 325 pages marking the death of the Government’s levelling-up agenda. Well, if the Government will not do it, we will.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame Morris) said, we will proactively defend and support the people who power this country. We will not stand aside when workers are thrown on the scrapheap. It really does make nonsense of claims of levelling up when we have a shower of Ministers who did not lift a finger to help hundreds of P&O workers until the news about P&O was made public. Today, the GMB and Deliveroo have shown that the jobs of the future can be jobs that people can raise a family on with dignity, security and respect. The hon. Member for Watford (Dean Russell), who is here to listen to the winding-up speeches, has run an admirable campaign to protect the tips of hard-working staff from unscrupulous employers, but where is the employment Bill that has been promised 20 times? Seriously, where is it?
We will put money back in people’s pockets through a windfall tax, so they can spend on our high streets, and our town centres can thrive again. We will aggressively chase down the jobs of the future, not have an empty Procurement Bill. We will not be a Government who promise to bring renewable jobs to Britain and then award a contract to build windfarms in Fife to a yard in Indonesia; instead, we will have a real strategy to make, buy and sell more in Britain. We will close the gap that has seen only two regions of the UK prosper in 19 of the last 20 years, and 12 years of managed decline of our nations and regions under the Tories.
By investing in good jobs in transport, digital and skills, as well as in tidal, hydrogen, solar and wind, we will rebuild our coastal and industrial communities. These places were once the engine room of Britain. Within living memory, we powered the world, and we will again. Whether in shipbuilding in Glasgow, textiles in Preston and Burnley, mining in Wales and Wigan, or fishing in Grimsby, the people that make our great towns and cities are the people who drove Britain forward, and they deserve so much better than this. Those jobs may have gone, but what remains is a fierce determination to contribute again—not to the history books, but to our future.
We deserve a Government who share our ambition for our communities and for Britain. That is why Labour will do this with the best asset we have—our people. If I have learned anything in the last 12 years, it is that people who have a stake in the outcome and skin in the game try harder, work longer, think more creatively and do more because so much is at stake. This Bill should have been the moment to hand real powers that we know will work for us to our community, so that we are no longer forced to go begging, cap in hand, to Whitehall for loose change and small powers. Every community in this country has the right to make a contribution to the national effort, not just some. It was George Orwell, who is forever associated with my town through “The Road to Wigan Pier”, who said that this is a country that lies “beneath the surface”, and it is time for that country
“to take charge of its own destiny.”
It is time for this tired Government—out of energy, out of ideas—to get out of the way, so that we can build it.
The Minister for Levelling Up Communities (Kemi Badenoch)
It is my pleasure to close today’s debate on behalf of the Government and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. I begin by thanking hon. Members on all sides of the House who have contributed to today’s long and lively debate, following Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech earlier this week. Before I say more on how we are delivering on our pledge to strengthen communities, rebalance our economy and level up parts of the country, I first want to address as many as possible of the points raised by hon. Members during the debate.
I will start with the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who asked: where is the money? I do not think he is in his place, but I would like to thank him for his substantive engagement with the issues—he engaged far more than anyone else on the Opposition Benches. I am pleased that he found some things to praise in the set of Bills that we are bringing forward, unlike his colleagues, although I saw he was claiming credit for the policies that he agreed with; I am not quite sure whether that is right.
The hon. Gentleman asked where the money is, and the point I want to make—I know quite a few people will be making this point throughout the debate on the Queen’s Speech—is that levelling up means more than money. We have been providing funding, but it needs more than that; clearly, funding alone has not eliminated regional inequalities, so other types of action are required. I agreed with the point of the anecdote of the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) about west and east Germany and the trillions of pounds spent. It is not about just pouring money into areas; that alone will not deliver levelling up.
I disagree with the point made by the hon. Member for Sheffield South East that levelling up means taking from wealthy areas and giving to others; it is not a zero-sum game. I also found his idea of devolving every single decision down to the most local level interesting, but if we did take up that radical idea, as he described it, he would then complain about postcode lotteries. To answer his question on the new powers that combined authorities will have, the final package of powers will be bespoke, and will depend on the needs of and proposals from local areas. Mayors could therefore have increased powers over budgets, employment and skills, transport, health and social care, and policing, but the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill streamlines the process for a combined authority that proposes taking additional powers. The Bill will make devolving more powers to Mayors easier as long as they agree to take on greater responsibility. There will be a flexible choice, which is why the detail the hon. Gentleman was looking for will not be there; the detail will depend on the proposals from Mayors.
Many Members raised good points. My right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) asked questions about inflationary shock, global commodity prices and monetary inflation that I am unable to answer; I am sure Treasury Ministers will. He also made a good point about the conflicting aims in trying to deliver housing; I hope he will take part in debates on those issues during Second Reading of the legislation.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) talked about the need to have effective monitoring of levelling up, and that will be found in the Bill. We have embedded that mission in it, recognising there is a need to help everyone everywhere because there are pockets of deprivation all over the country, not just in certain regions. I look forward to hearing her further contributions on that.
The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) talked about the Secretary of State saying that we did not have a housing target any longer. That is not true; that is a straw man. He did not say that; he simply said that the housing target is not the only way we are measuring success. We are also looking at issues such as beauty, infrastructure, the environment and neighbourhoods. That does not mean we no longer have a housing target.
The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) complained that the Secretary of State was not here to—
Mr Betts
I apologise for returning a little late; I have been speaking at a housing conference and had to rush back. On this question of a target, the Government have a target, as the Minister has just said. Can she confirm that it is to build 300,000 homes a year before the end of this Parliament?
Kemi Badenoch
I confirm that we have not changed anything about our targets, but we are looking—[Interruption.] I am agreeing with the hon. Gentleman. We are looking at other things beyond targets, not just a statistic or number.
My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) raised the issue of vaccines and vaccine damage payments. Again, I am unable to give an answer on that at the Dispatch Box, but the vaccines Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Maggie Throup), will have heard his comments, and I hope he will receive a response shortly. He made wider points about the economy that I think will be addressed in the debates around energy next week.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax) made many points that I agreed with, including on employment, and I want to acknowledge what he said about the risk takers being the employers; we often forget that when talking about employment.
The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) complained about the legislation in this Session and the last. The legislation we are bringing forward was in our manifesto. These measures were manifesto commitments, and we won an election on those commitments, so he should ask himself why he is at odds with the wishes of the electorate.
The hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner) made a passionate speech, as usual; but as usual, I disagreed with most of it. The hon. Member for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova) talked about ethnicity pay gap reporting. She and I have discussed this many times. A review of the success of gender pay gap reporting is coming, and it will be interesting for us to have a conversation on that.
Mr Sheerman
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Minister mentioned me, but then was intervened on, perfectly legitimately, by a colleague. I think she was about to say that I had made a wonderful speech and was about to rehearse the key points, but she was unable to finish what she intended to say about me.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
As the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, that is not a point of order for the Chair. It is a point fishing for compliments, and he is not going to get one from the Chair; nor, I fear, from the Minister.
Richard Drax
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I balance the equation? I tried to get in, having been mentioned, but I was not allowed, so I feel the same as the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). It is the same for both sides.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman, who is not going to get any compliments either. Let us return to the subject of the debate.
Kemi Badenoch
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think that the hon. Member for Huddersfield was begging for a shout-out, so I am happy to give him one. His points were wonderfully bonkers, and I disagreed with most of them.
Marsha De Cordova
The Minister rightly talks about gender pay gap and ethnicity pay gap reporting. Does she agree that it is also time to review disability pay gap reporting so that we can address the disability employment gap and, more importantly, get the impairment-specific data that will really highlight some of the flaws in relation to disabled people and employment?
Kemi Badenoch
The hon. Member raises a good point. The metrics that we would use for disability pay gap reporting would be quite significantly different. There are issues around ability that mean that disabled people are at a serious disadvantage compared with others, but I think that we are already exploring that; we certainly keep it under review. Of course, I am happy to take those conversations offline.
The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) talked about social housing regulation and made some good points. When the Minister for homelessness and rough sleeping—the Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall North (Eddie Hughes)—takes that Bill through the House, he will be able to answer many points that I cannot at this point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Dean Russell) spoke movingly about loneliness. He has been a powerful advocate for fairness in the workplace, with his Tips Bill and his First Aid (Mental Health) ten-minute rule Bill evidence of that. I note the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Tom Randall), which I think will be addressed in the renters reform Bill. We can provide further details on that in due course.
I was amazed that the hon. Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark) said that the levelling-up White Paper was thin—it was nearly 400 pages of policies and ideas. That is proof that Labour MPs do not bother to read anything. It is insane to pretend that the White Paper is thin. I encourage them to engage with the content.
The fact that the majority of the debate has consisted of Opposition Members asking, “Where is the employment Bill?” simply shows the paucity of their arguments. The Government have promised an employment Bill, but the vast majority of legislation to improve workers’ rights does not need to come in a package entitled “employment Bill”. I was in the Treasury when we implemented the furlough scheme, which is probably the greatest employment protection scheme ever devised in this country.
Several hon. Members rose—
Kemi Badenoch
No, I will not give way. The many Members who have risen should listen to the point that I am making rather than interrupt it. The fact is, the furlough scheme—the greatest employment protection scheme ever devised in this country—is an example of how the Government act innovatively, nimbly and quickly to deal with the serious issues of the day.
Chris Stephens
I thank the Minister for giving way, but she cannot have it both ways. She cannot give Opposition Members trouble by saying that all the Bills tabled are manifesto commitments when an employment Bill was in the 2015 Conservative party manifesto, the 2017 Conservative party manifesto and the 2019 Conservative party manifesto. When will the Government table an employment Bill? They promised it in January.
Kemi Badenoch
I am making the point that we do not need an employment Bill to deliver employment legislation.
Kemi Badenoch
We are still committed to one, but the fact remains—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) may think that I did not notice that he was not here at the beginning of the Minister’s speech. He may not intervene, as he was not here at the beginning of her speech.
Kemi Badenoch
The fact remains that we have already made progress on legislating to strengthen workers’ rights. We have closed the loophole that saw agency workers employed on cheaper rates than permanent workers and we have quadruped the maximum fine for employers who treat their workers badly. The fact is, we on the Government side measure how well we are doing not by the title of legislation but by the fact that we have delivered record high levels of employment.
Moving on to the points made by the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy), she criticises us for not doing enough on the cost of living. I remind the House that at the autumn Budget, when she and all her colleagues had an opportunity to reduce the cost of living, like the rest of them she voted against measures in the autumn Budget to reduce the universal credit taper rate, which effectively gave low-income families a £1,000 tax cut. So they failed to support those on the lowest incomes. We do not buy their argument that they are interested in the cost of living, because when the legislation comes forward they vote against it.
The hon. Lady also criticised the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, just as she did the levelling up White Paper. I remember her comments during the debate on that. They were all sneering and no substance from someone who, again, clearly had not taken the time, like the hon. Member for Enfield North, to read it. She is constantly playing catch-up, because her immediate priority is to criticise instead of engaging with the policy detail. That is why the five-point plan she wrote in January consisted of five recycled policies we are already carrying out and some sour finger-pointing. That is not an action plan.
The fact is that we have done quite a bit on the cost of living. We are supporting families with the cost of living through £22 billion of support in 2022-23 and delivering the biggest net cut to personal taxes in over a quarter of a century. Our plan for jobs, as I mentioned earlier, is bringing unemployment back below pre-pandemic levels. We are delivering a £9.1 billion energy rebate with the £150 council tax rebate. We are increasing the value of the warm home discount to £150 and expanding eligibility to cover nearly 3 million households.
Kemi Badenoch
I am not giving way, because Opposition Members do not want me to list these things. We are protecting the vulnerable, including pensioners, with winter fuel payments of up to £300 and cold weather payments of £25 a week. We delivered a record cash increase in the national living wage, meaning a £1,000 salary boost for full-time workers. We raised the national insurance threshold from July, saving an average worker £330 a year. We cut fuel duty by 5p for 12 months. As I mentioned, we cut the universal credit taper rate.
Kemi Badenoch
No, I am not giving way because the selective amnesia of Opposition Members never ceases to amaze me. They refuse to acknowledge the policies that they know we have carried out and they agree with. They pretend money is not being spent when we have spent it—and not just spent, but spent in unprecedented amounts. So there is no use giving way, just for them to repeat the same arguments they have been making over and over during the course of the debate.
I will move on to the comments made by the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis). He talked about levelling-up funds and money for local government. He knows that, as the Minister with responsibility for local government, this is something I care about very passionately. I know he is no longer a Mayor, but I will be working with local government leaders across the country. We have boosted funding to councils by £3.7 billion this year, an increase of over 4.5% in real terms, which will ensure councils have the resources they need to deliver key services. The poorest areas will receive 14% more per household than the least deprived areas. On who got levelling up funding, the truth is that all of this is based on the quality of the bids. We cannot guarantee that we can fund every bid, when they are compared with what is being presented by others.
The other thing Opposition Members say is that we have done absolutely nothing for the last 12 years. Just to remind them, in the last three years alone we have tackled the greatest public health emergency in a generation, delivered a historic funding boost to the NHS, ended the cruel lottery of social care costs with our £36 billion health and social care plan, led the world in the fight against climate change with our COP26 presidency, and tackled crime, closing over 1,500 county lines. We have delivered for the whole of the United Kingdom, securing vaccines for all four nations and agreeing the largest funding settlements since devolution.
Kirsty Blackman
If the Conservative Government have done all those wonderful things, how come my constituents cannot afford to eat?
Kemi Badenoch
I am afraid the hon. Lady is being disingenuous with the way she is presenting the argument. She knows—[Interruption.] I will withdraw that remark, Madam Deputy Speaker. She knows that I do not know the specific circumstances of her constituents. What I can tell her is what the Government are doing. I would ask her, given that we have devolved so much policy to the Scottish Government: what are the Scottish Government doing to help her constituents?
I will go back to saying what we have been doing in this country. The fact is that we have delivered for the whole United Kingdom, securing vaccines for all four nations and agreeing the largest funding settlement since devolution. It is also ridiculous for us to be criticised by Labour Members for not devolving more. In 13 years of Labour government, there was no devolution except in London. We created so many devolution deals. We even provided jobs for three Labour MPs, Tracy Brabin, Andy Burnham and, until recently, the hon. Member for Barnsley Central—and they say that we are doing nothing on employment. I am afraid that many of the Opposition’s claims are simply not credible. [Interruption.]
The Queen’s Speech set out the Government’s ambitious —[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. The noise is getting a bit too much. I cannot hear the Minister—[Interruption.] Look, it is obvious that hon. Members disagree with the Minister. That is what they are here for; they do not have to make so much noise about it. We have to hear what the Minister has to say.
Kemi Badenoch
It is because they don’t like it up ’em and they know that the points I am making are hitting home.
This Queen’s Speech sets out the Government’s ambitious legislative agenda to grow and strengthen our economy, ease the costs of living for hard-working families and level up opportunity in all parts of the country. It includes the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which will transform struggling towns and cities, supporting local leaders to take back control of regeneration, end the blight of empty shops on their high streets and deliver the quality homes that communities need. A renters reform Bill will deliver the biggest change to rental law in a generation, improving the lives of millions of renters by improving standards in the private and socially rented sector. A social housing regulation Bill will shift the balance towards tenants, strengthening their rights and creating a robust regulatory framework that drives up the standards of social housing everywhere.
I am very proud that my Department is contributing five Bills towards the Government’s ambitious legislative agenda. It has been a pleasure to work with ministerial colleagues, Parliamentary Private Secretaries and officials on these policies, and not least with our Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, who manages to be both Conservative and radical at the same time.
The Bills set out in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech meet the demands of the moment. Our plan recognises the sacrifices that the British people have made over the past two years and allows us to return to our central mission of levelling up communities and creating a stronger, fairer and more united country.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Miss Sarah Dines.)
Debate to be resumed on Monday 16 May.
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I would be grateful for advice from the Chair following the publication of the Humble Address regarding the appointment of Lord Lebedev. As you will know, on 29 March, the House approved the Humble Address compelling the Government to release to us critical information concerning the Prime Minister’s involvement in the appointment of Lord Lebedev to the other place. The evidence provided has been so heavily redacted that it is utterly pointless.
In the written ministerial statement accompanying the publication of the Humble Address, the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General suggested that it would be
“for the government to consider what documents are suitable for release.”
I am sure that the Chair would agree that this sets an extremely dangerous precedent. Can you confirm that what the Government say in the accompanying statement—that it is up to the Government whether they are transparent about information requested by the democratic will of Parliament—is incorrect?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
I thank the right hon. Lady for her point of order, which is a point of order for the Chair and which she makes very well. I recall the matters to which she refers, but I cannot give her an answer to her question now from the Chair, because if she is asserting—as I think she is—that the Government response as published today to the address of 29 March does not satisfy the terms of that address, she will wish to consider whether that actually amounts to a complaint of privilege. It is the practice of the House that a complaint of privilege must first be raised in writing with Mr Speaker, as is set out in “Erskine May” in paragraph 15.32.
I cannot deal with the matter now, but the right hon. Lady raises it quite properly. If, as I think she probably is asserting, it is a complaint of privilege, she ought to make such a complaint after careful consideration of the written ministerial statement and the return to the address of 29 March, which has just been published, and she should then write formally to Mr Speaker setting out her concerns. I am sure that she will do so, and it will be for Mr Speaker to determine whether or not the matter should be given precedence for debate in the House, being a matter of privilege.
Safe Hands Funeral Plans
(2 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
I thank Mr Speaker for granting this important Adjournment debate. I know that my constituents and other hon. Members’ constituents who have been affected will be grateful that the situation has been recognised with due seriousness.
On the first day of the Easter recess, my constituent Patrick Hughes called my office following the collapse of Safe Hands Funeral Plans, which had gone into administration the week before. Quite understandably, he was extremely anxious about what would happen next. Some years ago, Mr Hughes had bought a policy or plan with Safe Hands at an initial cost of about £6,300. It was a significant investment, but it was worth it: he was paying for peace of mind that his family would not have to worry about finding the money for a funeral when the time came.
Funerals do not come cheap, but we all want to be able to give our loved ones the best send-off we can. A key attraction for Mr Hughes and for so many like him was the security that they were being offered. “Nothing can go wrong,” they were assured. “This is a smart investment: your plan is guaranteed and your family will be grateful that they won’t have to worry about it at their time of grieving.”
To date, Mr Hughes has been contacted exactly once since the business went into administration: with the initial letter informing him of the collapse. Like the many thousands of policyholders in the same boat, Mr Hughes tried to make contact with Safe Hands or its administrators to get some answers about what would happen next. His letters went unanswered. The phone lines would not connect, or the phone would just ring out. Panic began to set in.
Customers were told that the company was
“uncertain that the funeral plans will be able to be fulfilled”
and that they should consider their plans
“terminated with immediate effect”.
People were realising that it was becoming very likely that their life savings had been lost. Safe Hands was not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Anecdotally, I understand that it was regarded in the wider funeral industry as a cowboy—a reputation that did not reach its customers in time for them to reconsider their investments.
The thing is that such plans, if provided by reputable companies and regulated properly, could be immensely beneficial. They really could give some peace of mind. That is why, along with the sector and colleagues, I wholeheartedly welcome the Government’s plans to bring funeral planning services under the remit of the Financial Conduct Authority this July. The plans, which include assessments of providers, fund protection measures, stricter advertising rules and bans on cold calling, will hopefully protect future customers from falling victim to the scams of unscrupulous companies such as Safe Hands. I appreciate the letter that the FCA sent me in advance of this debate, setting out how the regulatory reforms will work; I look forward to taking up its offer of a meeting to discuss them in more detail.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
I commend my hon. Friend for securing this debate. As an example of the kind of advertising that the company has been doing, it promised that customers’ money would be kept by an entirely separate and independent company. Is she aware that the trustees set up a company called SHFT Properties Ltd and that every single person who has ever been a director of that company was also a director of Safe Hands Plans Ltd? Does she share my frustration that directors of companies that repeatedly tell such blatant lies to con their customers are allowed to carry on as directors of other companies to this very day despite the chaos left behind in the wreckage, as has happened with Safe Hands Funeral Plans?
Margaret Ferrier
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention—and I shall have more specific thanks to give him a little later in my speech. I completely agree with the points that he has made. I know that the Government intend to introduce legislation relating to economic crime and impropriety during the current Session, and I hope the Minister can confirm that it is something they are seriously considering.
I was particularly happy to note the FCA’s clear focus on consumer protections, and I fully agree with their approach in wishing to ensure that customers pay a fair price, that the plan meets their needs, that the money is looked after responsibly, and that they have all the information they need in order to make an informed decision. Unfortunately, however, that announcement is just too little, too late for many of Safe Hands’ customers.
Let me provide some context by explaining the way in which Safe Hands worked. Customers’ money was put into a trust and then reinvested. These funds are supposed to protect customer investments, and, indeed, that is how the plan was sold to my constituent Mr Hughes. The trust should have been overseen by independent trustees whose job is to make sure that funds are not misappropriated, and are ring-fenced from the funeral provider’s business assets. When Safe Hands suddenly left the market after withdrawing its application to be an approved seller under the upcoming FCA rules, administrators found a significant shortfall between the value of this trust and the cost of the funeral plans that it would need to finance.
Apparently, what the administrators found was that the trust’s assets had been wildly overvalued. What was even more concerning was that most of the assets were actually owned by third parties, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant). Reports indicate that over £60 million of the trust’s reported £64 million valued assets were high-risk investments based offshore. If that is true, we are talking about fraudulent misappropriation of the trust’s assets. I will refrain from speculating on who might have benefited from all of this, which can only be described as a scam.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The hon. Lady has made an important point. The constituents of many of our colleagues will be affected by this I have been contacted by a Mrs Hall of Knaresborough, who has been caught up in it. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is critical for funds that are supposedly secure to be managed in an effective way, and that there should be regulatory consumer protections to ensure that those who are looking for certainty at what will be a very difficult time for their families can have that certainty?
Margaret Ferrier
As the hon. Gentleman says, many constituents of Members have been affected, throughout the UK. It is very important for people to have that certainty, because uncertainty is an extra worry for them.
It is likely that a number of similar smaller funeral plan providers will soon exit the market before regulatory measures become effective. They may be unwilling, or even unable, to meet the requirements for regulatory approval, and that has the potential to leave customers of those companies in the same position as the customers who went with Safe Hands, with no plans and no guarantees about retrieving the money that they have put in. I know that the FCA is also looking at this issue pre-emptively, with the aim of minimising risk to people who have already invested in plans with such firms. Hopefully the work that it is already undertaking will mitigate any potential further harm to vulnerable consumers, but for customers of prepaid funeral plan companies that will shortly be exiting the market, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member on securing a debate that affects so many of our constituents. As she has said, there were plans in the offing for the FCA to have a role with companies such as Safe Hands. Does she share my concern that more was not done to warn people, given that this had already been flagged up? It seems to me that not enough was done in that interim period, and, as she has said, we could see even more people affected by other companies acting in a similar way.
Margaret Ferrier
I entirely agree. As I said earlier, it was a case of too little, too late. More people need to be aware of these plans and what they may mean. I look forward to the FCA’s introducing that regulation at the end of July, which is not too far in the future.
For customers of Safe Hands, there is the potential for some support in the form of Dignity plc, one of the UK’s largest providers of plans. Dignity has put a plan to the administrators which would allow them to step up and cover some of the shortfall left by Safe Hands, providing immediate support where it is needed most urgently, and planning to work with other customers and their families in the longer term to find solutions that will not leave customers with nothing in place. Dignity believes that, because of its business model as a plan provider with a wide network of funeral directors, it is uniquely placed to offer that support. It has already fulfilled in full the funeral plans of all Safe Hands customers in the four weeks following the collapse of the firm.
Dignity is also already preparing for the regulation requirements that will come into effect, but even as of last night, at my last check, the information offered by the administrators through the frequently asked questions page on the Safe Hands website was insufficiently clear or reassuring. They make numerous references to Dignity’s offerings, but reiterate that customers should consider their plans cancelled with no guarantees around how much money customers will see returned, if any at all. There is a lot of “options being explored”, and “updates will be provided”, but a disappointing lack of commitment.
My constituent, Mr Hughes, really only has one immediate plea, and that is for some clarity and some willingness to proactively engage with customers. Maybe it is impossible for administrators to provide reassurances in the true sense of the word—maybe the financial realities of the situation just will not allow for that—but how difficult can it really be to ensure that the victims of this unfortunate situation are kept abreast of updates and to let them know periodically how the work is developing and that they are not being overlooked or forgotten? Mr Hughes has explained that there is so much information, so much speculating and so many customers shouting in the hope of being heard that he struggles to cut through the noise. What he needs is reliable, clear information to enable him to understand what has happened, why it has happened, and what might happen next, not only for him but for his family and his children. He worries about the worst happening while all this remains unresolved, and about the additional distress that this uncertainty will cause.
When people decide to invest in a prepaid funeral plan, it is often on the back of an event in their life that has made them come to terms with their own mortality. Maybe they are just reaching old age, maybe they have had a worrying medical diagnosis or maybe they have recently lost a loved one. That means that they are emotionally vulnerable and that they need to be sure that their investment is protected, particularly when the majority of those that choose a prepaid plan are doing so because their estate might not leave much more for their children or family than the cost of a funeral, and perhaps not even cover that.
We are in a cost of living crisis. At a time when people are struggling with the stress of paying their energy bills, putting food on the table or meeting their general living costs, it is unthinkable that, resulting from the collapse of Safe Hands, some of those people will face the added stress of trying to finance the funeral of someone they care about—a funeral that, as far as they were concerned, was already paid for, either partially or, in many cases, in full. I understand that any business needs to turn a profit. That is the nature of the game, but in this emotionally charged market based on one of the few guarantees we have in life—death—sensitivity is required. To prey on that customer base is absolutely disgusting.
While Safe Hands certainly does not represent the standards of the industry as a whole, we know that, intentionally or not, other firms have put their customers’ money and funeral plans at risk by not seeking approval ahead of the regulations. For reasons I hope Dignity understands, I am cautious about enthusiastically throwing my support behind any company in the currently unregulated pre-paid sector at the moment, but I would like to thank Dignity for proactively reaching out and sharing some information with me ahead of this debate. I would also like to thank the all-party parliamentary group for funerals and bereavement and its chair, the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). I know that it continues to engage with the Treasury on this matter to try to ensure that dignity is maintained. I also want to thank the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant), who organised the cross-party letter to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy last month. This provided a co-ordinated display of the feelings held by constituents.
I hope the Minister will be in a position to provide the assurances that Safe Hands and its administrators have been unable to provide, and I urge him and his colleagues in the Treasury and across Whitehall to find a way to ensure that these people who have lost hard-earned money do not miss out on a dignified goodbye when that time sadly comes, for the sake of Mr Hughes and the 46,000 others like him, their families and friends and the people who love them most in the world.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
I apologise to the Minister, who will not have anticipated my bobbing up for two minutes.
I commend the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) for securing the debate. Like her, I have been contacted by numerous constituents who had Safe Hands policies and are in deep distress. Some of them have relatives who are very near death and are unsure what will happen to them. I welcome Dignity’s proactive approach, but I remain deeply concerned that many more firms in a similar situation will withdraw from the market before FCA regulation takes full effect. I am not yet clear that Dignity has the capacity to cope with that level of demand, or that the industry as a whole has the willpower to address this issue.
This reminds me, to some extent, of the Farepak scandal about 10 years ago, although those sums were relatively small compared with the sums invested in funeral plans. I represent one of the most deprived communities in the United Kingdom, and the cost of a funeral can be one of the largest unexpected bills faced by families in my constituency. Many of them will have invested in these plans, not just for the emotional security but for the financial security, too. The risk is that, as an alternative, they will have to resort to the very dangerous lending practices of loan sharks and doorstep lenders.
I urge the Minister to explain what more he can do, and to accelerate the no-interest loan pilot, on which I know he is working. The perfect vehicle for dealing with these large, unexpected costs is to allow the state to provide an interim solution to give people more financial stability. These costs are a genuine worry for dozens, if not hundreds, of people in my constituency, and I join the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West in looking forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen)
I thank the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) for securing this important and timely debate on an incredibly emotive subject. I thank colleagues on both sides of the House for their contributions, including the hon. Members for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) and for Llanelli (Nia Griffith). I will specifically address the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard), and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) for raising his constituent’s case.
I take this opportunity to remember our former colleague Sir David Amess. He was a friend to many of us here today, and he cared very much about helping people manage the financial impact of funerals. I thank hon. Members who have campaigned over the past few years in support of regulation. I recall conversations with Neil Gray, the former hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts, who first tabled a private Member’s Bill to this effect in 2016.
Finally, I am grateful to hon. Members here today for the points they have raised. I think I will be able to address many of those points, and I will write to them on anything that I do not address.
As has been said, funerals are painful experiences, but they can also provide people with a degree of mental closure, because they help us to adjust to the reality of the loss of a loved one. We are all very much agreed that at such a moment mourners should be able to focus on their memories of their loved one and on their own emotions; no one should be consumed by money worries. Clearly, therefore, Safe Hands’ entering administration, as the hon. Lady accurately set out, is very distressing for its customers and their families. Obviously, she mentions eloquently the case of Mr Hughes and what he has experienced in recent weeks. Our thoughts should be with those who have recently lost someone close to them and now find themselves affected by Safe Hands’ failure. As has been mentioned, Dignity, one of the UK’s largest funeral plan providers, has stepped in to provide funerals on behalf of Safe Hands’ customers in the immediate period after the firm entered into administration. I echo the hon. Lady’s words in expressing gratitude that it has stepped up to the mark and agreed to do that for a further six months. I regret the fact that her constituent does not have clarity on exactly where that leaves him, but of course Safe Hands will be entering the administration process and that will need to be concluded before wider issues can be looked at. I met people from Dignity yesterday, along with my Treasury officials, and they reiterated their commitment for the next six months. It has been very welcome to see a funeral plan provider taking that responsibility for protecting the sector’s customers and upholding the industry’s reputation.
I had the privilege of meeting my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), and members of the all-party group and of the industry a few weeks ago to discuss what was happening with this difficult case. Although the Financial Conduct Authority does not yet regulate funeral plan providers, it is supporting the industry and administrators as they look to find a longer-term solution for Safe Hands’ customers. I am very hopeful that customers will not need to wait too much longer before they see further progress on this longer-term approach. However, I strongly believe that what has happened to Safe Hands is clear evidence of the pressing need for a better-regulated funeral plan market that will provide customers with the stability they need at such a difficult time and will allow us, as Members of Parliament with constituents who have been affected by Safe Hands’ demise, the reassurance and confidence that we can see them not worry in future.
Although the sector provides a valuable service, there is still some distance to travel when it comes to ensuring that all funeral plan customers are shielded from harm. Indeed, major reports and work carried out by the Treasury and the FCA revealed examples of consumer detriment in the sector. As a result, last year, we legislated to bring providers and intermediaries within the regulatory remit of the FCA. That change means that from 29 July funeral plan providers will be subject to robust and enforceable standards for the first time. These standards will benefit consumers in a number of ways, for instance, by giving them clarity about what is covered by their plans, and ending high-pressure and misleading sales tactics. In addition, for the first time funeral plan customers will be able to access a redress scheme, which will be provided by the Financial Ombudsman Service. Ultimately, we believe a well-regulated market will promote effective competition and drive better long-term consumer outcomes. I recognise that this industry does have an important role to play; the demise of Safe Hands will be dealt with through the administration process and there may well then be further examination of what happened, but my determination is that we will get this regulation right and provide security to the industry. The vast majority of firms in the industry are doing the right thing at the moment and I am clear that once they have adjusted to that new regime, we will have confidence going forward.
The Government recognise that the new regulation presents a major change for providers, which is why we introduced an 18-month transition period before the new rules came into effect. That has given businesses time to take the right steps to familiarise themselves with the new requirements and prepare to adopt them.
We of course recognise that it is paramount that we minimise any disruption to customers as a result of the changes, which is why the FCA has said that providers that decide not to or cannot obtain authorisation should transfer their plans to a provider that will operate under the new rules. Alternatively, businesses should wind down in an orderly way before the regulation comes into force.
On that note, Members may be aware that last month the Government made a supplementary statutory instrument that will make it easier for funeral plan providers that seek to exit the market to transfer their existing funeral plan to a regulated funeral plan provider. I discussed that change with Dignity yesterday, and it welcomed it. It should ease the process for the relatively small number of people who find themselves subject to a plan the provider of which will not go into regulation: they will be able to port their plan to one of the bigger industry providers.
When we bring a sector into regulation for the first time, there is clearly a possibility that some providers will be unable to meet the authorisation threshold. In addition, the process may reveal that some businesses are unable to deliver on promises they have made to their customers.
Peter Grant
The Minister is understandably focusing on the new regulatory regime—I think he is aware of some of my concerns about the adequacy of the FCA as currently set up—but there should have been other regulation. Who should have been regulating the activities of the trust? Who should have prevented it from engaging in wildly speculative, insecure investments, directly against the promises that were made? Safe Hands Plans Ltd’s first two years of accounts contained demonstrably and obviously false statements, which were never picked up on by Companies House. Who should have been regulating that? Does the Minister accept that regardless of the changes to the regulation of funeral plan companies, there appear to have been serious regulatory failures elsewhere, again?
John Glen
The hon. Gentleman makes his points somewhat speculatively, but expresses some valid specific concerns about the journey that Safe Hands went on. Other investigations cannot take place until the administration process is concluded. The driver for the regulations that we are to introduce was the fear among Members from all parties a few years ago. The important thing is to give reassurance going forward. There will be a day of reckoning for the directors of Safe Hands, who will have to account for what happened, but the administration process must happen first. I cannot say any more on that, but the hon. Gentleman’s relevant points are noted.
I must stress that an inability to meet the new standards of regulation—because of issues with conduct, business models or trust arrangements—does not mean that the regulation is at fault; rather, by bringing the sector into regulation, we expose unsustainable practices that, left unchecked, could ultimately worsen and impact more consumers. As the famous adage says, sunlight is the best disinfectant. In this instance, by regulating we will turn the spotlight on businesses that operate with unworkable models, and will prevent consumer harm.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) asked about the low-interest loan scheme that we have been piloting with South Manchester Credit Union. I hope to visit Manchester in the week after next. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there is a wider agenda in terms of affordable credit, and I am still very much committed to developing that instrument and making it widely available, alongside making other interventions in respect of credit unions that we can talk about when the financial services and markets Bill comes to the House shortly.
It is right that the Government act to protect consumers, many of whom will be elderly or vulnerable, with a robust, proportionate regulatory framework. In addition, a well-regulated market will promote effective competition and drive better long-term outcomes for consumers. As I have said, Safe Hands customers can be assured that they will be covered for at least another six months. I encourage other providers and market participants to take further action, as Dignity has done, to protect consumers of firms that will not become authorised.
I assure the House that the Government and the Financial Conduct Authority continue to work closely with each other and with the sector—I have mentioned those two meetings that I have personally held, and meetings that my officials have held, with industry representatives—to ensure that that shift to regulation is as smooth as possible. I take account of the several valid points raised this afternoon. We all have a moral obligation to ensure that funeral plan customers and their loved ones receive the certainty that they need and deserve.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Sizewell C Nuclear Power Station
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Paul Scully)
This statement concerns an application for development consent made under the Planning Act 2008 by NNB Generation Company (SZC) Ltd for the construction and operation of a nuclear power station near Leiston in Suffolk.
Under section 107(1) of the Planning Act 2008, the Secretary of State must make a decision on an application within three months of the receipt of the examining authority’s report unless exercising the power under section 107(3) of the Act to set a new deadline. Where a new deadline is set, the Secretary of State must make a statement to Parliament to announce it. The current statutory deadline for the decision on the Sizewell C nuclear power station application is 25 May 2022.
I have decided to set a new deadline of no later than 8 July 2022 for deciding this application. This is to ensure there is sufficient time to fully consider further information provided by the applicant and interested parties in response to the Secretary of State’s post-examination consultation.
The decision to set the new deadline for this application is without prejudice to the decision on whether to grant or refuse development consent.
[HCWS17]
Warm Home Discount
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change (Greg Hands)
My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Corporate Responsibility (Lord Callanan) has today made the following statement:
Upgrading our homes to be more energy efficient is the best long-term solution for reducing our energy costs and keeping ourselves warm in winter. However, this takes time, which is why the warm home discount remains a key policy for tackling fuel poverty now. For 11 years, the warm home discount has provided vital help with energy bills to households on the lowest incomes. Last summer, the Government consulted on the future of the warm home discount scheme in England and Wales, and today, the Government have laid the regulations for extending, expanding, and reforming the scheme to 2026.
From this winter, the Government are expanding the warm home discount scheme. The annual spending envelopes will increase from around £350 million to £475 million (in 2020 prices), and the value of the household rebates will rise from £140 to £150. As a result, around 2.8 million households in England and Wales will receive a rebate every year, 750,000 more compared to the previous scheme. We are also lowering the energy supplier participation thresholds from 150,000 domestic customer accounts to 50,000 in 2022-23 and 1,000 in 2023-24, meaning that almost all customers will be with a participating supplier and thereby reducing the barriers for people switching energy suppliers.
Under the scheme, around 1 million low-income pensioners will continue to receive their rebates automatically through the core group 1 element of the scheme. It is right that we protect this low-income vulnerable group susceptible to the effects of living in a cold home.
From this winter, the Government are replacing the former application-based broader group element, under which low-income and vulnerable households had to apply to their energy supplier every year. Broader group rebates have often been awarded on a first-come, first-served basis or by lottery, as there have been more eligible households than there were rebates available.
Instead, around 1.9 million households will receive rebates under a new core group 2. These households will be those on the lowest incomes and with high-energy costs, determined by using data on property characteristics. Through data-matching between Government Departments and energy suppliers, the vast majority of these households will be identified automatically and receive their rebate without having to take any action. These reforms will improve the fuel poverty targeting of the scheme, ensuring more of the rebates go to households in, or at risk of, fuel poverty.
Lastly, the Government recognise the value of industry initiatives, taking the form of additional financial and energy-related support measures, that energy suppliers and industry partners provide to fuel poor households. It will therefore become mandatory for all energy suppliers participating in the scheme to provide or fund industry initiatives.
The Government are consulting on a warm home discount scheme in Scotland for the period until 2026 and shall lay separate regulations, subject to the outcome of that consultation.
This expansion of the warm home discount scheme forms part of the wider support to help households with rising energy bills. The Government have announced £9.1 billion of support through the energy bills rebate in 2022-23. This includes: a £200 discount on energy bills this autumn for domestic electricity customers in Great Britain; a £150 non-repayable council tax rebate for households in England in council tax bands A to D; and a £144 million discretionary fund to support households not eligible for the council tax rebate. Meanwhile, the devolved Administrations will receive around £565 million corresponding funding through the Barnett formula.
More information on the warm home discount scheme will be made available over the summer on gov.uk/the-warm-home-discount-scheme.
[HCWS18]
House of Lords Appointments
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Michael Ellis)
On behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, I am laying today before Parliament a set of documents (HC 204) in response to the Humble Address motion of the House of Commons passed on 29 March 2022, in respect of the appointment of Lord Lebedev to the House of Lords.
The Humble Address procedure
A Humble Address to Her Majesty is a request of Parliament to make its desires and opinions known to the Crown. The Government occasionally makes use of the Humble Address to deposit materials before both Houses, but when the House seeks to use the procedure to call for papers, it is for the Government to consider what documents are suitable for release.
The Humble Address of 29 March, seeking documents related to the nomination of an individual to the House of Lords—on which the Prime Minister advises the Sovereign to exercise the power conferred in the Life Peerages Act 1958—needs to be considered in the context of the Government’s responsibility to consider any adverse effect of releasing materials, including on the processes relating to the awarding of honours and dignities by the Crown.
Access to information and the public interest
The Government are and remain committed to openness and transparency to ensure that Parliament is able to scrutinise and hold the Executive to account. However, it is also the case that when considering requests for information from Parliament, the Government have a responsibility to consider whether it is in the public interest to place information into the public domain.
This is a position set out in the Government’s response to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s (PACAC) Fifteenth Report, “Status of Resolutions of the House of Commons”, in March 2019 (HC 1587).
The Government noted:
“One of Parliament’s key roles is to scrutinise the actions of the Government. In order to do this effectively, it is important that Parliament is able to access information from the Government. In providing information to Parliament, as set out in the ministerial code, ‘Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament’, ‘refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest, which should be decided in accordance with the relevant statutes and the Freedom of Information Act.’ This principle was endorsed by Parliament in the resolutions on ministerial accountability, passed by both Houses in 1997. [Footnote: The motion passed by both Houses stated “ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest, which should be decided in accordance with relevant statute, and the Government’s ‘Code Of Practice On Access To Government Information’. The code of practice was superseded by the Freedom of Information Act].
The consideration of whether it will be in the public interest to place information into the public domain always involves a careful balancing exercise, weighing up the need for transparency and openness against other important and long standing, and often competing, principles and legislation, such as the Data Protection Act. Ultimately, Ministers have a duty not to release information where it is not in the public interest to do so. The use of the motion for return procedure to call for papers gives rise to a potential tension with that duty.
The Government has been put in a very difficult position by some of the recent motions for return. The Government has in responding sought to balance competing pressures of providing information to Parliament and protecting the public interest. It has been possible to find this balance where Ministers have been able to agree with Select Committee chairs the appropriate information to disclose and how. However, the Government would suggest that motions of returns which seek sensitive information to be made available in a way that makes that information public are not in the public interest and a threat to good governance.”
The March 2022 motion recognised the need for non-disclosure on grounds of national security. However, as the Government made clear during the debate in resolving not to oppose the motion, this does not override or restrict the Government’s need to also consider the wider public interest.
In passing the Freedom of Information Act 2000, Parliament and the then Labour Government both recognised that from time to time, the principle of transparency is secondary to a competing public interest in favour of non-disclosure of certain information. In the March 2019 response to PACAC, the Government noted that “the Government is under an obligation to balance...[the] competing interests” of transparency and other public duties but will “seek to find a way to balance these tensions and provide as much information as possible to the House”.
It is in this context that, in responses to other Humble Addresses in this Parliament—on Westferry planning consent and Randox contracts—the Government have duly applied Freedom of Information principles when assessing what documentation is appropriate to release into the public domain. This approach to Parliamentary scrutiny also reflects the long-standing approach of successive Administrations as set out in the Osmotherly Rules, paragraphs 39-40.
It also reflects the ministerial code provisions—noted above—that Ministers should refuse to provide information “only when disclosure would not be in the public interest, which should be decided in accordance with the relevant statutes and the Freedom of Information Act 2000”.
As laid out in today’s House of Commons paper, the disclosure of these documents reflects the need to protect national security, and to maintain integrity in the system for the awarding of honours and dignities by the Crown, the vetting of nominees for probity and the data protection rights of individuals.
A Humble Address to Her Majesty is a message from Parliament to make its desires and opinions known to the Crown and is related to the exercise of Her Majesty’s Royal Prerogative. This link to the Royal Prerogative supports the need for Her Majesty’s Government in responding to such an Address to consider any adverse effect in relation to the exercise of other powers by Her Majesty, such as the awarding of honours and dignities by the Crown.
The Intelligence and Security Committee
In the Government response to the Procedure Committee’s Ninth Report of Session 2017-19, “The House’s power to call for papers: procedure and practice”, HC 190, the Government noted:
“The Government recognise that where it is in the public interest to provide sensitive information to Parliament, sharing information with select committees is a well-established and effective mechanism for parliamentarians to review such information and ensure that information is disclosed in an appropriate way, or restricted if in the public interest.
Where the House resolves that information should be shared publicly with the House as a whole, it removes the possibility that arrangements can be made to share information confidentially with the relevant select committee. The Government maintains that the existing mechanisms that enable the sharing of information with select committees is a more appropriate way for sensitive information to be shared with Parliament”.
In that light, I can confirm that the Government have provided a response to the Intelligence and Security Committee, following a separate request from them for information relating to any national security matters arising. This has been provided in accordance with the Committee’s statutory remit, as set out in the Justice and Security Act 2013 and the accompanying memorandum of understanding.
Whilst separate to the formal Humble Address response, I believe this sharing of information illustrates the Government are acting in good faith in responding to Parliament’s request for information. It also reflects a request made by the Shadow Home Secretary to the Prime Minister.
Vetting by the House of Lords Appointments Commission
Since 2002, crossbench and party political life peerage nominations to the House of Lords have been vetted by the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission. The commission seeks advice from Government Departments and agencies where appropriate and these vetting procedures and the advice to the Prime Minister are confidential.
I can assure Parliament that proper consideration would be given to any information which indicated national security concern arising from a prospective appointment before a decision was made.
Were the Prime Minister to recommend a peerage against the commission’s formal advice on propriety, the commission has previously undertaken to write publicly to the relevant Parliamentary Select Committee. This has happened in one case before in December 2020. The Chair of the Commission, Lord Bew, has noted in evidence to PACAC last month that that was not the case in this appointment. He has also noted that no pressure was exerted on the commission on this matter. The conclusion of the commission’s deliberations are clear.
The process by which an individual is nominated to the House of Lords is an established one. It is essential that the confidentiality of these arrangements is maintained as it is this that ensures the vetting procedures are suitably robust and command confidence, whilst also protecting the private and personal data of those individuals who have entered into the vetting process. The routine disclosure of such confidential information would undermine the commission’s and Crown’s ability to consider the probity of those nominated for a peerage and have long-term and damaging consequences for the peerage appointments system, and to individuals.
Such confidentiality also applies to recommendations for political peerages made by Opposition parties. Honourable Members should be conscious that requests for information on the internal correspondence of the commission could also be applied to such Opposition recommendations, including those which are rejected or withdrawn. I do not believe it would be in the public interest for such internal correspondence to be used in the future for political point scoring.
The House of Lords has a valuable role to play as a scrutinising and revising the Chamber. The preservation of these established arrangements is necessary to ensure that those nominated to the Lords are subject to a vetting process which is both fair and sufficiently robust to ensure high ethical standards are applied to holders of public office. Constitutionally, it is for the Prime Minister to recommend appointments to the Sovereign.
Good standing of Lord Lebedev
Lord Lebedev is a man of good standing. His public and personal works are reflected in the citation deposited in the House today as part of the Humble Address. No complaint has been made about his personal conduct. He has been vocal in his criticism of the Putin regime. Indeed, it was the Leader of the Opposition who personally congratulated him on his appointment as a peer.
Conclusion
Her Majesty’s Government and the Prime Minister have been resolute in resisting Russian Government aggression and interference. These are matters of great importance and in lockstep with our allies, we are introducing the most severe economic sanctions that Russia has ever faced, and provided significant military support via the Ministry of Defence. We have also strengthened our domestic legislation to target those living and operating in the United Kingdom who support, enable, or facilitate Putin’s regime.
We are working to cripple Putin’s war machine and, as set out in the Queen’s Speech, we will be bringing forward legislation that will provide intelligence agencies and the police with new powers to tackle any hostile state activity, including from Russia. This Government will be resolute in defending our democracy and our allies.
[HCWS22]
Contingent Liability Notification
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Rishi Sunak)
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of England (“the Bank”) decided at its meeting ending on 3 February 2022 to reduce the stocks of UK Government bonds and sterling non-financial investment-grade corporate bonds held in the asset purchase facility (APF) by ceasing to reinvest maturing securities. The MPC also agreed that the Bank of England should initiate a programme of corporate bond sales to be completed no earlier than towards the end of 2023 that should unwind fully the stock of corporate bond purchases.
In response to this decision, the Governor and I jointly agreed that, as the size of APF holdings reduces, the authorised maximum size for asset purchases should be adjusted to reflect the size of the portfolio every six months.
Since 3 February 2022, the total stock of purchased assets of the APF has fallen from £895 billion to £866.6 billion. Following this, and in line with the approach agreed with the Governor in February 2022, the authorised maximum total size of asset purchases within the APF has been reduced from £895 billion to £866.6 billion.
The risk control framework previously agreed with the Bank will remain in place, and HM Treasury will continue to monitor risks to public funds from the APF through regular risk oversight meetings and enhanced information sharing with the Bank.
There will continue to be an opportunity for HM Treasury to provide views to the MPC on the design of the schemes within the APF, as they affect the Government’s broader economic objectives and may pose risks to the Exchequer.
The Government will continue to indemnify the Bank, the APF and its directors from any losses arising out of, or in connection with, the facility. If the liability is called, provision for any payment will be sought through the normal supply procedure.
A full departmental minute has been laid in the House of Commons providing more detail on this contingent liability.
[HCWS21]
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) affects the lives of children and adults across the country. It can be an incredibly disabling condition with fluctuating symptoms, making it difficult to take part in everyday activities, enjoy a family or social life, access services and engage in work or education, especially for the estimated 25% of people who have severe or very severe symptoms. Whilst there are currently no known cures or treatments for the condition, people with ME/CFS can be supported to manage their symptoms and maximise their quality of life.
Today, on World ME Day, I have two announcements to make to show that the Government are committed to better care and support for people living with ME/CFS and their families.
Firstly, I am pleased to welcome today the publication of the top 10 (plus) research priorities for ME/CFS, published by Action for ME and agreed by the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership on ME. This partnership included people with lived experience and clinicians working together to reach a consensus. I want to thank Action for ME and everyone who took part in this important work, recognising that for many this would have taken considerable effort.
To support these research priorities, I will co-chair a roundtable with my Department’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Lucy Chappell, to bring together experts on ME/CFS, including people with lived experience, to discuss what needs to happen next. The chief scientific adviser has asked the UK clinical research collaboration to convene a subgroup on ME/CFS to work with funders, researchers, charities, and people with ME/CFS to drive high-quality applications for research into ME/CFS and support the research community to build capacity and capability in this field. We are committed to funding research into this important area. Funding for high-quality research into ME is available through existing commitments of HM Government to research and development. The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) will work with the research community to respond to the priorities as set out in the Priority Setting Partnership, alongside other funding partners.
Secondly, I am announcing the Government intention to develop a cross-Government delivery plan on ME/CFS for England, aligning with other devolved nations as appropriate. In particular, we are engaging with the Scottish Government to explore areas of potential shared interest and learning, especially in terms of research into ME/CFS.
This will build on the recommendations of the priority setting partnership, the recently updated guideline for ME/CFS from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and the comprehensive work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis to date.
At the heart of the delivery plan will be two core principles: firstly, that we do not know enough about ME/CFS, which must change if we are to improve experiences and outcomes; secondly, we must trust and listen to those with lived experience of ME/CFS.
Following this announcement, officials will work with stakeholders ahead of publishing the delivery plan later this year.
[HCWS23]
National Security Bill
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Priti Patel)
I am pleased to say that my Department has introduced a National Security Bill to the House of Commons. This Bill brings together a suite of new measures to further protect our national security, the safety of the public and our vital interests from the hostile activities of foreign states.
This activity is a growing concern, even though it often takes place away from the public eye. The harm, which includes espionage and sabotage, foreign interference in our political system, and even attempted assassinations, is significant. This foundational legislation will provide tools and powers for our fight against state threats for years to come. It will keep our country safe by delivering the biggest overhaul of UK state threats legislation for a generation. Its measures will make it even harder for those working on behalf of foreign states to undermine our national security, economy and democracy. And while the core of the Bill focuses on countering hostile activity from foreign states, it will also include measures to combat the enduring threat of terrorism through reforms to restrict the access of convicted terrorists to civil legal aid.
The National Security Bill:
Further protects our national security, the safety of the British public and safeguards our national interests from hostile activity from foreign states.
Addresses the new state threats our country faces including from espionage and interference, sabotage and disinformation.
Ensures our world class security and intelligence agencies and police have the modern tools, powers and protections they need to counter those who seek to do us harm.
Protects us and makes the UK even harder target for those would attack or interfere with our national security, our vital interests and our democracy.
The Home Office has developed the Bill in partnership with wider Government and our world-class law enforcement and intelligence agencies, building on the support expressed for work to improve our toolkit in the public consultation we ran last year. In detail, the core state threats measures in the legislation will:
For the first time, make it an offence to work covertly for a foreign intelligence service in the UK.
Create a modern set of offences to protect the UK against espionage and other harmful conduct, focusing on the obtaining and disclosure of protected information and trade secrets, and the assisting of foreign intelligence service offences referred to above. It repeals and replaces existing espionage laws which were primarily designed to counter the threat from German spies before and after the first world war.
Provide our law enforcement and intelligence agencies with new offences, tools and powers to detect, deter and disrupt threats from those acting on behalf of foreign states with a harmful purpose in the UK. For example, this includes seeking, by illegitimate means, to influence public figures or stealing our trade secrets.
Modernise the regime which governs access to, in and around the UK’s sensitive sites that require higher levels of deterrence against unlawful access.
Modernise the existing search warrant power to enable the police to obtain evidence of state threats activities.
Create new offences to tackle state-backed sabotage and foreign interference, as well as a preparatory conduct offence that will allow disruptive action to be taken at an earlier stage (thereby reducing the harm done).
Require sentences for other offences where there is a state link (e.g. kidnap) to be aggravated (increased) to reflect the additional seriousness of the issue.
Introduce a new suite of state threat “prevention and investigation measures” to use as a tool of last resort to manage those who pose a threat but whom it has not been possible to prosecute.
Improve existing powers which grant police officers the ability to stop individuals at ports to ascertain their involvement in hostile activity by foreign states.
To further strengthen our defence against foreign influence, we will bring forward a foreign influence registration scheme requiring individuals to register certain arrangements with foreign Governments to deter and disrupt state threats activity in the UK. This scheme will be brought forward by Government amendment to the National Security Bill as soon as possible. The Government are considering the scheme’s requirements to ensure it is effective in dealing with the current threat and protects the interests of the UK.
The core of the Bill focuses on countering hostile activity from foreign states, and these proposals will apply UK-wide, as will measures to further enable the courts to freeze or limit civil damages being paid to convicted terrorists where these funds might support further acts of terrorism.
The Bill will also make minor reforms to the Serious Crime Act 2007 relating to the protections of those executing the functions of intelligence, law enforcement and defence when engaged in authorised information exchanges.
[HCWS24]
India Trade Negotiations: Update
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for International Trade (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)
The third round of UK-India free trade agreement negotiations began on 25 April and concluded on 6 May. The official-level negotiations were conducted in a hybrid fashion, with some UK negotiators meeting counterparts in New Delhi, supported by the majority attending virtually from the UK.
During this third round, talks focused on draft treaty text. Technical discussions were held across 23 policy areas over 60 separate sessions, with draft treaty text advanced across the majority of chapters.
The negotiations were productive and reflected our shared ambition to secure a comprehensive deal to boost trade between our nations, currently worth £24.3 billion in 2021.
The fourth round of official-level negotiations is due to take place in June 2022.
We remain clear that any deal the Government strike must be in the best interests of the British people and the economy.
The Government will keep Parliament updated as these negotiations progress.
[HCWS16]
Ship Safety: Merchant Shipping (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) Regulations 2
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Robert Courts)
I have today published as a draft the Merchant Shipping (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) Regulations 2022 and an accompanying draft explanatory memorandum. The draft regulations revoke and replace the Merchant Shipping (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping) Regulations 2015 (S.l. 2015/782) to implement the seafarer training, certification and watchkeeping standards contained in the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers, 1978 (“the STCW convention”).
The draft regulations are being published for 28 days. Following the conclusion of this period, and once any observations on the draft regulations have been taken into account, they will be laid for approval by each House of Parliament. This procedure is required under paragraph 14 of schedule 8 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 because these regulations revoke an instrument that was made, in part, under section 2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972. Further details about why the changes are needed and the effect they will have on retained EU law are contained in the annex to the draft explanatory memorandum.
The draft regulations replace the existing legislation making provision for seafarer training and will implement the latest requirements for seafarers’ training in the STCW convention. This provision relates to new requirements for seafarers serving on ships subject to the “International Code of Safety for Ships Using Gases or Other Low-Flashpoint Fuels (IGF Code)” and passenger ships. Implementing these amendments to the STCW convention ensures that seafarers on these types of specialised ships can undertake the required additional training and be issued with the necessary certification to demonstrate the appropriate level of competency. This will allow United Kingdom seafarers to take up employment on these types of vessels.
The draft regulations contain additional provision to ensure wider compliance with seafarer training requirements. The definition of “seafarer” has been clarified to ensure that all persons engaged in the operation or navigation of a pleasure vessel to which the draft regulations apply (24 metres or over in length or 80 gross tonnes or over) are included within the definition. The provision and quality of training has been revised to enable the Secretary of State not only to approve a training provider, but also to suspend or cancel the approval; this is needed because the STCW convention places obligations on Governments to ensure that training providers deliver all training in accordance with the convention requirements. Amendments contained in the draft legislation also enable the Government to recoup the costs of carrying out the approval of training providers who deliver seafarer training.
The draft regulations aim to meet the objectives in the Government’s maritime 2050 strategy to modernise and grow the British maritime sector, including alternative training provision for engineers on small vessels; this will support UK industry and boost employment opportunities for UK seafarers. Additionally, express provision to provide for seafarer training equivalent to that of the STCW convention will help relevant sectors of industry to avoid being unnecessarily burdened with cumbersome certification requirements, while modernising and updating UK training and certification.
The draft regulations also include an ambulatory reference provision to ensure that future amendments to the STCW convention referred to in the draft regulations will automatically become UK law when they enter into force internationally. As required by the regulations, a ministerial statement will be provided to both Houses of Parliament ahead of any amendment to the STCW convention referenced in the regulations, prior to it coming into force in UK law by way of the ambulatory reference provision.
The draft regulations and the accompanying draft explanatory memorandum can be found on gov.uk.
[HCWS20]
Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2022
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Trudy Harrison)
I have today published the draft statutory instrument the Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2022 and accompanying explanatory memorandum.
These regulations amend the Motor Fuel (Composition and Content) Regulations 1999 to require the introduction of E10 petrol (petrol with up to 10% ethanol) at filling stations in Northern Ireland. Following the successful introduction of E10 in Great Britain in September 2021, this subsequent amendment will bring the ethanol content of standard grade petrol in Northern Ireland in line with rest of the UK. The regulations also ensure the ongoing availability of E5 petrol (petrol with 5% or less ethanol) for those with vehicles and equipment unsuitable for use with E10.
At present, standard grade petrol in Northern Ireland contains up to 5% renewable ethanol (referred to as E5). Increasing the renewable ethanol content to up to 10% (E10) can reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from a petrol vehicle by the equivalent of around 2% per mile travelled. This, combined with increases to overall renewable fuel targets could cut overall transport CO2 emissions by a further 750,000 tonnes a year, the equivalent of taking around 350,000 cars off the road. Transport is one of the biggest contributing sectors to carbon emissions in Northern Ireland, where 59% of new cars registered in 2019 were petrol powered—the reductions achieved through the introduction of E10 will help decarbonise the existing vehicle fleet and help meet climate change targets.
Introducing E10 will also help support UK farmers and domestic ethanol industry, reducing reliance on imported oil in accordance with the aims of the UK energy security strategy and the 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution. Producing ethanol also creates the valuable by-products of high-protein animal feed and stored CO2. These reduce reliance on imported products, in line with the Government’s bioeconomy strategy.
The regulations are published in accordance with the procedure required by schedule 8 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 and agreed with Parliament. The draft regulations will be available for review for 28 days before they are laid, and debates scheduled.
These regulations were subject to open consultation. The policy detail, Government response and impact assessment are available.
[HCWS19]
House of Lords
Adult Social Care Committee
Economic Affairs Committee
The Senior Deputy Speaker
The Senior Deputy Speaker (Lord Gardiner of Kimble)
My Lords, these Motions appoint noble Lords to Select Committees and Joint Committees in this new Session. I beg to move.
Conduct Committee
Baroness Manningham-Buller
That the Report from the Select Committee The conduct of Lord Pendry (8th Report, Session 2021-22, HL Paper 194) be agreed to.
Baroness Manningham-Buller (CB)
My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to Standing Order 68, which states that Motions on reports
“resulting from an investigation under the Code of Conduct”
must be “decided without debate”. I therefore cannot take questions.
The report upholds the findings of the Commissioner for Standards that the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, breached the Code of Conduct by bullying a member of staff in the Parliamentary Security Department. The committee considered an appeal by the noble Lord against this finding but dismissed it unanimously. The report recommends that he be suspended from the service of this House for a period of one week. The committee agreed with the commissioner that a sentence of suspension was proportionate and necessary in response to his conduct and the effect it had on the complainant. I beg to move.
Conduct Committee
Baroness Manningham-Buller
To resolve that, in accordance with Standing Order 11, Lord Pendry be suspended from the service of the House for a period of one week; and that, in accordance with Section 1 of the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015, in the opinion of this House, the conduct giving rise to this resolution occurred after the coming into force of that Act.
Queen’s Speech
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty as follows:
“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which was addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, it is an honour and a pleasure to open this second day of debate on Her Majesty’s most gracious Speech.
The topics that we are due to cover are wide-ranging. My speech will therefore take noble Lords on a journey that at times might feel somewhat circuitous, but there is a common thread running throughout: the Government’s continuing commitment to deliver on the issues that really matter to the people of the United Kingdom. That includes, for example, fighting crime wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head, empowering those tasked with keeping us safe to do their critical work, delivering a criminal justice system that works in the interests of the law-abiding majority, and ensuring that our laws reflect the way that we communicate, consume and do business in the modern world.
National security is the foremost responsibility of any Government. It is an immense task. The scale and breadth of the threats that we face cannot be overestimated and, on that point, I take this opportunity to pay tribute to all those who work tirelessly to protect the public. For them to do their jobs effectively, it is vital that our laws keep pace with the ever-changing threat picture. The National Security Bill will deliver the biggest overhaul of state threat legislation for a generation. It will harden the UK’s resilience against hostile activity from foreign states and ensure that our world-class law enforcement and intelligence agencies have the tools that they need to protect our national security. The Bill will reform espionage laws dating from the beginning of the 20th century, introduce new offences to tackle foreign-state-linked sabotage and interference, and enhance police powers to support these measures.
A registration scheme will be created to help combat damaging or hostile influence exerted by foreign states in the UK. This will be added post introduction so that we can take the time needed to ensure its effectiveness. As a tool of last resort, a new suite of state threat prevention and investigation measures will be introduced to manage those who pose a threat but have not met the threshold for prosecution. While the majority of the National Security Bill will focus on countering hostile threats from foreign states, the Bill will also include measures to prevent the exploitation of our civil legal aid and civil damage systems by convicted terrorists.
We must remain alert to the threat from terrorism. The Manchester Arena attack in 2017 has particular resonance for me but, whenever and wherever the atrocities occur, we owe it to the victims and their families to learn every lesson and, where necessary, to take action to enhance public safety. The Protect duty Bill will establish a new requirements framework which mandates those in control of certain public locations and venues to consider the threat from terrorism and implement appropriate and proportionate mitigation measures. The Government have worked closely with partners and victims’ groups to develop these proposals, including Figen Murray, to whom I pay tribute, and the Martyn’s law campaign team. Our message is clear: we will do what it takes to keep law-abiding citizens safe and to protect our national security.
The Public Order Bill, introduced in the House of Commons yesterday, will be familiar to noble Lords, as many of its measures were brought forward in January as amendments to the then Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Regrettably, noble Lords rejected the amendments, and the passage of time has served only to reinforce the pressing need for these measures. The Bill will ensure that the police have the powers that they need to prevent and reduce this kind of serious disruption to our transport networks and key national infrastructure which we have seen in recent months. It includes a number of new offences including ones relating to locking on, obstructing the construction of major transport works and interfering with the use or operation of key national infrastructure. The Bill also provides for serious disruption prevention orders to target protesters who are determined to repeatedly inflict disruption on the public. The concern in January was that these measures had not been properly scrutinised. The new Bill will ensure that both Houses will have the opportunity to do just that. I hope that, having done so, we can then get these measures quickly on to the statute book.
I welcome the fact that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act is now on the statute book. As I have said, towards the end of its passage the focus was on the public order measures, but we should not forget that it is a wide-ranging Act delivering new laws to protect the public, support our police and cut crime. The Government’s focus now is on implementing the provisions of the Act as soon as practicable, with a raft of measures coming into force on 28 June.
The Government are bearing down on kleptocrats, criminals and terrorists who abuse our financial system. We will build on the recently enacted Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act by bringing forward the economic crime and corporate transparency Bill to further strengthen the UK’s reputation as a place where legitimate business can thrive while dirty money has no place to hide. The Bill will include reforms to Companies House, reforms to prevent abuse of limited partnerships, new powers to seize crypto assets from criminals, and reforms to give businesses more confidence to share information in order to combat economic crime. The Bill will support enterprise, enabling Companies House to deliver a better service, and maintain swift and low-cost routes for company creation. It will also boost the UK’s defences against economic crime, including fraud and money laundering, delivering greater protections for consumers and businesses.
The United Kingdom was the first country in the world to enact legislation dedicated to tackling modern slavery, through the landmark Modern Slavery Act 2015, and we remain a world leader in these efforts. We have already made significant progress through the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, which provides clarity to victims and decision-makers on victims’ rights, supports the early identification of possible victims and tackles abuses in the system, but we need to go further. When it comes to confronting the evils of modern slavery and human trafficking, we simply cannot afford to stand still.
The new modern slavery Bill will build on our existing legislation to strengthen the requirements on businesses with a turnover of £36 million or more to eradicate modern slavery in their supply chains. It will extend these requirements to public authorities, mandate the reporting areas to be covered in modern slavery statements, require organisations to publish their statements on a government-run registry and introduce tougher financial penalties for non-compliance. The Bill will also improve the effectiveness of court orders to prevent modern slavery offenders committing crimes, and improve the support system for victims. Ahead of the introduction of the Bill, we will publish an ambitious new modern slavery strategy setting out our approach to tackling this heinous form of criminality.
Falling victim to crime is a traumatic and often devastating experience. The impact is often profound and can stay with people for many years, even their whole lives. We must give them every possible chance of recovering. The victims Bill will guarantee that victims are at the heart of the criminal justice system and ensure that the right support is available at the right time. The Bill will place the victims’ code into law, sending a clear signal about what victims can and should expect, and it will drive up standards by increasing transparency and oversight of victims’ services provided by the criminal justice agencies.
I have discussed the need for reform of our immigration and asylum system on numerous occasions here. The Government’s New Plan for Immigration set out our vision for what is a much-needed overhaul, and the Nationality and Borders Act, with which this House is very well acquainted, is the legislative vehicle for delivering that change. We are embarking on this effort at a time when the world is facing a global migration crisis. The United Kingdom has a long tradition of providing sanctuary to those in need. We are rightly proud of the way that our country stands up for what is right. Offering the hand of friendship to those in desperate need is what we do. It is what we will continue to do.
We cannot continue to operate a parallel system for those arriving in the United Kingdom illegally, having travelled through safe third countries. The world-leading migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda is part of our comprehensive overhaul of the asylum system. It will help to break the smugglers’ business model and prevent loss of life. We are also stepping up our operations in the channel to tackle highly dangerous crossings. Border Force and Royal Navy officers and assets are working side by side, and their joint work will be supported by £50 million of new funding. There has been much debate about our approach, but the simple fact is that people are risking their lives attempting to reach the UK and we will not shy away from taking action to prevent further tragedies.
The world is united in horror at Russia’s assault on Ukraine. Once again, this country’s impulse, in the face of such a horrific situation, is one of compassion and support. Through the visa schemes we have set up and our wider humanitarian response, the Government have sent a message loud and clear: the UK stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of Ukraine. We will continue to do what is right.
Our desire to keep the public safe is not confined to what we might call the physical or offline world. Under the ground-breaking Online Safety Bill, tech companies will be accountable to an independent regulator to keep their users safe. There will not be a safe space for criminal content online. Platforms will have to quickly remove illegal content, including terrorist material and child sexual abuse and exploitation, and there will be a particular focus on protecting children from harmful or inappropriate content. The Bill also contains important safeguards for freedom of expression. We are committed to getting this right, and I am grateful to colleagues for their input so far. I am sure that the insight and knowledge across this House will be of great value as the Bill progresses.
We are more connected than ever before. Through the Product Security and Telecommunications Infra- structure Bill, we will make sure that these connections are fast and secure. We need our tech to work remotely and to be secure. Underneath all that, we need the digital infrastructure to support these connections. That is why this Government have made huge investments in digital infrastructure. To stay ahead of the game, this Bill is needed to keep transforming tomorrow’s networks and securing ourselves against future threats.
The Government are also committed to establishing a new pro-competition regime for digital markets. The regime will introduce clear rules on how the most powerful tech firms should treat businesses and consumers when delivering key services, such as social media and online searches. The regime will be overseen by a dedicated digital markets unit, which will be housed in the Competition and Markets Authority. The unit will have robust powers to enforce the regime, including tough fines of up to 10% of a firm’s global turnover for breaches. We will publish draft legislation in this Session and a Bill will be introduced as parliamentary time allows.
The UK’s broadcasting industry is a global success story. We want our public service broadcasters to remain at the heart of that success. By delivering a major and much-needed update to broadcasting legislation, we will enable our broadcasters to compete and thrive in the 21st century. This will be good for audiences, for British-originated content, for our economy and for our ability to project British values globally.
International trade plays a vital role in our domestic economy but, due to existing laws, some of which date back to the 19th century, trade still relies on billions of paper documents, which is costly, inefficient and outdated. A proposed Bill will remedy this and provide businesses with more choice and flexibility on how they trade. Modernising the law and putting electronic trade documents on the same legal footing as paper documents is essential to remove the need for wasteful paperwork and needless bureaucracy. The Bill will allow businesses to use electronic trade documents when buying and selling internationally, making it easier, cheaper, faster and more secure to trade.
The Government will shortly set out proposals designed to create a data protection regime that is pro-growth and innovation-friendly while also maintaining the highest data protection standards. The proposed reforms will reduce burdens on businesses and scientists, improve enforcement of data protection breaches and make data protection law clearer. The Bill will also make good on the Government’s commitment to legislate for other policies in similar subject areas, such as increasing industry participation in smart data schemes and enabling a secure and trusted digital identity market across the economy.
The Government were elected with a manifesto commitment to update the Human Rights Act and ensure that there is a proper balance between the rights of individuals, national security and effective government. We remain committed to the European Convention on Human Rights and are acutely conscious of this country’s long and proud history of protecting and promoting freedoms. The Bill of Rights will enable us to build on that long-standing tradition by reinforcing freedom of speech, strengthening our common-law traditions, restoring public confidence in the system and curbing abuse of the human rights framework by criminals. Given the abundance of knowledge and experience within this House, I am anticipating an insightful and comprehensive debate.
As Her Majesty’s Speech demonstrates, we are as determined as ever to change our society for the better and improve people’s lives. Our mission is clear: to make the country safer, stronger and more prosperous. I assure the House that the Government’s commitment to that endeavour is undiminished. I beg to move.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing today’s debate on the Motion on the humble Address. It is an honour to be opening for these Benches and significant for me personally, as I gave my maiden speech on the second day of the debate on the gracious Speech last year, which perfectly mirrors the timing of this debate. I start by expressing gratitude from these Benches to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales for delivering the gracious Speech. We send our warmest wishes to Her Majesty the Queen, whose service to this country has been and remains extraordinary.
This debate covers hugely important areas of British life that we, as a nation, are proud of and that we on these Benches, along with Members from across your Lordships’ House, are determined to protect. It covers everything from our justice system to our rights as individuals, including our right to dissent and to challenge when justice is not done, all the way through to our exceptional cultural sector, and the prospects and fortunes of our local football teams. My noble friend Lord Ponsonby will respond to the debate and focus in greater depth on the justice, constitutional and home affairs aspects, but I will make some opening remarks.
It is disappointing that so much of what is in front of us now has already been promised and announced time and again by Ministers—often multiple times over multiple years—but with a failure so far to deliver. On action for victims of crime, a Bill has been promised in not one, two or even three Queen’s Speeches, but in four, as well as in three manifestos. Even now, the Bill we are again promised is only in draft form. National security legislation has been promised since 2019, after being recognised as a necessity through the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee. For years, Members across the political spectrum have called on the Government to act against corruption and illicit Russian money being laundered through the UK. We welcome the inclusion of an economic crime Bill, but have to put the question: why has it taken an international crisis for this Government to act?
The much-delayed Online Safety Bill, which must be about recognising that in today’s world online is the front line when it comes to keeping our children safe and protecting people from fraud and abuse, is finally before us, but with an outline that leaves very much still to be achieved.
On football governance, action is urgent. The Government’s briefing says that governance has not kept pace with development and reform is needed, yet they have confirmed that they do not expect a regulator to be in place until 2024.
Your Lordships’ House will of course work to scrutinise what is finally promised and to make the long-awaited legislation the best it can be, but it is disappointing to say the least to find that the Government are playing catch-up on issues as vital as these as well as on many others. There is a continuous thread: the Government seem to have the wrong focus at the wrong time.
On the Home Office and issues of justice, victims of crime are being badly let down in this country, with record court backlogs, rising crime and low prosecution rates and a huge number of victims losing faith in the system altogether. Yet, for example, despite the very real level of public concern, there is no much-needed Bill to tackle violence against women and girls. Instead the Government plan to focus on reducing the British public’s right to challenge when the justice system fails them.
Turning to DCMS, this is the Session when your Lordships’ House will finally get to scrutinise the Online Safety Bill, but that legislation does not appear to be as fit for purpose as we hoped. The Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill brought forward a series of important recommendations. Some have been incorporated into the current legislation but the Government need to go further if reality is to match many years of rhetoric. Sadly, the numerous delays to this legislation have in the interim allowed tens of thousands of children to be exposed to online abuse and millions of internet users to fall victim to online scams. With most of the provisions unlikely to enter into force until 2024 or beyond, those numbers are likely to increase further, something on which I hope the new chair of Ofcom, the noble Lord, Lord Grade, will wish to take a view.
Elsewhere, the Government are insisting on selling off a national asset in the form of Channel 4, despite widespread opposition within the creative industries and on the government Benches in both Houses of Parliament. We can remind ourselves that Channel 4 was established under the former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. It does not cost the taxpayer a penny. Despite the claims by DCMS, it is already able to compete with the likes of Netflix. It has developed the UK’s most popular free streaming service and demand is likely to increase as paid-for services, such as Netflix, lose subscribers. The privatisation element of the media Bill will undoubtedly take up a significant amount of parliamentary time. If, as seems likely, the sale of Channel 4 leads to a lower volume of programmes being commissioned, the impact will be to level down the creative output and negatively affect jobs across the UK’s nations and regions.
A wide range of smaller Bills has also been promised by DCMS, from data reform to digital markets and I look forward to seeing further detail on them. The Culture Secretary’s fixation with Channel 4 means that other DCMS initiatives have had to be put on the back burner. An independent regulator for football will not be in place until 2024 at the earliest, as I have said, and we still wait to see the Government’s plans for the reform of gambling regulation. Once again, there are many consequences to this. It is likely that the Government’s inaction in these areas will mean that more football clubs, their fans and communities will suffer because of inadequate governance arrangements and ever more individuals, both children and adults, will be exposed to gambling-related harms.
On this latter point, we are in the middle of a perfect storm. The shift to online gambling, the increased cost of living and the continued financial impact of the pandemic have come together to create the conditions in which gambling harms to individuals and, by extension, to their loved ones unfortunately continue to thrive. I note that in 2020 the Government launched a welcome review of the Gambling Act, acknowledging, correctly, that too many people are experiencing significant harm from gambling while the industry has changed enormously since the passing of the Act in 2005, yet today we find that we continue to wait for something to be done while people’s health and well-being are damaged, when we know that more could be done to tackle avoidable harms. An overwhelming majority of the public want action on sports governance and gambling while opposing government intervention in the affairs of Channel 4. In that sense, how can the Government possibly say that they are focusing on the priorities of the British people?
I know that your Lordships’ House will do its very best, as it always does, to improve the Bills before it through scrutiny. That starts with this debate, which began yesterday and continues today. I look forward to hearing from noble Lords. However, this gracious Speech is notable not just for what is in it but more so for what is not. The Government had an opportunity through this gracious Speech to give people what they need to manage their day-to-day lives and to thrive. I am sorry, but this opportunity has not been taken.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her opening speech. I shall concentrate on DCMS matters. How excellent it is to have a Minister from that department responding. I remember a time when culture did not even make it as a subject for the Queen’s Speech. You wait years and then seven DCMS Bills come along.
We support the thrust of the Online Safety Bill. It is very important, but the devil will be in the detail on the definition of harms, especially harms to our children, enforcement powers and the fine line between defending free speech while protecting citizens from online abuse and disinformation, which, as we have seen in the US, potentially undermines democracy itself. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones will expand on this and other digital Bills.
We also welcome proposals for an independent football regulator and support Tracey Crouch’s review. My noble friends Lord Marks and Lord Wallace will cover justice and the constitution. We have just heard from the Minister of State for the Home Office. The House will not be surprised to hear that I will be leaving legislation from her department to my noble and—I cannot resist a literary reference—brilliant friend Lord Paddick.
There is, however, one very important matter where there is overlap: the ability, or lack of it, of our creative artists to tour Europe. My noble friend Lord Strasburger has been leading a campaign on the quagmire that has ensued as a result of a no-deal Brexit fuelled by Home Office intransigence. It is interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, chief Brexit negotiator, admitted that a deal could have been done with Europe, but the Government were too purist about the issue. Does the Minister accept that this has been nothing short of a disaster for our creative sector? Does he not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Frost, that the Government should take another look at what he calls “mobility issues” and try to salvage the situation?
As we have heard, there is to be a media Bill. I start by thanking the Government for commitments to important reforms on prominence and listed events, but swiftly move to gloom at their attitude to public service broadcasting in general. The headline of the Queen’s Speech is levelling up, so why are the Government determined to privatise Channel 4, the consequence of which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, just said, will be levelling down?
There is nothing short of vandalism going on in removing the publisher broadcaster model. Channel 4 was conceived for a reason, to grow the UK independent TV sector, and that is exactly what it has done. Any impact assessment—has there been one?—would surely show that reducing commissions from independent companies from 100% to 25% will have a detrimental effect on the sector and, more specifically, on nurturing the small, independent producers and start-ups: levelling down.
Removing the requirement that a new owner operates offices outside London, the Government
“does not deem it appropriate to be prescriptive on … physical footprint”,
yet the same Government insisted that Channel 4 relocate its headquarters to Leeds and creative hubs to Bristol and Glasgow, which has brought huge advantages to those and surrounding areas: levelling down. Reducing the required spend in nations and regions from 50% to 35% will lead to a potential loss of £85 million to those very areas that the Secretary of State purports to want to help.
On removing the requirements in relation to training and skills, Channel 4 has used both its cash and its leverage power to invest in and promote training, particularly of underrepresented groups. With no obligations and a new commitment to shareholders, does the Minister really see this continuing? It is levelling down again.
Contrary to what the White Paper claims, due to the imaginative expansion of its digital channels, Channel 4’s demographic is young and diverse. Its figures show significant spend on original content and investment in indies. Advertising revenues have increased over the last two years. I hope the Minister accepts that the figures in the government paper need looking at again.
The big question is: why? The public do not want it. When the question of privatisation was put out to public consultation, 91% of respondents were opposed. Can the Minister explain the logic behind having a public consultation and then ignoring it? Is it not an insult to dismiss those who took part as campaign bots, when 91% certainly cannot have been?
As the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, mentioned, the Government say they want to protect Channel 4 from the streamers, but the fact is that it does not need protection. It is in rude financial health and does not need privatisation to prosper, while supposedly thriving Netflix faces financial woes, with a loss of 200,000 subscribers over the last three months. As the former chief executive, David Abraham, has said, privatising Channel 4 is
“a solution in search of a problem.”
Channel 4 is just a part of a broader PSB ecology that lies at the heart of this country’s extraordinary success in exporting programmes around the world, creating jobs in the creative industries across the UK and bringing UK influence to bear across the world—soft power. At the centre of this is the BBC, yet in its centenary year, after it contributed so much during the pandemic and is now doing so again through superb coverage of the war in Ukraine, this Government have chosen to freeze the licence fee, effectively depriving the BBC of more than £3 billion over the next five years. The Government are putting their determination to weaken the BBC before the national interest.
Turning to the wider cultural sector, I have heard the Secretary of State, in person, passionately and articulately expressing her belief in the need to level up through the spreading of the arts, culture and creativity, and all the benefits they bring, more evenly across the nation. So please listen to the regions and get this right. Do not employ a blunt instrument and destroy an admirable aim.
Here is an example. I declare an interest as a trustee of the Lowry in Salford, one of the 18 most deprived areas in England. For us, the Royal National Theatre is a crucial partner. Its commitment to touring, and the Lowry’s role as its home venue in the north-west, have meant that audiences in that region have been able to experience some of the most celebrated theatre productions of the last 20 years. Is it not obvious that if funding for the NT is cut by 15%, it will inevitably entrench into its London base and reduce its touring commitments, and the regions will suffer? Encouraging locally produced work to flourish must be coupled with sharing what the rest of the nation has to offer. I think there is a misunderstanding of where deprivation exists. Large pockets are in London, whose cultural institutions have important outreach programmes.
The White Paper talks about a narrow skills base and how levelling up can address this, but the acquiring of a skill begins at school and successive Conservative Governments consistently and persistently undervalue and undermine arts education. STEM has been the mantra, but surely for education to
“help every child fulfil their potential”,
as mentioned in the Queen’s Speech, it should be STEAM. This Government say that arts subjects are not strategic priorities. The same Government’s industrial strategy prizes the creative industries as a priority sector. Can the Minister explain the disconnect?
Finally, the UK’s creative and cultural workforce still does not adequately reflect the diversity of the UK population. I hope that the Minister will pay attention to the report Creative Majority and that part of the levelling-up support, in particular the £560 million for youth services, will be available for cultural and creative activities.
To end, I say a big yes to levelling up but listen to the regions as to what they really need. When the Government say, as in the White Paper, that:
“Broadcasters and the wider media have significant potential to contribute”,
they should recognise that this will not happen if they employ a wrecking ball to our PSBs. Listen to the words of Steve McQueen, possibly our greatest creative industry, at the BAFTAs last Sunday:
“We have great ideas … Other people have … more money — the Americans — but we have great ideas, that’s what makes us who we are … we need the BBC and Channel 4 to help sustain that and our identity – because I don’t want us to be, no disrespect, Yanks”.
By the way, I am half Yank and I will accept no disrespect.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, listening to the gracious Speech I heard words that filled me with joy:
“Her Majesty’s Government will ensure the constitution is defended.”
Then I listened, as one does:
“Her Majesty’s Ministers will restore the balance of power between the legislature and the courts”,
and I thought, like the editor of Private Eye, “surely some mistake”.
There is no balance needed. We legislate—we try to legislate with clarity—the courts interpret our legislation and, if we do not like the way the courts have interpreted the legislation, it comes back to us and we put them right. There is no difficulty about that relationship—perish the thought.
I thought the words were going to be, “Her Majesty’s Ministers will restore the balance of power between the legislature and the Executive”, because that is the relationship that needs to be addressed. Noble Lords have heard me bang on about Henry VIII powers. I just do not like a Minister by statutory instrument being able to revoke primary legislation, let alone secondary legislation. As for skeleton Bills, I find it absolutely extraordinary that we ever pass them. We say to ourselves: “Let us give the Minister powers before the Minister has the slightest idea how he or she is going to exercise them.”
Two of the most important pieces of work in the last Session were the reports that we received from our Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, Government by Diktat: A Call to Return Power to Parliament, and from our Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, Democracy Denied? The Urgent Need to Rebalance the Power Between Parliament and the Executive. That is what I thought I heard, or at least what I hoped I had heard, during the Queen’s Speech. I apologise for my disloyalty in thinking there may have been some misreading of what was in the text.
These were not a bunch of sparky students nor even eccentric academics. They were two of our own Select Committees repeating warnings that they have given and which the Constitution Committee has been giving us for years. They were cross-party and always unanimous. The noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, will be speaking about his own committee’s report in due course, but as we look at him—forgive me—do we see Wat Tyler or John Lilburne? Do we see Oliver Cromwell? Actually, no, that must be the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra. What about the noble Lord, Lord Lisvane? He is another of them. These are committees of this House carefully addressing a prime issue of constitutional importance.
As I say, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, will no doubt discuss his committee’s report, but we have a response from the Minister. The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee returns to the issue of the growing imbalance between Parliament and the Executive and, with commendable reticence, it notes that in the Government’s response almost all of its recommendations were rejected. I bothered to read the Government’s responses and I respectfully suggest to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that the words that his committee used in response were very modest; I would say that it looked like hitting your head against a brick wall. There was no understanding or insight whatever into these major issues that the two committees have raised.
In the Conservative manifesto there was a promise that there would be a first-year commission on the constitution, democracy and rights. Where is it? Why are we not addressing the issue of this imbalance now in such a commission?
I am now about to be very courageous, particularly with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, here: what is the point of us being here if, when we identify a serious constitutional problem, we never do anything about it except talk? We cannot keep doing that. I just want us to consider the possibility that the next time we have a Henry VIII clause in a Bill that has not been given careful explanation in advance, we chuck it out.
Lord Judge (CB)
This is where the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, is going to be very troubled. Is it not possible that some time, instead of a regret Motion, if a statutory instrument proposes the extension of undue power to the Executive, we throw that one out too? I am only asking your Lordships to consider the possibility—otherwise, why do we not just go on talking?
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
My Lords, it is wonderful to be speaking in this debate on Her Majesty’s gracious Speech. It is always a privilege to listen to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who is a very hard act to follow. I refer to my interest stated in the register as Anglican bishop of prisons.
As has been said, we know that people are increasingly experiencing hardship in our current climate. In the gracious Speech there was an emphasis on so-called levelling up and tackling disadvantage, whether rooted in education, health, a lack of appropriate housing or low income. Often those issues intersect.
In Old Testament scripture, in the book of the prophet Amos, we have the words “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”. I want to begin with justice, because layers of disadvantage are reflected in every aspect of our criminal justice system. In speaking of the criminal justice system, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, who I greatly appreciated interacting with in his role as a Minister in your Lordships’ House.
I was perturbed that in relation to criminal justice the gracious Speech referred only to keeping the streets safe. I urge Her Majesty’s Government to pay good attention to preventive and rehabilitative measures rather than simply creating more prison places. We are failing both victims and perpetrators of crime, and indeed society itself. I wonder what happened to the plans for a desperately needed royal commission on criminal justice. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act is not “job done”.
The UK’s current prison population is already the largest in western Europe and it just does not square with the aspiration of making our communities safer. I wonder if we know the statistic for those in prison who do not pose a major threat to public safety on the streets. Undoubtedly, many people who will occupy new prison places are those who are caught downstream because we have not looked upstream. So, I am encouraged to hear of an ambition for children with regard to schools and education, yet we must not forget the critical role of early years in order to keep a focus on giving children the best start in life for emotional and social development. This is upstream from the criminal justice system, and it includes appropriate support for parents and carers.
In light of that, unsurprisingly, I will continue to say that sending to prison mothers whose non-violent offending is rooted in multiple disadvantages is failing communities and haemorrhaging money, with at least 500 new prison places for women, if they are planned to be additional. That now rather jaded female offender strategy could still do much good to prevent women entering the criminal justice system, yet it is stuck.
The recent Public Accounts Committee recent report has revealed the gaps in governance and funding. Where is intervention reflected in the Government’s plans? Upstream of men, women and children in custody, there is often a story of being impacted by the criminal justice system, of repeated family history and trauma. Perpetrators of crime are often victims of crime themselves who have experienced multiple disadvantages. Here we see the effects of the failure to level up.
I was encouraged to see in last year’s prisons White Paper a recognition that families and good relationships are important aspects of rehabilitation and contribute to reducing reoffending. Where is the join-up with the context of the gracious Speech? I am pleased to hear that the provision of better-quality, safer homes is to be a focus for the Government. We know that the lack of appropriate housing is a driver for reoffending, and that female prison leavers face particular challenges. The reports and solutions are there; they just need willingness and drive for their implementation.
All of this is not simply about money. It is about how policies and structures enable strong human relationships. Connected and resilient communities in which people can build trust and fulfil their potential begin with relationships. Incidentally, that is usually at the heart of civil society, including the active involvement of churches and faith communities. Civil society needs to be integral to decision-making, government partnership and delivery.
Speaking of relationship and community, there is much that can be done in policy and legislation to enable people to inhabit healthier and safer views of themselves and neighbours. At this point, I will briefly say that I am pleased to see the inclusion of a modern slavery Bill. Assisting people in inhabiting healthier and safer views of themselves and others is particularly pertinent to the online safety Bill. Upstream from many mental health issues and eating disorders experienced by adolescents and adults is undue pressure online and in social media. User control of algorithms, minimum age limits on editing apps and tackling altered images in advertising would go a long way towards addressing body-image anxiety, and I hope that will be considered in the online safety Bill as well as regulation of those horrific suicide forums.
A levelling-up process must look upstream from the issues that we wish to address and the measures that could be taken now to prevent the problems downstream and to enable the flourishing of individuals, families and communities. I look forward to listening to the rest of this debate.
Lord Mackay of Clashfern (Con)
My Lords, I am sure the House will appreciate that there are many things in the gracious Speech upon which I would like to speak. I am glad to associate myself with what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has said in that connection.
What I want to do this morning will be very brief. A little phrase in the Queen’s Speech says:
“Legislation will also be introduced to ban conversion therapy.”
I expect that that is absolutely clear to all of your Lordships but it is not at all clear to me. First, “ban” is rather ambiguous, because it could involve criminal responsibility or some other forms of banning. Then there is “conversion”, a word with which I have been pretty familiar all my life. It was always regarded primarily as meaning that a person took more interest in religion at a particular stage in his or her life than they had taken before. On the other hand, it is also used in connection with moving from one religion to another and in connection with, say, changing a car from being dependent on petrol to electricity. The word is somewhat large in scope. Then we come to “therapy”. I have always understood that therapy was about, if possible, making you better. You went along and hoped that you would get some sort of therapy that would make you better when you came out than when you went in, so I find this very difficult. However, it is not without precedent.
I have tried to understand this business over some months and have read an erudite legal report about it—the Cooper Report—which indicates the nature of the problem. I have studied that extremely carefully and think it is talking about a type of banning by criminal jurisdiction, by making something or other a crime. The question is: what is it that is to be made a crime? In that report, very learned and experienced people have set out a whole lot of illustrations. The passing from the one side to the other, from innocence to guilt, is quite difficult to make out from this great learning. I think I read that the definition is so difficult that it should be made a bit wider than what at first sight might appear to catch what may not be quite a crime under this idea.
It strikes me that, if you are starting to alter the criminal law, the last thing you want is to incorporate in crimes things for which nobody regards a criminal responsibility as arising. To make it wider, just in case you cannot catch all that is in this definition, is surely a rather terrible scourge on the idea of a proper criminal situation. It is a mighty difficult subject which is covered by those three small words.
In recent times, the whole scope of this problem has been brought into relief by people asking: does it apply to a change of gender? I do not know the answer to that question because it is not me putting this forward, but it really is quite a question. There are other questions about it too. There was a big consultation and I took quite a lot of time to set out what I thought about it. I do not know that we have heard yet exactly what has been decided as a result, but it is certainly a tricky problem that those three words are supposed to expose.
There will be many other problems apart from that, and I would love to have time to get involved in them. The idea of moving the responsibility from the court to somebody else is always somewhat difficult. I agree that the courts may sometimes have the power to impose responsibility for expenditure on the taxpayer but, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, points out so clearly, if that is thought to be wrong the legislature can correct it quickly. It has a powerful correction mechanism for any such variation.
I put in a fairly detailed answer to the consultation on the Human Rights Act and, on the whole, I do not think it is moving very much. It is rather less in scope than your Lordships might think. However, my scope is finished, so I thank your Lordships for listening.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble and learned Lord. On conversion therapy, it seems that, if ever a Bill needed to be published in draft form and subject to pre-legislative scrutiny, this is it. It is a great pity that the Government decided not to go down that route, not least on the issue of gender, which the Government say they will not be dealing with. One of the big issues will be the role of doctors and what will be legitimate as advice to be given to them. The report by Hilary Cass into GIDS lays out some of the issues that need to be considered, particularly in relation to the drugs given to young people. I believe this warrants careful attention. Even now, I say to the Minister that surely this ought to be subject to proper pre-legislative scrutiny.
I want to talk about the Online Safety Bill. I absolutely understand the reasons why it has been brought forward and that we have to do everything we can to protect the safety of users from some of the vile abuse that appears online every day, causing suffering for people. My noble friend Lady Merron was absolutely right to point out the urgent need for action. But there is a paradox at the heart of the problem which the Government have been attempting to solve, for while social media companies have been slow to act against much of this vile online abuse, particularly some of the material aimed at children, they have been keen to impose their own social values on users of their services. In clamping down on legal but harmful content online, the Bill carries a risk to freedom of expression, since the Government are essentially legitimising the major tech companies to impose their values on us even more.
As the British and Irish Law Education and Technology Association told the pre-legislative scrutiny committee on the Bill:
“In being asked to make determinations of legal speech, commercial platforms are being trusted with decisions on what is—or is not—permitted speech.”
Big Brother Watch points out that platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have become de facto arbiters of speech online, making judgments about the permissibility of citizens’ speech without due process—and not only citizens but politicians of the highest office too.
The Government’s proposal to remove offensive material is of course reinforcing the companies’ powers and inclination to impose west coast norms on us and impede or ban perfectly legitimate debate. The risk here is that to meet the regulator’s requirements on the “legal but harmful” provisions, and under threat of looming penalties, those tech companies will be quicker than ever to enforce censorious policies, with freedom of expression the victim and algorithms the final arbiter.
The Government argue that protections have been built into the Bill to give greater clarity about what harmful content is covered. Specifically, platforms will have to explain why they have removed content, with duties to protect journalistic and democratically important content. They also claim to have removed any incentives or pressures for platforms to over-remove legal or controversial content.
I draw Ministers’ attention to analysis by Gavin Millar QC for Index on Censorship, which argues that, despite almost seven years of debate, there is still significant uncertainty about how the Bill will work in practice. As he said:
“The Government is still not able to define terms at the heart of the legislation such as ‘legal but harmful’ or give … technology companies … clear guidance on how this landmark legislation should operate.”
In summary, he found:
“Harmful speech has no legal basis and risks restrictions on speech that are too broad and therefore open to abuse through selective enforcement.”
The Minister’s department has rejected that analysis out of hand. Could the Minister explain why? What is his response to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, on the sweeping powers being taken by the Executive in recent legislation, of which this Bill is an example?
Can the Minister also comment on the advice of Professor Kathleen Stock, a former professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex? She has been subject to considerable abuse online because of her views about biology and the importance of women’s rights and might have been expected to be emphatically in favour of attempts to remove what the Online Safety Bill calls “harmful communications” from the internet. Referring to the power of the safety service providers, however, she warns:
“If their recent behaviour proves anything, it’s that these online giants don’t need another reason to crack down on content they think will distress certain groups of people. After all, they are already doing this, albeit in a way which reflects the priorities of Silicon Valley technocrats”.
One example of this is Twitter’s own policy, which does not accept that it is bound by the Equality Act in this country. Will that be put right in the Bill?
The Bill hands huge powers to the Secretary of State through statutory instruments and codes of practice. It is unacceptable that the House should be asked to pass the Bill without knowing many more facets of what is included, and I hope it is subject to the kind of scrutiny that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, requires.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure from these Benches to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter. I am always conscious that I was appointed early to this House after the untimely death of her father when my party needed a foreign policy specialist. I have now been here rather longer than I originally expected.
I want my speech to follow closely what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has said and his quoting of the fine but empty words of the Queen’s Speech:
“Her Majesty’s Government will ensure the constitution is defended.”
We have all seen the drift away from the conventions and practices of constitutional government in recent years, which Members of this House and elsewhere need to resist vigorously. The balance between the legislature and the Executive, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, remarked, has been tipped further in favour of the Government and against their effective accountability to Parliament. I recommend to noble Lords the newly published book from the Institute for Government’s deputy director Hannah White, Held in Contempt: What’s Wrong with the House of Commons?, which sets out in detail the deliberate sidelining of the Commons by both Theresa May and Boris Johnson, and the decline in public respect for Parliament that has enabled them to go so far.
I recommend even more strongly the report by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, which was published two weeks ago and has already been quoted, What Next? The Growing Imbalance between Parliament and the Executive. I urge the Government Front Bench to arrange an early debate on it. The report identifies poor-quality legislation, restriction of parliamentary scrutiny, failure to provide impact assessments, inadequate explanatory memoranda and SIs regularly having to be corrected after they have been published.
More broadly, this raises the question of the role of the Lords as a revising second Chamber. We are here to ask the Government to think again. Our usefulness depends on the Government’s willingness to listen to reasoned criticism and to respond with reasoned answers and, where appropriate, concessions. If the Government refuse to listen and respond to the Lords, we no longer have a useful role. Perhaps in this Session, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, suggested, we need to send back an SI or two to demonstrate that there are limits to what Ministers can get away with.
The size of the Government payroll vote in the Commons and their 80-seat majority, reinforced by the strength of their whipping, allows the Government to treat the Commons with contempt. Badly drafted Bills have been passed to the Lords with little examination since their introduction, and with no amendment. That has increased the pressures on the Lords for reasoned and effective legislative scrutiny. In many of the weeks so far this year, this formerly part-time House has met as a Chamber for longer than the Commons. MPs have briefly considered Bills in timetabled debates and hurried back to their constituencies, leaving us to struggle on.
I found the final stages of the last Session dispiriting. Conservative Peers were whipped as ruthlessly as MPs in the Commons, with threats of removal from committees or loss of the Whip if they exercised their consciences. I heard leading Conservatives dismissing the Cross-Benchers as a bunch of left-wing intellectuals rather than the experts and evidence-seekers they represent. Then, half the Labour Peers went home after one or two votes, rather than pressing the Government to concede on important points. The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, when Leader of the Opposition was far more determined to defend legislative authority against the Labour Government, pursuing ping-pong two, three or even four times when necessary. I congratulate the example that he set.
If the Lords can make only occasional and marginal changes to minor legislation, perhaps we should all go home and accept that in our current half-broken constitutional framework there is no useful role for a second Chamber. We depend on the Leader of the House to make the case to her colleagues in government that concessions to reasoned amendments in this House are a constitutional practice that Ministers should respect. We depend on Lords Ministers to persuade their colleagues from time to time to listen and to admit that they may have been mistaken. I wish I were more confident that Lords Ministers in this Government will do so in the face of this populist Prime Minister and his advisers.
The UK is now in a constitutional crisis, as the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, remarked in the Times some weeks ago. The union itself is shaky and will become shakier still if the threat to revoke the Northern Ireland protocol is acted on. The longer our current Prime Minister is here, the more likely it becomes that Scotland will in time drift towards independence. Public respect for Westminster and our central government is lower than in almost every other western democracy except the United States.
This is compounded by the political crisis created by our adversarial political system, which entrenches two established parties, both of which are deeply split, and the dangers to political stability of the aggressive rhetoric of the Government’s dominant right wing. Our Prime Minister and the Australian and US Republican influences he follows, mean that No. 10 is superb at campaigning, but dreadful at governing. This is neither a constitutionalist nor a conservative Government.
I hope that all Members of this House will in this Session defend the constitution, as the Queen’s Speech declared, and defend it when necessary against this constitutionally careless Government.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
I really have heard everything now: a former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, calling for an uprising. I am right beside him.
The general trajectory of modern history has been away from oppression and towards human rights. It has been a pathway of liberalisation, more fairness, more opportunity and more freedoms—as well as less state power, greater checks and balances, and more accountability. However, this Government are obsessed with rowing back on that progress. We have a Cabinet and a Prime Minister who want more authoritarianism; they are trying to transform the whole state apparatus to hold them in power indefinitely. The Bill of Rights pushes on with the Government’s repressive agenda. It is perhaps the first Bill of Rights in world history to curtail individuals’ rights and allow the state to interfere with people in ways which are presently unlawful. Yet the first paragraph of the Queen’s Speech says that the
“Government will play a leading role in defending democracy and freedom across the world”,—[Official Report, 10/5/22; col. 2.]
apart from here in the UK, it seems.
The National Security Bill will grant unspecified new powers to the security services. This decades-long slippery slope continues: it is always more powers and less scrutiny; more spying and less privacy. The giant of the security state is never satisfied with its amassed power, so who knows what will be in that Bill, which we will be expected to pass this time.
The Public Order Bill brings back legislative proposals that were flatly rejected by your Lordships’ House in the last Session. The Government say that this legislation is urgent in response to new tactics used by activists, but this is clearly untrue. The suffragettes and suffragists used methods such as locking on, even in this very Parliament building. Under this Bill, they would be criminalised and labelled as serious criminals, yet in the end they were proved to have been right to protest. Their actions were not popular at the time, but they eventually won the right to vote.
You can complain about Extinction Rebellion but, as a result of its actions, Parliament passed a declaration that we are living in a climate emergency—I must remind the Government that they passed this. Local campaigners blocking roads and equipment stopped the fracking industry bypassing local democracy and being imposed on residents by a top-down Government. In the last few days, a protester at a rally was not arrested there but later at her home by the police. The police explained that they did not want to arrest anyone at the rally, so they arrested her later. The Government want to stop any protest that might get noticed and be effective. They want to clamp down on peaceful, non-violent protest that people use to get attention. This is the crucial point: protesters are people. They are people who work, pay taxes, study or collect the pensions they have earned; people who see something wrong and want it to stop; people possibly like your Lordships, but definitely like me. I hope that, once again, we will reject this legislation. I honestly think that it will encourage protesters to be even more creative.
All this legislation is moving us in the wrong direction. We should be granting people more human rights, not fewer. This Government are absolutely incapable of making positive change; everything is regressive. At a time when more of us are sinking into poverty, the Government are not doing their job to promote the well-being of all. As Peter Walker from the Guardian pointed out, we have 38 government Bills, none of which helps reduce energy bills or deals with the climate emergency with a national programme of insulating homes. Instead, the only mention of insulating Britain is talking about locking up the campaigners who wanted action. On Twitter, an account called “The Secret Barrister” said:
“The criminal justice system has never been in more chaos. This government has defunded every element—from police to CPS to legal aid to courts to probation to prisons. There has never been a better time to be a criminal than under this Prime Minister and this Home Secretary.”
It looks as if we are set for the busiest 12 months of scrutiny in the nine years I have spent in your Lordships’ House. I hope that, together, we can do exactly what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, suggested: try to insist to the Government that what they are doing is not legal. I have tabled a regret Motion. I wanted to table a Motion that repealed all of last Session’s legislation, but apparently I was not allowed to do that, so I have tabled a regret Motion which is a series of complaints. It is a puny Motion, but it will come up at the end. I would like the Government to understand that, although I perhaps use more invective and rhetoric than other noble Lords, there are a lot of people—perhaps in this House, but definitely outside it—who would agree with me and would like the Government to be in more of a listening mode.
Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)
My Lords, I will concentrate on two themes in the gracious Speech. One was introduced by the declaration:
“The continued success and integrity of the whole of the United Kingdom is of paramount importance”
to the Government. The other is to be found in a passage that states:
“Ministers will restore the balance of power between the legislature and the courts by introducing a Bill of Rights.”
I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, will forgive me for quoting the sentence in full.
A little more needs to be said on the first theme, beyond the reference in the gracious Speech to the undoubted need to support the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. While we can all agree on that, I fear the Government are entering into a very contentious area when they go on to say that their support for that agreement and its institutions will include
“legislation to address the legacy of the past.”
I regret the absence of any mention here of the need to respect the position of the devolved Administrations—that was a missed opportunity. Their co-operation was severely tested during the last Session by the passing of the internal market Act and the Subsidy Control Act, both without the legislative consent of either Cardiff or Holyrood. Greater care needs to be taken, in the interests of the success of the whole United Kingdom, to see that this does not happen again this time.
As for
“legislation to address the legacy of the past”,—[Official Report, 10/5/22; col. 3.]
the Constitution Committee, of which I am a member, referred in a report published in January called Respect and Co-operation: Building a Stronger Union for the 21st Century to the Northern Ireland legacy proposals that the Government published in July last year. They included ending all
“judicial activity in relation to Troubles-related conduct”.
The Government’s aim, which was no doubt well intentioned, was to obtain a broad consensus. However, they signally failed to do so. One of our witnesses, the leader of the SDLP, said that the Government
“had achieved the rare feat of uniting every political party and victims’ organisation in Northern Ireland against its proposals.”
As we said in paragraph 148 of our report, there was
“a clear lack of consent on that issue.”
The original plans for the total amnesty have been abandoned, and new proposals are included in the draft legacy and reconciliation Bill—matters on which the UK Government are free to legislate as they wish. However, the concept of consent is of great constitutional importance in Northern Ireland—as it is in Scotland and Wales, but particularly so in Northern Ireland. I hope the Minister can assure the House that the Government will consult further to achieve as much consensus as possible this time before they proceed with these new proposals.
I recognise that the Government consulted widely on their proposals to introduce a Bill of Rights, but I cannot help thinking that this is a Bill that we could well do without. The manifesto commitment owes its origin to this Government’s dislike of the Human Rights Act. One might say that it was an obsession, and obsessions are rarely a good start to anything. It all seemed so simple: “Let’s restore the balance of power between the legislature and the courts by getting rid of that Act and replacing it with something else that tells the courts what to do”. We must be grateful that the Government will remain a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and that the individual right of petition to Strasbourg, which it sets out, will remain unchanged, with all that that means. The proposals here are directed entirely to the position in domestic law.
However, the more you look at it, the more obvious it is that there is a serious risk that they will do more harm than good. It does not seem to have been appreciated, for example, that the usual way that convention rights are enforced in Scotland is not through the Human Rights Act but through the Scotland Act, which sets out the limits of the powers of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. This enables incompatibilities to be dealt with in a way which is not subject to the same procedural routes which the Government wish to change. Further, the proposals are likely to lead to an increase in human rights litigation in view of the uncertainties that they will create, to the disadvantage of a wide range of public authorities which will be drawn into the courts, and to an increased demand on the courts themselves.
By making it harder for individuals to obtain a domestic remedy, the proposals are bound to increase the number of petitions to Strasbourg, to each of which the Government will have to respond, irrespective of which public authority was involved. Further, there are some rather odd and quite unnecessary proposals, such as to enshrine in legislation the right to jury trial, a system based on the common law, which works perfectly well in England and Wales. Except in the case of the most serious crimes, there is no absolute right to a jury in Scotland, so why should that situation be changed?
I am sure that many of us will work very hard to improve the Bill when it reaches us but, given the uncertainties and extra expense that it will create and the absence of any compelling need for it, I really doubt that it should come here at all.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, the late Sir Winston Churchill said:
“To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”
I consider that a useful maxim for any Government’s programme, both to build up and, in modern speak, to level up. With that maxim in mind and looking at the Government’s concern in relation to the Human Rights Act, I say that the recently introduced measures on migration and further proposals on public order will inevitably impact adversely on the welcome of refugees, including Ukrainians, and on legitimate protest. I regret that we did not hear of specific action to insulate homes to tackle the energy crisis and measures to alleviate rising poverty, not to mention action on the climate crisis—in particular, an end to new fossil fuels. We must not allow these vital changes to be eclipsed by the Russian military escapade and its consequences in Ukraine.
However, important as that all is, I wish to focus on those elements in the gracious Speech that promise to address the balance between the operation of the courts and the legislature and to do so through a Bill of Rights. I note with appreciation the comments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and other noble Lords.
It is clear from the Government’s own publications on this that, in our uncodified constitution, our enjoyment of rights is rooted in common law, the assertion of community rights and parliamentary supremacy. Indeed, it was the leadership of Archbishop Stephen Langton that gave focus to the grievances that wrought the Magna Carta from King John. Our 17th-century Bill of Rights of 1688, which purported to assert our ancient liberties, rather gloriously predates the American constitution by a century. The Bill of Rights was designed to prevent coercion by the Executive and ensure the rule of law, a term first used in that century. This Government, in their consultation last December on a modern Bill of Rights, make the point that those contained in the original Bill of Rights are
“generally framed as limitations on the government not as rights pertaining to individuals.”
This is true, but it is also the case that the intense sense of grievance that preceded the Glorious Revolution was rooted not only in constitutional conflict but in specific injustices and fears experienced by so many. It was only later that it became established that Ministers required the active confidence of the House of Commons, and later still that the most effective way of achieving it was through fixed groupings of broadly similar views bound by interest and self-discipline to attain majorities. Not until 1906 were the Standing Orders of the other place amended to give the Government control of the Order Paper to control the business of the House of Commons. Thus, in our system, the historic check of the legislature on the Government has always and continues to be a matter of dynamic friction, to put it in the most neutral way possible.
The Government’s own independent review of the Human Rights Act, chaired by Sir Peter Gross, attests to the high regard in which UK courts are held. The incidents which have caused the Government so much concern in terms of so-called mission creep by UK courts or the European Court of Human Rights are not less than 10 years old. Governments must expect to lose cases. For example, the Law Lords rejected indefinite detention without charge or trial in terrorist cases for foreign nationals in 2004, but do we not acknowledge now that an appropriate balance was struck? Instead, we see increasingly in other systems the rule of law being suborned and the undermining of an independent judiciary. Edmund Burke put it well when he said:
“Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.”
Our legislature, our Government, our courts and indeed our constitution will flourish all the better if we nurture a determined respect for our institutions and commit to living out the highest ideals in their operation. A healthy democracy is not about the corralling of a majority but about how each and every one of our representatives behaves, including ourselves, and how they regard all other aspects of our common life. On occasion, that will involve a proper restraint on personal interests, and at all times respect for those of others, including those with whom we may disagree. I contend that intentional appreciation of our institutions, which of course includes those of government and Parliament and greater caution—not undoing checks and balances, nor the protections evolved for good reasons over centuries—would help to instil a stronger culture of both individual as well as of corporate responsibility. I believe that is Her Majesty’s Government’s avowed aim—certainly on good days. It would be a more laudable focus than a Bill constraining the courts in favour of the Government.
Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate. I declare my interest as a practising barrister, in what is my maiden speech from the Back Benches. I do not know whether the convention against controversiality therefore applies to me, although as the formal Motion before the House is to propose a humble Address to Her Majesty, nothing can be less controversial, or indeed command more unanimous acclaim.
I would like to say a few words about the proposed measure to replace the Human Rights Act with a Bill of Rights. I am conscious that having done, let us say, a fair amount of work in this area while serving as a Minister, I feel a little like the expectant father who, having seen the 30-week scan, now paces anxiously outside the delivery room to see what on earth has happened in the meantime. I hope that the Bill will be delivered both safely and in rude health but, as we wait for it, a little historical context might be in order.
It might come as a shock to some commentators, but human rights did not begin in 1998 with the passage of the Human Rights Act. The UK signed the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950, and extended the right of individual petition to the European Court of Human Rights in 1966. What really changed in 1998 was the ability of individuals to vindicate their convention rights in the UK courts, rather than having to get a train to Strasbourg. As we have heard again this morning, the UK will remain a signatory to the convention, and convention rights will still be enforceable in our courts. One might therefore ask what all the fuss is about.
One answer is that, rather like the Judicial Review and Courts Act in the last Session—and I declare an appropriate interest there as well—too many commentators appear to work on the basis of, “Tweet first, read the Bill later”. Others take it as axiomatic that anything emerging from a Conservative Government must be bad, although it was a Conservative Government who signed and ratified the European convention in the first place. The truth is that human rights remain controversial because the subject is often the place where law and politics meet—and I shall make four short points in that context.
First, human rights law is often seen as something which causes problems rather than provides protections. People moan about “human rights” in the way that they moan about “health and safety”, although I suspect that the absence of either would cause them problems—they would miss both if they were not there. I do not put all our current constitutional problems at the door of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who will speak next, although the rather attenuated role of the modern Lord Chancellor is one of them, but he might agree with me that, in retrospect, the language of “bringing rights home”, used for the 1998 Act, was unfortunate because it cast human rights as a foreign implant in our legal soil, whereas in truth many of them actually have firm jurisdictional roots in this country and have been grafted on and become part of our common law tradition.
Secondly, as often with law, the issue is frequently not the rights themselves but the way they have been interpreted, a point made forcefully in several papers from Policy Exchange. That is because the Strasbourg court uses the living instrument theory when interpreting the convention, which ends up with that court deciding what additional rights it thinks a modern democracy ought to have, and which, necessarily, are not found in the text of the convention itself. So, the convention has been held to apply extraterritorially—for example, to British Army bases in Iraq—despite there being no basis in the text for that conclusion. Rights in the text are given a radically new meaning. Article 8, which was obviously intended to protect personal and family life from the surveillance of totalitarian regimes, is now found to extend to noise abatement issues, the legal status of illegitimate children and the non-payment of rent. Those issues are important, but my point is that in a democracy they are better resolved not in a courtroom but in a parliamentary Chamber.
That brings me to my third point. Law is sometimes messy, and politics, as I now know only too well, can be messier. But politicians—at least, some of them—are elected, while judges are not; politicians can be removed, judges cannot. I value our judges enormously, even when, perhaps especially when, they decide against my clients. But it is because of that respect that I do not want to see judges being pulled into what are essentially political or moral issues: these should be decided here and not on the other side of Parliament Square.
My final point is that debate is good, both here and in the public square, both the physical and the online public square. When the Bill of Rights is laid before Parliament, I want to see an energetic public debate. As has been said, free speech is the cornerstone of rights; the right, ultimately, on which all other rights depend. I therefore wait with interest to see how that proper emphasis on freedom of expression is to be squared with the apparent approach in the Online Safety Bill to limit speech which is deemed—I am not sure by whom, where or on what basis—to be entirely lawful but none the less harmful. I take the view that people need to know what the boundaries are, and those boundaries we call “law”. Legal consequences should follow only when legal boundaries have been breached. That is, I suggest, part of a society governed by the rule of law.
We heard the prophet Amos quoted a few moments ago. I will conclude with the psalmist, for whom justice and law are the foundation of God’s throne, of which Her Majesty’s Throne in this Chamber is a constant reminder. I suggest that justice and law are, and should be, the foundation of our society as well.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Lab)
I warmly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, to the naughty step. The precise nature of our misbehaviours may vary from time to time.
I agree with everything the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, in particular about the talking-shop blancmange collapsing at ping-pong. I think the Cross Benchers thought, when they were electing the noble and learned Lord as Convenor, that they were electing Gregory Peck—because of his looks and because of the fact that he played Atticus Finch. In fact, as his revolutionary sentiments this afternoon have indicated, they elected Jane Fonda without realising it.
This is a Government where power is focused on a small number of elected politicians, unconstrained by the law, because they control lawmaking; unaffected by parliamentary scrutiny, because they use their Commons majority to reduce scrutiny as much as possible; and fighting back against the courts, not by responding to judgments, but by making it clear to the courts that if they find against the Government in important cases, those judges will pay a political price. This is completely exceptional in my experience. I describe an elective dictatorship, possible because the Executive control Parliament.
We are a liberal democracy: not liberal in the sense of “progressive” but in the sense that the Government govern for all the people, constrained by law and constitutional convention. We are not a dictatorship democracy where, once elected, the Government can do exactly what they like and ignore the interests of those who did or might vote against them. The consequences of a dictatorship democracy, which we are moving towards, is a divided society; a politically corrupt elite running the country; and an incompetent Government, because they are never properly scrutinised. Our constitution is designed to stop this happening. The combined power of parliamentary scrutiny and the force of law are the main constraints. These constraints have been significantly undermined over the last decade.
The degradation of those constraints is going to be accelerated by the constitutional proposals contained in the gracious Speech. This has happened because of the character of the Government over the last 10 years. Of course, there is the position of the current Prime Minister, who exudes an utter disdain for Parliament, for the courts, for Scotland, for law and lawyers. Every constitution depends on the sensitivity of the head of Government to constitutional propriety. The current Prime Minister’s attitude is brilliantly summed up by the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, much revered in this place, who described him in an interview in January this year as,
“absolutely tone deaf to all the niceties of this. He hasn’t got a single feel for either proper behaviour, proper procedure, not a single nerve end. He has got no sense of the restraints you need to make this work. If a bit of it annoys him or gets in his way, he tries to cast it aside, like proroguing parliament, like the Standards Committee”.
But it goes much deeper, I say, than a PM who could not give a damn; it also involves a Government which deceive about their policies. If noble Lords have a moment, read the evidence of the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, before the Grenfell Tower inquiry, where he chides counsel for the inquiry for suggesting that the way we discover what the Government were doing was to look at the press releases of the Government at the time. These describe a policy of “two regulations out, one in”, which they used to reduce fire regulations. The noble Lord criticised Mr Richard Millett QC, for suggesting to him that one should view that as an indication of what the Government stood for.
Priti Patel is currently doing Rwanda. She previously suggested she had a policy of push-back: asylum seekers were being pushed back in small boats. Court proceedings were begun. The courts insisted on getting a copy of the policy in writing. The Government said, “No—public interest immunity: you cannot have it.” The courts rightly swept that aside. When the document was produced, it was revealed that the policy was explicitly not to apply to asylum seekers. It is wrong that we need the courts in order to discover what is going on in the Government. Part of this trend is the determination to reduce the basic rights of the citizens, their civil rights.
The gracious Speech, as many have said, refers to restoring
“the balance of power between the legislature and the courts by introducing a Bill of Rights.”—[Official Report, Commons, 10/5/22; col. 6.]
We know what this means, because it is set out in the consultation paper the Government have issued. The Government take issue with the idea that legislation should be construed, as far as possible, to be consistent with the Human Rights Act. They attack the notion that the framework documents for citizens’ rights should be living instruments that move with the times. They attack the notion that, for example, the law, through the European convention, was able to eradicate the idea that, if you were illegitimate, it was acceptable for the state to discriminate against you; that it was acceptable for corporal punishment, the birch, to be used as an answer to crime; or that, if you were gay, it was possible to discriminate against you. All those were put right by the idea of a law being able to move with the times. This Government want to ensure that only the Commons majority can determine where we should be, and that would be only on the basis of a dictatorship democracy.
I agree with the words of my illustrious predecessor, Lord Hailsham, in 1976, when he railed against an elective dictatorship:
“My object is continuity and evolution”—
and so is mine—
“not change for its own sake.”—
And so is mine—
“But my conviction remains that the best way of achieving continuity is by a thorough re-construction of the fabric of our historic mansion. It is no longer wind- or weather-proof. Nor are its foundations still secure.”
With respect, I agree that those words apply now.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames (LD)
My Lords, this was a depressing Queen’s Speech, and nothing in it more so than the Bill of Rights proposal. The Government’s briefing promises to
“end the abuse of the human rights framework and restore some common sense to our justice system”.
The assumptions that our human rights framework is being abused and that our justice system lacks common sense rely on banal, populist assertions, unsupported by any evidence.
The so-called “main elements of the Bill” include
“restricting the scope for judicial legislation”
and
“guaranteeing spurious cases do not undermine public confidence in human rights”.
These are vindictive and populist attacks on the Human Rights Act and on judicial review, unjustified, unfair to the judges and unworthy of serious politicians. As to what will be in the Bill, we are left to guess. Neither the briefing nor the Queen’s Speech even mention the Human Rights Act. The Minister enlightened us no further. The Government claim to be committed to the ECHR, yet they say they will
“establish the primacy of UK case law, clarifying that there is no requirement to follow Strasbourg case law”.
Can the Minister explain how that sits with Article 46 of the convention, which provides that:
“The High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties”?
If the UK is bound by decisions in cases to which it is party, how can our courts ignore Strasbourg decisions in other cases?
The truth is that the Human Rights Act has worked well for more than 21 years and still does, with great respect to eloquent points made by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson. It is true that Governments may sometimes resent the Act, a point powerfully made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, but then it often suits Governments to override human rights. That is precisely what the Act and the convention are there to prevent.
The Act amply fulfilled its promise to “bring rights home”, enabling litigants here to enforce their convention rights in domestic courts. Can the Minister tell us the Government’s true intention? Is it to repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with this new Bill of Rights? Will UK residents be entitled to enforce convention rights here or must they travel to Strasbourg once again?
Nor does the Act undermine parliamentary sovereignty. If a court finds a statute incompatible with the convention, it cannot strike it down. It makes a declaration of incompatibility under Section 4. Parliament then usually legislates to remove the incompatibility. Certainly, by Section 3(1) courts must try to read legislation in a way that is compatible with the convention. So they should—we have an international obligation to respect convention rights. The section is sparingly and wisely applied; there is no evidence to the contrary.
We used to have a reputation for respecting our international obligations. This Government have cast that to the winds; witness their disrespect for the Northern Ireland protocol and the refugee convention. Such carelessness betrays a long Conservative history of honouring international obligations.
This Government established the Independent Human Rights Act Review in December 2020, with Sir Peter Gross as chair and a distinguished and varied panel. It was briefed to consider both the relationship between Strasbourg and our domestic courts and the Act’s impact on the constitutional balance between government and judiciary, which is not the one that needs rebalancing, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, supported by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighhead. The review’s report made some detailed recommendations to make the Act work better—unsurprising after 21 years—but by and large the Act received a clean bill of health. The Government now threaten to ditch the review’s findings. In so doing, they appear to ascribe to the British public an ill-informed and frankly bigoted approach to human rights, which I believe seriously misreads the fair-mindedness of the people of this country.
For Liberal Democrats, belief in human rights is at our core. We will defend the Human Rights Act in full and the right of all in the UK to enforce convention rights here. We will do so for everyone, without discrimination or prejudice, because the Act has shown that human rights are for everyone, in matters of education, housing, health, social care and freedom of expression as well, not just undeserving foreigners trying to stay unlawfully in the UK, as the Government seem to imply. I have faith that we will be supported in that campaign, across the House and among the wider public.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, I would like to take the opportunity of this House’s humble Address to the Queen’s Speech to touch on the issue of our constitutional monarchy and its role in limiting—or not—the power of the Executive. As we all know, the time cannot be too far away when the nation will have to witness the death of our beloved Queen. This distressing event will, however, allow us the first opportunity since 1952 to consider, as a nation, what kind of monarchy might be appropriate in the 21st century and how far this should become a matter of public debate.
At present we have a constitutional monarchy, a role that the Queen has followed to the letter. Her Majesty has certain prerogative powers which theoretically exert a check on the executive branch of our political system and specifically on the Prime Minister as the head of an elected Government. It is a constitutional principle that these prerogative powers are rarely employed and the Executive remain effectively unchecked. If a future monarch chose to resuscitate these prerogative powers, there could be a constitutional crisis. Even were this not to be the case, should we as a nation automatically retain the status quo, or should we discuss and consult on the role of the Head of State in the current political settlement?
There have been moves in recent years towards a more slimmed down monarchic system, as evidenced, for example, by the Prince of Wales’s stated intention to work towards this and the most recent decision that only working royals should appear on the royal balcony during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. However, as a result of our largely unwritten constitution consisting of norms and conventions, there is still a lack of clarity on the role of the monarch as Head of State. The newly set up Commission on Political Power, of which I am a co-founder, intends to examine this particular aspect in some detail. The alternatives that will be considered include everything from the status quo to a presidential system. For example, although the monarchy has evolved in small steps over hundreds of years, the hereditary principle of primogeniture remains despite there being several alternatives.
Another alternative would be a purely ceremonial monarchy. The ceremonial role of the monarch and senior royals is not only greatly admired by millions but adds to the gaiety of nations and swells the UK Treasury through tourism and trade. The patronage of worthy causes is invaluable in raising funds and influence. The sense of unity and continuity derived from the monarchic traditions—the Christmas speech, the conferring of honours, state occasions such as the Trooping of the Colour—cannot be overestimated. But should a Prime Minister seek in future to push the boundaries of the UK political system, or should a future monarch wish to intervene in legislation that affects his or her financial or other interests, only a constitutional court or some such body could effectively resolve a crisis.
With a purely ceremonial monarchy, questions would also arise as to who should invest a new Prime Minister or read the Government’s speech at the State Opening of Parliament—or, indeed, whether the monarch should read that speech at all. How would the work of this ceremonial role be funded, and who would set the limits? To what extent would this refashioned monarchy be accountable to the public, and indeed by what mechanisms?
As with all discourse of this kind, the UK constitution is a delicate system of intertwined shreds and patches—easily upset and resulting in unintended consequences. The tendency to keep things as they are is strong, with reason, as is the desire to proceed with extreme caution and delay. That said, many of us were shocked in 2019 when the Prorogation called by the Prime Minister, in the name of the Queen and ratified by her, was ruled unlawful. Maybe now is the time to at least put the question of what a modern, 21st-century UK monarchy could look like into the public arena.
Viscount Bridgeman (Con)
My Lords, I trust that your Lordships will forgive me for wandering slightly off piste in the context of this debate, because I wish to speak about the problem of marriages under sharia law in this country and, in particular, the fate of Muslim women seeking a religious divorce or being subject to a divorce by their husbands. At the outset, I pay tribute to the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who has been tireless in her efforts to improve the lot of this potentially vulnerable section of society. She is unable to speak in this debate as she has committed to speaking elsewhere in the debate on the humble Address.
This is not an insignificant issue. In 2017, a Channel 4 survey found that 60% of Muslim women who have had traditional Islamic weddings in Britain are not legally married. Of these, 28% are unaware of the fact that they do not have the same legal rights as someone with a civilly registered marriage. The absolute figures are alarming: as many as 100,000 couples in Britain are estimated to be living in religious-only marriages, and this number will only increase.
The roots of this most unsatisfactory state of affairs have been raised many times in your Lordships’ House, but when it comes to Muslim women being subject to a divorce, cases of real cruelty become apparent. Let me mention briefly a few of the factors affecting this, the first of which is the largely unregulated use of sharia law. I understand that sharia courts can be set up with little formality by any member of the Muslim community, and it comes as little surprise that the application and interpretation of sharia law can vary widely. The problem can be exacerbated in the many cases where women may not be aware of their legal rights and may well have language problems. Then there is the extreme shame which a Muslim woman in a divorce situation can be subjected to, both within her family and in the community. I have to say that, regrettably, the police have sometimes not come up to their proper responsibilities because of their concern about race relations implications.
May I give an instance which is not atypical of the problems facing Muslim women seeking a divorce? It is not anecdotal. A Muslim woman, at huge risk to her family relationships, appeared at one of the landmark meetings of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. A sharia court disregarded a British court order put in place to protect a woman and her children from a violent husband. When the sharia court arranged a mediation session, it heard the husband’s testimony without requiring proof. By contrast, from the woman they required two witnesses to confirm her case, because, coming from only one woman, her testimony was seen as being worth less.
I now come to the position of my friends in the Government. The Government continue to claim that there is no need for a change in the law because all citizens can access their rights according to law, yet the chasm between the de jure and the de facto is an abyss into which countless women are falling and suffering as a result.
We are not short of enlightened advice on this matter. The Independent Review into the Application of Sharia Law in England and Wales reported as long ago as February 2018. That perceptive document made a number of important recommendations, the most basic of which was that the Marriage Act 1949 and the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 needed to be amended:
“The changes are to ensure that civil marriages are conducted before or at the same time as the Islamic marriage ceremony, bringing Islamic marriage in line with Christian and Jewish marriage in the eyes of the law.”
This could not be clearer. Another helpful report echoing the same long-overdue need to bring British law into the 21st century
“to reflect the diversity of beliefs and practices”
in modern society has come from the Nuffield Foundation. I am pleased to note that the Law Commission will be taking that into account in its own report, which I understand is due in July.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has been indefatigable in pursuing this matter for the past 11 years. She is to be congratulated on her creation of a not-for-profit organisation, Equal and Free, that seeks to champion the rights of British Muslim women who do not yet—I repeat “yet”—have the protection of legal marriage. A number of her Written Questions have received near-identical responses to the effect that the Government are awaiting the outcome of the Law Commission’s wedding project—they cannot delay on this now—which I understand is due in July, as I have said. The nine Private Members’ Bills she has introduced in the last 11 years, though receiving cross-party support, have not received a meaningful government response. Of these nine Bills, the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill did get as far as the Commons, where it ran out of time.
The issue of religious-only marriages has been raised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and, surprisingly, the Grand Mufti of Egypt. In 2018, this Government committed in the Integrated Communities Strategy Green Paper to
“explore the legal and practical challenges of limited reform relating to the law on marriage and religious weddings.”
So far, this commitment has not been followed by action. I therefore ask my noble friend the Minister for an assurance that the Government will not delay any further in acting on the Law Commission’s report and will, in the next Session, bring forward legislation—the admirably simple template for which is the Marriage Act 1949 (Amendment) Bill, reintroduced in 2021 by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and awaiting a Second Reading. This is an open-clause Bill to:
“Amend the Marriage Act 1949 to create an offence of purporting to solemnize an unregistered marriage.”
Its simple message is that all future marriages in the United Kingdom will require to be registered. What could be simpler than that?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I respectfully remind the House that the Back-Bench advisory speaking time is six minutes. Thank you.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, noted when she spoke earlier, DCMS has six Bills in this Session for which it is the lead department, and one—the digital markets, competition and consumer Bill—for which it is joint lead with BEIS. This is a large and significant amount of activity, and it is good to see it coming from a department that has often not pulled its weight as much as its importance would suggest. I am sad that time limits mean that I cannot deal with much of what is to come, and I am going to restrict my remarks to the media Bill and the Online Safety Bill.
The appearance of the recent White Paper on broadcasting, Up Next, was a bit of surprise. We normally have to wait, sometimes for years, before getting insights into the Government’s thinking on big policy issues, particularly if, as in this case, they deal with controversial issues not covered in their manifesto. In truth, this is more of a Green Paper than a traditional White Paper—perhaps a smoky green. There are some welcome decisions on policy on the future of public service broadcasting and on prominence and standards in the digital world, but flagrant disregard of the evidence received about the proposed privatisation of Channel 4 and an almost universal rejection of the arguments from experts, commentators, Select Committees and Conservative Back-Benchers in the other place—and indeed here, on Tuesday, rather bravely, by the second supporter of the humble Address, the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser. These suggest that the Government have got this wrong, so what on earth is it doing in the list of Bills?
Up Next gets right much of the history, thinking, careful policy development and past practice which has created our brilliant public service broadcasting system, which the Government admit is the envy of the world. Some of the changes proposed will build on that and can be supported. But the truth is that unless the Government radically change the carefully constructed remit for Channel 4, it will not sell, as no private sector owner could make the returns it will need to recoup its investment and then go on to make profits. That means that the distinctive public service remit and support of the creative industries that Channel 4 has delivered in recent years will be lost and with it will go the 100 years of public service broadcasting that the Government say they want to preserve. Up next? What next? If the Government proceed with this proposal, they will find that they have a battle on their hands. With Red Igor, as we must call him—sadly, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, is not in his place—egging us on, who knows where we will go?
Like others, I welcome the changes the Government have made to the original draft of the Online Safety Bill, which has the potential to establish an effective framework for the regulation of social media companies operating in the UK. I suggest to the Government that they work with the considerable expertise that exists in your Lordships’ House, including among those of us who served on the excellent Joint Select Committee which undertook the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. This could get us to a much better place on a number of the key issues; we are not far apart.
There are issues that would be the subject of early meetings and I shall suggest an agenda for the Minister to consider once this debate is over. The drafting of the Bill is overly complex. For example, while the objectives of the legislation now appear in the Bill, they are in Schedule 4. Given that they underwrite the Bill’s safety duties, this seems a very bizarre choice that is likely to cause confusion. There needs to be a clearer separation of powers between Ministers and the regulator. The draft Bill takes far too many powers for the Secretary of State, particularly egregious being the Secretary of State’s power to direct Ofcom to modify codes of practice to bring them in line with government policy—so much for an independent regulator.
The Bill quickly loses the clarity and focus of its earlier parts and much of the detailed material should be left to the regulator to determine. In particular, the proposed rigid categorisation of companies and the strictures on remediation for legal but harmful content surely have to flow from the risk assessments carried out by the regulator. This attempt to micromanage the legislation has meant that the Bill does not properly address the issue raised by my noble friend Lord Hunt: how to balance freedom of speech with the huge volumes of racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, disinformation and misinformation that are not criminal but are oppressive and harmful.
The late, but welcome, decision to include scam adverts in the Bill raises the issue of how advertising is regulated more generally. The current ASA self-regulatory regime for the content of ads and the weakness of the penalties which can be applied need to be urgently reformed, but the whole system needs to be controlled by Ofcom. The regime described in the Bill could and should be employed by other regulators to make markets work better and offer more protection to the public. Surely this would be a good time to make sure that all regulators, including the Electoral Commission, have the statutory powers they need and ensure that joint action has full statutory backing.
Our Joint Committee felt strongly that there should be a continuing role for Parliament in this fast-moving and technically challenging area. A possible model here is the Joint Committee on Human Rights; perhaps the Minister could address this when he comes to respond. Finally, a glaring anomaly in the Bill is the complete absence of any systematic approach to ensure that consumer complaints and redress against social media publications are properly dealt with. Ofcom will have the power to ensure that there are systems in place, but despite the fact that there is already concern about this issue and the public expectation is that there will be action, nothing appears in the Bill. It is time for the Government to act.
Lord Dholakia (LD)
My Lords, the Government have pronounced that they will level up opportunities in all parts of the country. The need is most obvious in the criminal justice system yet the provisions for reforms are very scarce. Where is the provision for crime prevention and schemes for diverting as many young offenders and others from the prison system? It is not being soft, but we have to accept the low level of realistic contribution which the courts and prisons can make in reducing crime.
I draw attention once again to this country’s overuse of imprisonment, as was so ably done by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester. The prison population of England and Wales currently stands at nearly 80,000. It is projected to increase to over 98,000 in 2026. We have 132 people in prison for every 100,000 people in our general population, compared with 100 in France and 70 in Germany, two of our closest European neighbours. The British people are not twice as criminal as the German people, yet our sentencing is twice as punitive.
Of the 41,000 people sent to prison in the 12 months to June 2021, 40% were sentenced to serve terms of six months or less. These short sentences do little to reduce crime. They are too short for any serious rehabilitative work to take place, yet they can result in offenders losing jobs and accommodation, which increases rather than reduces their likelihood of reoffending. Community sentences have significantly lower reoffending rates than short prison sentences for comparable offenders, yet their use has more than halved in the last decade. Sentences have become significantly longer for almost all categories of offence. The average prison sentence for an indictable offence is now 55 months, nearly two years longer than in 2008, when it was around 32 months. The average minimum term imposed on offenders receiving life sentences for murder rose from 13 years in 2001 to 20 years in 2020.
Offenders from minority-ethnic groups are disproportionately likely to receive custodial sentences. Estimates published by the Ministry of Justice in 2017 indicated that black people were over 50% more likely to be sent to prison for indictable offences at the Crown Court, even when higher not guilty plea rates were factored in. The same Ministry of Justice publication estimated that if the prison population reflected the ethnic composition of the general population, we would have over 9,000 fewer people in prison, the equivalent of 12 average-sized prisons. One recent survey found that only 7% of people thought that imprisoning more people would be effective in cutting crime.
Inspectorate ratings of purposeful activity in custody have seen a marked decline over the last decade, and were declining significantly even before Covid-19 restrictions were imposed throughout the prison system. Following the recent Root and Branch Review of the Parole System, the Government have come up with the astonishing proposal that the Secretary of State should be empowered in certain cases to overrule release decisions by the Parole Board. The Parole Board is a judicial body which makes judicial decisions. The proposal would line us up with dictatorships around the world in which politicians interfere with judicial decisions. It is difficult to see any serious argument for such a change. The proportion of prisoners released on parole who commit a further offence is less than 0.5%. No system based on human judgment could produce a significantly better result and there is certainly no reason to believe that the Secretary of State’s judgment would be more accurate than the accumulated experience and expertise of the Parole Board.
In conclusion, I shall talk about how we should look seriously at ways of reducing crime. The Government should legislate for a presumption against short custodial sentences. They should take steps to increase the use of community sentences, which research has shown have significantly lower reoffending rates than short periods in custody. They should require the Sentencing Council to take the capacity of the prison system into account when it produces sentencing guidelines. Instead of devoting resources to expanding the prison system, they should plough them into the prevention of crime, support for victims and the rehabilitation of offenders. This approach would do far more to increase public safety than maintaining and reinforcing this country’s reputation as the most punitive outpost in western Europe.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, the Queen’s Speech quite rightly declared:
“Her Majesty’s Government will ensure the constitution is defended.”
I do not propose to address the substantive issues that will arise in future Bills. Instead, I want to put forward that the crumbling infrastructure of our legal system and its governance is an impediment to the proper delivery of the constitution and the upholding of the rule of law. If there are insufficient courts and judges, if the lack of legal aid makes access impossible and causes barristers to strike, and if there is no champion of the legal system and a constant succession of downgraded Lord Chancellors, we can have no assurance that the rights that people have can be enforced and protected. Justice delayed is justice denied.
There is such a backlog of cases that victims are being failed. The longer they wait, the more likely it is that the case will collapse. Even the funding that has been provided to reduce the backlog will still leave it too high. We do not have enough judges, lawyers and staff to support the criminal courts. The courthouses themselves are in a poor condition, as has been pointed out by the Lord Chief Justice. Magistrates have had their sentencing powers doubled in an attempt to reduce the backlog, but it has been suggested that this may lead only to more appeals to the Crown Court, which already has a number of outstanding trials. The criminal law barristers have started industrial action over concerns about legal aid funding. They demand—and should get—a 15% rise in rates for legal aid. The number of judges is insufficient. Despite the highest ever recorded number of rape offences, there have been only 1,557 prosecutions—fewer than in the previous 12 months—and prosecutions have fallen by 70% over the past four years.
To rescue the system there needs to be long-term planning and exploration of the assistance that might be rendered by data collection, technology and mediation, as well as, of course, the recruitment of more judges and proper support for barristers working in the criminal and family law fields. Looking back, one can see that none of the goals of the Legal Services Board in 2009 relating to legal aid and access has been achieved—now there is a quango ripe for abolition.
Family law in particular has suffered during the pandemic. I note that the time taken to deal with financial remedy cases in London is now at an intolerable level: two to three years. Judges’ time is used on helping self-representing litigants, which is not the right use of their time.
The situation will be exacerbated by the introduction of no-fault divorce, which has already led to a sharp rise in cases. Advocates of this new law like to paint the system as smooth and amicable but, as has been widely pointed out, the most bitter and litigious elements of it are arrangements for children and for the resolution of financial splits. Couples will therefore pass swiftly through the divorce portal only to grind to a complete halt when it comes to finance and children. Mediation costs are subsidised when there are children and money disputes but this is no remedy for a thoroughly bad law on financial provision, so stereotyped, expensive and uncertain that it encourages litigation and dispute and leaves England out of line with the rest of most of Europe and the US.
For years I have pleaded for reform and, with the noble Baroness, Lady Shackleton, introduced Bills to do just that. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, promised a review of the law, to be completed within three years—and that undertaking was given over two years ago. There has been no progress so far, but the only opponents of reform are the lawyers, who do so well out of the costs. It is shameful that this reform is not being undertaken immediately, and I look for an assurance from the Minister. There is an enormous challenge to be faced in view of the number of broken marriages and abandoned children. Making financial provision law a bit more no-fault and understandable would be the key.
At the root of all these problems lies the position of the Lord Chancellor. Before the reform of that post by Prime Minister Blair, whereby the Lord Chancellor became a Minister of Justice, the Lord Chancellor had been a senior figure with judicial experience, who had no more to prove, who was not seeking a higher office, who commanded the respect of the profession and the Cabinet, and who protected the judiciary and the entire legal system. That reform is now widely known to have been a mistake. We have had eight Lord Chancellors in the last 10 years; they move on so fast that they cannot be immersed in the job, and the legal profession, the constitution and the rule of law have no champion. In this House we have lost the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, and the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, from their key positions. I say: bring back the old-style Lord Chancellor.
Lord Moylan (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. I agree with much of what she said about the state of the courts and the justice system, and I particularly wish to echo her call for the Lord Chancellor to be restored to his former status.
I support the Motion for an humble Address. On the whole, I welcome the Government’s programme and look forward to taking part in Bills as diverse as those on procurement, transport and HS2. However, I have serious concerns about some measures, particularly the Online Safety Bill, where I thought the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and seconded, if you like, by my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, was completely compelling. I have very serious concerns about that.
I am anxious to ensure that the conversion therapy Bill protects young people from irreversible surgical and chemical interventions. I also want to be clear that any measure to tighten the parole system, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia, does not delay the resolution of the continuing scandal of prisoners serving historic indefinite sentences for public protection.
However, I want to give the bulk of my remarks today to the question of Northern Ireland, on this day in which we are discussing our constitution. The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, said that she regretted a number of measures that did not appear in the gracious Speech. I deeply regretted the absence of a clear commitment to repeal the legislation putting the Northern Ireland protocol into effect. We have subsequently heard more about a Bill that did not appear in the gracious Speech than we have about any of the measures that did appear in it, but we still have no idea what that Bill might contain. It needs not to tinker with the protocol but to remove it.
Let me deal with two objections. The first is the “You signed it” argument, quintessentially ad hominem in character. Implicit in that is the idea that, if the Northern Ireland protocol is not working, the Brexit deal as a whole was a bad deal. That is far from the case. Any major project that might be undertaken, such as building yourself a house, may go perfectly well in a large number of respects but none the less have a flaw—you find the garage block roof is leaking. Of course, you can spend a very long time arguing about who was responsible for that, and you can even spend time litigating about it, but none of that actually fixes the problem. The focus of government has to be on fixing the problem—that is what the Government have to do. I hope we hear no more of that argument, which, as I say, is almost childish—a political point-scoring.
The second argument is that we may breach an international agreement. This was an argument advanced frequently and with vigour during your Lordships’ debate of Part 5 of the Internal Market Bill, but I noted then that a number of noble Lords, not least those with judicial experience, said that there might be a case for doing so if a harm could be pointed to. With more than a year’s experience, we can now point to the harms done by the Northern Ireland protocol. I shall not, because I do not have the direct experience, dwell on the harms done to the economy—perfectly predictable harms, as the European Union insisted on an almost overnight transition from the sourcing of the inputs of that economy from one market to another. I shall not expand on the split between the communities that has been sharpened and which now threatens the institutions of the Good Friday agreement and the peace process, because I do not have the intimate knowledge of Northern Irish politics that others bring to your Lordships’ House.
I end by pointing only to the damage that the Northern Ireland protocol is doing to us and to our union—to our United Kingdom. We have discussed human rights a great deal today. How can we consider ourselves a United Kingdom when tax rates such as VAT are set in part of our United Kingdom by a foreign power with no representation by the people who suffer the incidence of that tax? How can the Government be said to be discharging their obligations to the welfare of all the people within their territory if some of those people are dependent for the supply of medicines on legislation passed unilaterally in a foreign Parliament? If the present situation continues, we will in effect have given up on the union.
We have not seen the Bill. As I said, I hope it is comprehensive. I say to my noble friends on the Front Bench that we will not get a third chance to put this right. A measure that goes off at half cock will simply not do.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
Like other noble Lords, I will focus on the Government’s announcement of a Bill of Rights to restore the balance of power between the legislature and the courts. I declare my interest as a council member of Justice and one of those human rights lawyers for whom various Ministers regularly express open contempt.
I remind your Lordships that the legislature is not synonymous with the Executive, nor with the present incumbent of No. 10, notwithstanding the elective dictatorship analysis in the late Lord Hailsham’s outstanding 1976 lecture, to which my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton referred. Executive domination is not the model of our unwritten constitution, whose overarching principles are supposed to be parliamentary sovereignty and the rule of law. Contrary to Orwellian spin, when the Government abused prerogative power in 2019 quite literally to shut down the legislature, it was to the courts that parliamentarians were forced to turn for redress. This is not the first time that, faced with executive overreach, Parliament and the courts worked together to restore legality.
I commend everything said by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. Although a great deal of legislation contains sweeping executive powers ripe for abuse, now and in future, by accident or design, the so-called Bill of Rights presents the gravest threat of all by removing the ability of people and courts to ensure that powers are exercised compatibly with rights and freedoms and that abusers of state power are properly held to account. In reducing rights protections rather than enhancing them in our nations, instead offering greater impunity to the state, the proposed Bill would achieve the very opposite of any constitutional Bill of Rights. It is not a Bill of Rights in any sense of the English language, and that will be important when considering whether it really fulfils a manifesto commitment.
By contrast, the Human Rights Act was designed by a Labour Government after cross-party consultation to incorporate the European convention rights drafted by Conservative lawyers after World War II. It requires our courts to “take account” of Strasbourg jurisprudence while not being bound by it. This gives them primacy at home, including to disagree with the Court of Human Rights, but also ensures that they remain in constant dialogue with that court and others across the Council of Europe and contribute to rights protections there too.
We are told that this link is to be broken. Under the proposed Bill, our courts will not even have to “take account” of the decisions of the Court of Human Rights—an extraordinary signal to send to the Council of Europe when Russia’s expulsion and Hungary’s violations put that jurisdiction in flux. Yet, in a rather bizarre exercise of executive cake-eating and magical thinking, courts will be allowed to diminish rights expanded in Strasbourg but never “exceed” the protection of these decisions, which they are not required to read.
Just as the Human Rights Act achieves dialogue between domestic and international courts, so it preserves balance between Parliament and judiciary. It requires that all legislation be read compatibly with human rights so far as it is possible to do so. When the language of a statute is just too plainly incompatible, Her Majesty’s senior judges make a declaration to this effect with only moral and persuasive force—that is it. It is suggested that these provisions will be jettisoned, as will duties on public authorities to exercise their powers with respect to human rights obligations, including positive obligations—for example, on the police to protect the public. What on earth will be left as enforcement mechanisms in this so-called Bill of Rights?
If that were not enough, redress could be limited to British nationals demonstrating “significant disadvantage” and “good behaviour”. How many times in history have abuses of power been justified as trivial—such as Rosa Parks being ordered to the back of the bus—or directed at “suspect” people? Think of every Soviet dissident, or Mandela under apartheid. How does this square with past apologies to the Windrush victims or to those of every other miscarriage of administrative or criminal justice?
Noble Lords need no reminding that ECHR compliance is baked into all devolution settlements, which currently and rather precariously hold this kingdom together. This is especially grave in relation to Northern Ireland. The efforts of previous statespeople resulted in the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. This Government’s approach to rights is better epitomised by the Maundy Thursday pact with Rwanda.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, the noble Baroness reminds us how much we owe to those who have challenged the system.
A new legislative programme does not mean that the last programme is done and dusted. Even if secondary legislation is not required, guidance and codes of practice will be, because how things are done matters. The Nationality and Borders Act certainly requires them. The relevant sectors have experience in every part of policy-making, and the Government should take advantage of them and involve them. I got the very clear impression that the sector was not consulted appropriately on the part of that Act relating to modern slavery—which, sadly, represented a very retrograde step—but advances working with the sector can be made without legislation.
Earlier this year, the then anti-slavery commissioner published a report on slavery and trafficking risk orders and prevention orders. Importantly, these do not require the support of victims. We know that victims can find it impossible to give evidence in a prosecution because of their experiences, but who is checking that orders are complied with? Monitoring as well as evaluation is necessary if measures are to be used effectively; I mention that as one example of what could be many.
Of course, the Immigration Rules are, as you might say, a law unto themselves. Another bunch came into effect yesterday. We are told—I quote from the Minister’s letter, for which I thank her—that it is “necessary and proportionate” in connection with the UK-Rwanda partnership to ensure that they are applied. The letter says:
“Given the anticipated deterrent effect of the Partnership on people smuggling, this will help to quickly reduce the number of dangerous journeys and save lives.”
We on these Benches fear that the Government are actually creating more opportunities for people smuggling and trafficking. They are enlarging the smugglers’ business model by adding the new market of asylum seekers removed from the UK to Rwanda and desperate to get away from there.
The place of new technology in our lives will feature in this Session. I am lucky enough to chair our Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee, two of whose members are in the Chamber at the moment. It is a splendid committee. Our first report was published in March. Though we are yet to receive the Government’s response, the issues are so current and relevant that they are worth mentioning.
Our inquiry was on the use of new technologies in the justice system, particularly policing. Facial recognition is the best known but other technology is in use and development is fast. There are huge benefits, such as preventing crime, increasing efficiency and generating new insights that feed into the criminal justice system. However, there are a lot of “buts”. In the words of one witness,
“there has been so much excitement about the promise of big data that we have charged in and used tools just because we can.”
Another said that
“we should have a massive dose of humility about what the tools can tell us”.
Public and government awareness have not kept up in this Wild West. Each police force can commission and purchase tools from companies eager to get in on the market—some with dubious selling practices. There is no mandatory training in this sellers’ market and buyers know little about what they are buying because sellers insist on commercial confidentiality. Our committee calls for transparency through a mandatory register of algorithms used in relevant tools, as well as for a national regulatory body to set standards. We say yes to innovation with safeguards.
Localism in policing is really important but it is expecting too much for every force and police chief to be a well-informed and critical purchaser. Therefore, we say: certify, kitemark tools, and then forces can make reliable purchases. Clear principles with a legislative basis would allow regulation to support practice.
Criminal justice is high risk. Predictive policing sounds attractive but if the stats tell you that there is a lot of crime in a particular part of a city, you put extra police there and focus on it. You get more arrests. The stats go up so more resources are applied and so on. It takes only a moment to think of inequalities, bias, the rule of law and fair trials. How would it feel to be convicted and imprisoned on the basis of evidence that you did not understand and could not challenge?
We should use technology; we should not defer to it.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
My Lords, I rise to point out the essential contradiction in the Government’s media and digital legislation.
I welcome the Online Safety Bill and look forward to its arrival in this Chamber in the autumn. I am a great supporter of its emphasis on the duty of care to be placed on digital platforms to ensure that they dramatically reduce the dissemination of hate and disinformation online. This will help combat the polarisation and fracturing across our society that has been facilitated, and even generated, for a decade and a half by the platforms’ “attention economy” business model, which is designed to engage and enrage users.
However, the Government need to complement this legislation with massive support for the great institutions that not only combat polarisation with their universality of content but refute disinformation with a mandate to tell the truth: British public service broadcasters. Much of the media Bill and the Government’s Up Next broadcasting White Paper, however, will weaken these bulwarks of the battle for an open society in the digital age.
Like the authors of the Online Safety Bill, I hope it will be a world-beating piece of legislation—a model for other countries to follow. The Government’s acceptance of so many recommendations from the Joint Committee has improved it yet further. However, I fear it still holds a threat to free speech with the vague terms of the clause on
“priority content that … presents a material risk of significant harm to an appreciable number of adults”.
It allows the Secretary of State, in consultation with Ofcom, to use regulations to update the definition of harmful content. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said, this gives the Minister enormous power to control content that many people would see as offensive but may be part of the debate in a lively democracy. In the aggressive culture wars that divide the western world, it is important not to close down content just because it is offensive. Likewise, the carve-out for journalism is welcome, but it includes content
“generated for the purposes of journalism”.
This might need to be refined or it will allow all users to claim exemption as journalists. Perhaps a public interest defence could be included, as in the Defamation Act.
This legislation needs to go hand in hand with the rapid granting of statutory powers to the new Digital Markets Unit, so I am glad to read the Government’s response to A New Pro-Competition Regime for Digital Markets and the draft digital markets, competition and consumer Bill. The DMU was set up over a year ago after an excoriating report by the Digital Markets Taskforce, which found that the dominance of the big platforms had led to an appalling lack of competition in many digital markets.
The new draft legislation has excellent proposals to enforce binding codes of conduct on large platforms to prevent them crowding out competition. This will be crucial in breaking open the shocking monopolies in the digital advertising market, uncovered by the Digital Markets Taskforce, and will allow news publishers to be paid for their content, giving a much-needed boost to our national and regional legacy media. However, it is only draft legislation. The DMU needs to be empowered to fight for competition online as soon as possible. Every week delayed means that another digital start-up is stifled. Can the Minister tell the House when the Government intend to go beyond the draft Bill and introduce legislation?
These two pieces of legislation on the digital economy will go far in controlling polarisation and disinformation on the internet, but I fear that they are not reinforced by the Government’s media agenda. The Government claim that the reforms suggested for the BBC and Channel 4 in the Up Next White Paper and the media Bill will help make them fit for the digital age. Many of the reforms are welcome. The new prominence regime will ensure that PSB content is easy to find on designated platforms; it has long been called for by the industry. Equally welcome is the regulatory level playing field set out in the Bill for video-on-demand platforms. I look forward to supporting the Government in these important updates to the media regime.
However, I fear that many of the other reforms will damage the power and importance of publicly owned PSBs. The media Bill’s prime purpose is to privatise Channel 4. The central issue is its remit for programming content. The Minister for Digital Infrastructure, Julia Lopez, has promised that the channel’s programming under private owners will remain experimental and innovative and provide news and current affairs, which are central to the role of PSBs in the internet age.
Investigative journalism, however, is risky and expensive to produce. Programmes such as Channel 4’s “Dispatches” and “Unreported World”, as well as the hour-long news in prime time, must be preserved by the new owners. Noble Lords have only to look at the schedules of the commercial PSBs to see that shareholders’ demands mean that content is safe and guaranteed to reach a big audience. In the interest of universality, it is important that the core programming remit includes news and current affairs, shown on the main channel. I worry that, in offering
“our public service broadcasters more flexibility in terms of how they deliver their obligations”,
the White Paper will allow them to hive off public service programmes to obscure digital channels.
The Up Next White Paper will require the new owners to commission a minimal volume of programming from independent producers, especially in the regions and nations. As pointed out by the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, there is a big danger that that remit will be reduced to make the channel more attractive to new buyers. As the noble Baroness also said, there has to be a remit for spending on training in the industry, which is crying out for skilled workers. How does this fit in with the Government’s levelling-up agenda?
Likewise, the Government say they are supporting the BBC, the essential mission of which is to provide universal, available and reliable information; yet, after 30% cuts over the last 10 years and a 2% freeze in the licence fee, this measure can only further damage the corporation’s core mission. The BBC is at a tipping point, where it just does not have the money to provide an eclectic enough range of content to be universal. I urge the Government to ensure that the BBC is put on the firmest financial footing, so that it remains a British beacon of reliable content in the rough seas of the internet. This country deserves an internet bound by a duty of care to its users and complemented by the PSB sector, which should be dedicated to giving reliable information and education to all the people of Britain and of the world.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, this is a fascinating and enjoyable debate, much of it concentrating on constitutional matters, but I would like to speak a little on policing. I was very pleased to see that Her Majesty’s gracious Speech contained several interesting Bills on law and order, which will affect policing. Like most people, I am pleased to see investment in more police. Police numbers have fallen over the last decade, so I am encouraged to see a steady increase to achieve the Government’s ambition of 20,000 extra. I have often heard the cry from opposition Benches and other quarters, more times than I can remember, that police numbers have been cut drastically in the last decade. There may be some truth in that, but numbers are on the increase. However, these new appointments will be effective only if those officers are well-trained and properly managed. It is a point I will return to in a moment.
While not everybody’s cup of tea, I was delighted to see that stop and search is up by 22% compared to 2019-20. Stop and search is the only really effective tool that police have in their crime-fighting tool-box. Without doubt, it helps to take weapons and drugs off the streets. With the appalling number of murders of young men we have seen in recent years, on the streets of London and in other UK cities, through knife crime, I contend that, when legitimately conducted, these stop and searches are operationally necessary. I hope that the £200 million 10-year youth endowment fund assists in reducing such dreadful offences.
I want to say one important thing on training and management, which is particularly relevant where there is an abuse of procedure by police on stop and search. There is certainly evidence of that. In recent years, we have seen a serious decline in training facilities. In the Metropolitan Police, Hendon Police College has all but disappeared. The centre of training excellence that once was higher command training at Bramshill has been abolished and the site sold. With reduced budgets, police forces have been forced to ensure that front-line policing is protected but, sadly, at the cost of training. We have the College of Policing, but it serves only those who are prepared to self-improve and fails to create an essential learning environment. It is no coincidence that the challenging issues faced by the Metropolitan Police and other police forces are the result of many years of neglect and a lack of funding for training.
Recently, Parliament passed a number of demanding pieces of legislation on criminal law. Looking forward to this Session, we are making further demands on the police with a new Public Order Bill to deal with disruptive influences in society. We are going to be asking a lot more of our police service and it must be match-fit for the task. If we are to succeed in putting more rapists behind bars under the rape action plan, we must have a detective force that is properly prepared and trained to achieve this. All this can be achieved only through a well-trained and a well-managed police service. My plea to the Government is that sufficient resources are available to enable this.
Changing tack slightly, I return to combating illegal channel crossings and the Government’s new plan for immigration. There is only one solution to this and it is to remove the criminal gangs that organise these perilous journeys. This can be achieved only through partnership working with intelligence and investigative bodies on the other side of the channel. You can put as many Royal Navy frigates in the channel as you wish, but clearly we are fighting a losing battle daily, and it is not helped by the intelligence-sharing situation in which we find ourselves, post Brexit. I wonder if the Home Office understands the operational implications of this intelligence-sharing challenge.
We seem to have tried everything. We had a clandestine channel threat commander; when his role was announced, we were told that this was the panacea to the problem. He proudly proclaimed that he would stop these crossings. Tens of millions of pounds have been handed to the French authorities. This has all failed. The Nationality and Borders Act, the legislative framework for the new plan for immigration, became law at the end of April, aiming to deter illegal entry into the UK, break the business model of people-smuggling networks and speed up the removal of those with no right to be in the UK. I wait with interest to see how effective this will be, but very much hope that it will be. We need to welcome and protect those legitimately seeking asylum in the UK, but the summer months ahead will put this new Act to the test. I repeat that it is no substitute for cross-border intelligence-sharing. I very much hope that the Nationality and Borders Act assists in servicing this need.
I look forward to the introduction of the new criminal justice Bills. I have a particular interest in the Online Safety Bill, as somebody who suffered during the 2017 general election through criminals hiding behind anonymity. I look forward to the victims Bill, addressing a much-ignored section of the criminal justice system, and I look forward to the Public Order Bill. I will certainly play my part in their passage through your Lordships’ House.
I return to the point that such legislation can be enforced only by a well-trained and well-managed police service. Based on my previous policing experience and from speaking to a great number of serving police officers, I know that these elements are somewhat lacking at present; government, and particularly the Home Office, need to pay attention to them and their resourcing.
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, I was particularly pleased to find a draft Bill of Rights included in the Queen’s Speech this year. It is well time to end the abuse of the human rights framework and restore common sense to our justice system. The Bill of Rights will ensure our human rights framework both meets the needs of the society it serves and commands public confidence. The main benefits of the Bill of Rights should be to defend and support freedom of speech, to reduce unnecessary litigation and to avoid risk aversion for bodies delivering public services. It should protect against wokery and political correctness; to curb the expansion of a rights culture, a filter will weed out spurious human rights cases before they get to court.
The Bill of Rights will also tackle the issue of foreign criminals evading deportation or securing their release from jail because their human rights are given greater weight than the safety of the public. It will establish the primacy of UK case law and ensure that UK courts can no longer alter legislation contrary to its ordinary meaning.
The Bill of Rights will guarantee that doubtful cases do not undermine public confidence in human rights, so that courts focus on genuine and credible rights claims. It recognises that responsibilities exist alongside rights, by changing the way that damages can be awarded—for example, by ensuring that courts consider the behaviour of the claimant. The Bill of Rights will extend and apply across the UK.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak briefly about Channel 4, and about the Human Rights Act, and then spend a little longer talking about refugees.
Many Members of the House have already criticised the Government’s proposals on Channel 4 and I subscribe totally to those criticisms. I just want to ask the Government a question. As I understand it, if they get that far—and I hope they do not—the Government will put Channel 4 up for sale. In doing that, according to what they said earlier, they are willing to have anybody in the world bid for it—presumably not the Russians, but presumably some Americans. I simply ask the Government this: do they want to give up Margaret Thatcher’s great achievement in setting up Channel 4 and allow a foreign company, maybe an American company, to buy it? Is that what we want? Do we want our media, an essential part of our democracy, to be owned by people abroad? Already quite a bit of it is owned by people abroad; we do not want any more to be.
I turn briefly to the Human Rights Act. I serve on the Joint Committee on Human Rights. We will in due course be able to provide the full results of our inquiries, but for now we are only taking evidence. I have one question for the Government. What assurances will the Government give us that they will not proceed with changes to the Human Rights Act unless and until the devolved Administrations have been consulted and have agreed to the proposed changes? We surely cannot have a position where one of the devolved Administrations is very unhappy about them. Human rights should surely apply equally and be equally accepted in all parts of the United Kingdom. Human rights are fundamental to the Good Friday agreement, and it would be a retrograde step if we moved away from that.
I very much regret that the Home Secretary seeks to criticise lawyers as if they are somehow opposed to the Government in principle. They represent their clients and surely, in a democracy, we want lawyers to be able to do that. Where does that not happen? It does not happen in Russia, in China, in Belarus. There, there is no idea that lawyers could represent people against the Government. It is part of our democracy, and it ill behoves the Home Secretary to criticise lawyers for what they do.
Briefly on refugees, it is clear that our willingness to accept Ukrainians and the British public’s positive response are being undermined by the bureaucratic shambles emanating from the Home Office. There have been many examples of that, and it is regrettable because it is quite unnecessary. Turning to the issue of children, I want to talk about the particular case of a young girl, which is typical of what has happened. On 11 April, her mother applied for her to come to Britain. The sponsors were lined up, they and the school she was to attend had been vetted, the local authority was happy and all the safeguarding measures were in place. The Home Office suggested that the Ukrainian Government were not happy. However, I checked with the Ukrainian ambassador, and he was happy that this girl should come to her sponsors in Britain.
I fully understand why safeguarding measures for young people are critical—of course they are—and we would not wish to lower our standards, but what has happened? On 11 April, the application was made. At that time, unaccompanied children were able to come to the UK. By 16 April, the arrangement had been changed and the young girl could no longer come to the UK. I am told that her application is now on hold. Nevertheless, on the basis of the original position adopted by the Home Office, and the forms and so on, the girl left her mother, who is looking after her disabled son in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine, and is now a bit further west, but still in danger in a war zone. She is 17 years old, and she is vulnerable. If the Home Office is saying that we must safeguard the position in the UK, which, as I have already explained, is gold-plated, surely, we must not leave a 17 year-old girl in a war zone where she could not be in more danger, her rights could not be weaker and her position could not be more vulnerable. The application was made in good faith, and Home Office has reneged on it. It now says that if it made a mistake, it might look at it again—although it did not say it quite as clearly as that.
This is not the only example. We should not be saying to unaccompanied children that we do not want them to come here because their position is insufficiently safeguarded. It is a shame on this country. We make pious statements about how much we want to support Ukrainians and how much we respect them, and then we turn our back on them in this shabby manner.
Lord Beith (LD)
Powerful words, my Lords. I shall return to a subject much discussed already. Let us imagine that at the end of this Government’s term of office, we are reviewing their record and whether they have in fact defended the constitution. On the union, the mishandling of the Northern Ireland protocol and the refusal to understand opinion in Scotland on many issues will tell against them.
I shall give just a few examples that will tell equally strongly against them. The first is the deliberate weakening of the Electoral Commission’s authority and independence through one of the last Acts in the previous Session of Parliament; the second is the so-called Bill of Rights Act, which is intended to prevent the convention rights to which we are signatories being enforced effectively in UK courts. The Government claim that by this legislation they are restoring the balance of power between the legislature and the courts but, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, so wittily pointed out, it is the Executive who are seeking to gain from any rebalancing that takes place.
A third example is the Brexit freedoms Bill which, as the Government admit, is designed to enable secondary legislation to be used instead of primary legislation to change retained EU law in order to create or vary criminal offences, or to create new public bodies or new licensing regimes, for example. The Government claim that they are doing this in order to prevent these important measures
“taking decades of parliamentary time to achieve”.
Decades? If statutory instruments are debated at all in the Commons, they usually get one and a half hours. In this House, the presumption, challenged by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, has been that fatal Motions are not appropriate and that we should not decline to accept wholly or seriously defective legislation which would normally be enacted through primary legislation, or use our limited powers in order to do so. We should bear in mind that these are unamendable Motions—we cannot improve them, tidy them up or sort them out—on matters that are normally reserved for primary legislation. This is a profound and retrograde constitutional change so far as it affects retained EU law.
Fourthly, I must mention the planned reintroduction of severe restrictions on public protest which this House threw out in the last Session. Our streets will not be made safer by a new offence of locking on, that is, gluing yourself to public buildings. So far as I know, the only case of locking on going on at the moment involves the Prime Minister, who has glued himself to No. 10 Downing Street—and it would take more than glue solvent to extract him from there.
Powerful in their impact on the constitution as legislative changes are, just as great will be the impact of practices which have gone on under Boris Johnson’s leadership. They set dangerous precedents for the tolerance of unacceptable conduct in public office, such as trying to change the rules governing MPs’ conduct so that a close colleague would have escaped punishment; using the power to appoint to the House of Lords fundamentally to change its composition and to reward donors of millions of pounds to the governing party, without regard to any concept of fairness in appointments or to the House’s declared wish to reduce its size and to follow a procedure for doing so, which the present Prime Minister, unlike his predecessor, is not prepared to do; and, finally, appearing to rule out entirely the resignation which used to be the constitutional consequence of criminal offences or of misleading Parliament.
It used to be assumed by many that our constitution derives strength from not being written or codified in a single document because it is built firmly on a foundation of a shared understanding of what constitutes sound and honourable government. I fear that we cannot say that any more.
Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)
My Lords, at Oral Questions in this House on 9 November 2020, my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham asked for the third time when Her Majesty’s Government planned to announce the chair, the timeframe and the terms of reference for a royal commission on criminal justice. The now disappeared noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, replied that
“the Government remain committed to establishing a royal commission on criminal justice.”—[Official Report, 9/11/20; col. 798.]
That was of course promised in the manifesto in 2019 and committed in the gracious Speech of December 2019. On 7 July, the Law Society Gazette reported that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, our great friend who stood down on right principle, said that the Government
“are absolutely committed to the delivery of this key manifesto pledge.”
We still have not seen it. Can the Minister put all of us who have been interested in this subject out of our misery and tell us whether a royal commission on criminal justice will or will not happen? If it is not going to happen, can he please tell us, so that we can stop fretting about it? If it is going to happen, there is not a lot of parliamentary time left in this Government’s tenure, so when might it happen and how might it report?
This is incredibly important to those of us who care about not just victims but perpetrators. The Government say an awful lot about wanting to ensure that our streets are safer, and that the police are the ones who should make our streets safer. After 35 years as founder and chairman of Crime Concern and founder and vice-president of Catch22, I venture to suggest that it is not the police who make our streets safer; it is the public, who desist from crime and who look after one another in communities and neighbourhoods, who make our streets safer. The police often arrive after the event; it is before the event that we must be primarily concerned with, not after it, when holding inquiries.
In opening this debate, the Minister stated that this gracious Speech and its prospective legislation were about issues that matter to the people of the United Kingdom. That includes fighting crime. However, it seems that one section of the people of the United Kingdom do not matter. We have already heard the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, who is no longer in his place, defend stop and search, saying that it is up by 22%. Those of us who are connected to the communities most affected by stop and search, notably black people, will tell you that it is a hapless injustice and has destroyed confidence in communities and confidence in the police, and has unsettled those who would be more inclined to support the law so that they are less inclined to participate in it.
It is worth noting that, on 5 July 2020, a British black Olympian gold medallist and her partner, Ricardo dos Santos, were dragged out of their car, leaving a baby in the back, because police suspected that there was the smell of cannabis. That of course relates to the dreadful events around a child, which we have also discussed in this Chamber. Three days after what was almost, in a way, the terrible clubbing of those two—certainly they were handcuffed and dragged out of the car, leaving a baby abandoned—the hapless and now evaporated Ms Dick apologised for the abusive behaviour of the Metropolitan Police. Stop and search is massively, perpetually destructive and damaging, and anyone connected with minority communities knows what it does. If noble Lords wish to come with me to any of those communities, they will find that young men and women carry weapons to defend themselves against the police; often, because of the aggravation, they then get involved in aggravation that then involves unnecessary crime.
We must note the Home Office’s continuing figures showing even last year that, despite the numbers being up by 22%—as was unhelpfully noted by the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower—80% of all those stopped and searched had no questionable behaviour. The damage done to their psyche, their sense of Britishness and well-being, and to the identity of their communities, is unparalleled and almost unhealable. It must end. A royal commission—in the same way I am sitting on a commission with the Legatum Institute at the moment—has concluded that stop and search is the great evil of the system. It must end. The Public Order Bill should prevent it, and it is about time that the police realised that this act of perpetual discrimination is vile and repugnant.
I have one further comment on the gracious Speech. Saying that we will make our streets safer by further empowering the police forgets the fact that so many people now locked up in prison unnecessarily and without proper appeal will, because the courts are stuffed up and cannot respond properly to their responsibilities for justice, come out of the system angry, instead of recovered in their well-being. If we do not deal with injustices in the system, we allow the possibility of vast numbers of people on our streets being furious with a system that has damaged them for ever. Getting this right is fundamental to the security of our community. Please, let us have the royal commission.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hastings.
Last week’s elections for local government and for the Northern Ireland Assembly reflected the way in which the landscape of British politics has changed dramatically over the last 10 or 20 years. In Northern Ireland, it is a mess. In Scotland, the SNP still dominates, despite not having as many seats as before. In England, the electoral outcome in different parts of the country is now totally unpredictable compared with many years ago. The only place where there is any stability is of course Wales.
The problem that many people have is that the devolved Administrations—our devolved country—have not been accepted by many people in government across the country. The Common Frameworks Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member, has pointed out that there are many departments in Whitehall, of the British Government, that not only do not understand devolution but have not even accepted it yet. That has become a problem. However, the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, and Michael Gove, have suggested in recent reports excellent ways in which the Governments of our islands can work together much more effectively, through an intergovernmental commission and so on.
In the time that I have left, I turn to the issue of Northern Ireland and the difficulties now faced there. A new Assembly has been elected. Sinn Féin, for the first time, now has the right to nominate the First Minister, and the DUP, although not gravely damaged, has been damaged sufficiently, but is entitled to nominate the Deputy First Minister. However, behind all this is what the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, and others referred to earlier: the issue of the Northern Ireland protocol. I do not agree with the noble Lord for one second about it. The people of Northern Ireland voted to stay in the European Union. Anybody would have thought that the protocol suddenly came down from the heavens and landed across the Irish Sea in Northern Ireland. It did not. The Northern Ireland protocol was devised, negotiated and created by the British Government. It really makes you wonder why they now propose, as I understand it, to bring in a Bill to deal with the Northern Ireland protocol and probably abolish it. It is the first time ever that a Government have brought in a Bill to abolish their own negotiated settlement.
I do not think that is the answer. I do not think that blunderbuss diplomacy and the heavy hand of an Act of Parliament which is doubtful in international law—despite today’s pronouncement by the Attorney-General—will be the answer. What will it do? It will divide the West, when we are all supposed to be united against what is happening in Ukraine. The last thing that we want is some sort of international trade war with the European Union. This is the wrong way to establish a solution in Northern Ireland. There is only one way to solve the problems of Northern Ireland, and that is by intense negotiation, and not by the nonsense that we have seen over the last few weeks.
The noble Lord, Lord Alderdice, and I played some part in the formation of the Good Friday agreement. Indeed, he was the first Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and I am sure that he and others would agree that the problems we faced in bringing about that agreement were immense. The solutions to be found through negotiation were earth-shattering, so it is not really the case that people cannot resolve by negotiation the issue of the protocol. If we could resolve all those things—from prisoner release to the police to the establishment of the institutions, or whatever it might be—it is not beyond the wit of men and women to be able to do that.
Instead of going into international disagreements with the European Union, the Government should negotiate. For example, they should suggest to the Irish Government that perhaps the time has come for the European Union to ask the Irish Government to negotiate on behalf of the European Union. After all, Ireland and Britain are joint guarantors of the Good Friday agreement. They know the detail and the intricacies of Northern Ireland politics.
The other thing is to have a proper, intense negotiation, a round table, of all the parties in Northern Ireland, not by going to talk to individual leaders privately in separate rooms—it never works like that. It was not that long ago that the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Julian Smith, did an excellent job in doing just that; he was able to bring people together. Why can that not happen again? I have no idea, but it is something they should certainly try.
The other issue is that the Good Friday agreement itself can be changed. The principles must always remain the same, but it is written into the Good Friday agreement itself that the detail can be changed. There is therefore an opportunity that we must not miss, because if we end up with direct rule and the collapse of the institutions again, we are in serious trouble.
Lord Alderdice (LD)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Murphy. As he says, he and I spent a great deal of time together on the Northern Ireland question.
I remember listening as a 13 year-old boy to Captain Terence O’Neill, the Ulster Unionist Prime Minister, trying to set out to the people of Northern Ireland how there needed to be changes that would ensure a peaceful, reconciled future within the United Kingdom. More than 50 years later, another O’Neill, Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Féin, is in line to become the First Minister of Northern Ireland. She too wants to see changes, but they are changes to take Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom.
Ulster is again at a crossroads, but not because of an outbreak of violence—rather, because of enormous changes in attitude of the people in Northern Ireland. It is not just that Sinn Féin is now the largest party; indeed, it does not have any more Members in the Assembly after the election than before. Perhaps the most striking change is the fact that the Alliance Party now has as many Members in the Assembly as the Ulster Unionist Party and the SDLP put together. That is because there has been a change of attitudes—yes, because of Brexit, but also because since the time of the Good Friday agreement a generation has grown up that has not experienced the same degree of violence and is committed not to staying in the United Kingdom whatever happens or to becoming part of a united Ireland whatever happens but rather to seeking the best socio- economic and stable future they can for themselves and their children.
There are not just two communities in Northern Ireland. I have said often in the last few years, including in your Lordships’ House, that there are now three cohorts, and the evidence of this election is that there are three such substantial cohorts: yes, unionists and nationalists, but also others who do not conform to that and who see a different future.
Things can change. This debate is about home affairs, justice, culture, media and the constitution. When Terence O’Neill was Prime Minister, and shortly after that when Stormont was prorogued, there was one young part-time official in the Home Office responsible for monitoring Northern Ireland. His name was John Chilcot. Many years later he became the Permanent Secretary of a new government department, the ministry set up to address Northern Ireland: the Northern Ireland Office. He then went on to do many other things as well. That showed how much things can change constitutionally and structurally.
So many of the things that the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, mentioned as part of this debate—policing, the courts, administration of justice, the security services—were affected enormously by what went on in Northern Ireland over the years. Now, potentially the biggest constitutional change of all for the United Kingdom could be the beginning of its break-up because the people of Northern Ireland feel that there is no longer the same emotional attachment to them and that perhaps there might be a better future for them in another set of relationships in these islands. Even the question of culture in Northern Ireland is mentioned in the Queen’s Speech, with the proposal for an Irish language Bill, which would be fundamentally about culture and also about media expression.
The thing is that the Good Friday agreement was agreed by referendum as well as talks, of course. Does that mean it cannot be changed? As the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, made perfectly clear, it can be changed. It was already changed, first because the Civic Forum that was part of it was allowed to lapse. It was changed because of the St Andrews agreement, which changed the appointments for the Executive. As the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, pointed out, the process of review is actually part of the agreement. Will Her Majesty’s Government commit to a review, now that it is clear that the structures currently in place are no longer satisfactory? They are no longer satisfactory in their outworking or even in their representational function, in terms of the different parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Of course, it would have to be on the same principles as the Good Friday agreement and to be by agreement, but it would also require serious negotiation.
The negotiations then worked because of the quality and calibre of people appointed by the British Government, the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland parties to engage in the negotiations. One of the things I have to say is that, over the last few decades, the quality of people seconded from this part of the world to deal with things in Northern Ireland has changed dramatically, and not necessarily for the better. In the early days it was people of the calibre of William Whitelaw and Jim Prior—serious, big, heavy beasts in government. That has not been the case more lately. It is almost as though you get shoved off to that.
I appeal to the Government to see the need to address the protocol. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, has made a suggestion that should be taken seriously: that someone from Ireland should represent the European Union, not someone who does not understand the nuances and significance. But it also requires an enormous commitment at the very top of Her Majesty’s Government to ensure not that we do not return to violence—we are not in that business any more—but that we find a way forward for all our people, by agreement, that creates the stability as well as the end to violence we have already had.
Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)
My Lords, we are armed to the teeth against terrorism, but laws to counter the arguably more significant threat of hostile state activity are few, outdated and largely ineffective, so I welcome in principle the long-delayed National Security Bill published yesterday.
No doubt we will give careful scrutiny to the proposed state threats offences, but more striking, to my mind, is the omission from the Bill of two matters that were trailed in advance and formed the bulk of last year’s consultation. The first is the foreign influence registration scheme—a tricky one to pull off, as demonstrated by its troublesome American precedent, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The second is reform of the Official Secrets Act 1989, which would raise complex and sensitive issues including whistleblowing, the criminal liability of journalists and the question of a public interest defence. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, indicated earlier that the registration scheme will be introduced during the passage of this Bill. Can the Minister tell us when? Can he confirm that reform of the 1989 Act will not be introduced to this Bill during its passage?
Then there is the Northern Ireland Troubles legacy and reconciliation Bill. The NIO proposals of July 2021 did not impress with their thoroughness or inclusivity, but with a new approach promised and a Minister with the understanding of the noble Lord, Lord Caine, we must hope for better things when the Bill arrives.
The DCMS will need to lose its habit of referring to the Online Safety Bill as a world-first online safety law, political agreement having been reached last month on the EU’s Digital Services Act, now endorsed, rather surprisingly, by Elon Musk, whose views on free speech seem to be evolving rapidly. Seeking as it does to address abuses thrown up by a technological revolution, the Bill has been compared in its significance to the Factories Acts of the 19th century. The noble Lords, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath and Lord Wolfson, were right to point to some of its difficulties. We have some interesting debates ahead.
The so-called Bill of Rights will not live up to its grand title. The devolution settlement on the one hand and the trade and co-operation agreement on the other severely limit the room for manoeuvre where the ECHR is concerned—and a good thing too. I echo the view of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, that most of the proposed changes to the Human Rights Act appear somewhere on the dial between “pointless” and “harmful”.
The right honourable Sir Peter Gross and his expert panel—hand-picked by the Government, including from the ranks of Policy Exchange—produced a thorough, balanced and remarkably harmonious report on Human Rights Act reform that is a model of its kind, and the Lord Chancellor might have done well to heed it. I hope this House will ensure that the report’s wise recommendations are not forgotten as we consider the Bill.
The data reform Bill also merits a degree of wariness. The benefits claimed for relaxing the GDPR regime, tempting as they may be, will need to be weighed against the complications for business of complying with a further set of rules, and against the risk that changes proposed in the consultation could imperil our precious adequacy agreement from the European Commission. The proposal to reduce the independence of the Information Commissioner’s Office recalls debates that we had in the last Session about the independence of the office for environmental protection and the Electoral Commission and concerns expressed by the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill about the independence of Ofcom.
The desire to increase the influence of government over nominally independent regulators is, unfortunately, not the only systemic abuse of executive power with which we are confronted in recent, current and promised Bills. Your Lordships, not least through last year’s dramatically titled committee reports that have already been referred to, have grumbled persistently over the increasing tendency towards skeleton Bills and overbroad delegated powers. Our debate on this issue on 6 January revealed a striking unanimity of opinion. However, grumbling will get us nowhere. Today we have heard a stirring call to arms by that unlikely revolutionary, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I agree with him, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, and a growing list of other noble Lords in today’s debate that we need to address this issue at source by rejecting the worst of these clauses when they are proposed. Perhaps the Brexit freedoms Bill, an executive power grab over the repeal and replacement of vast swathes of retained EU law, will by its sheer scale and audacity bring this issue to a head.
Finally, although this was not trailed in the Queen’s Speech, it seems that we may once again be invited to breach, or to facilitate the breach of, the Northern Ireland protocol, which was freely concluded in October 2019 and has been binding in international law since it entered into force in 2020. It could surely not be right for this House to make itself complicit in a patently unlawful scheme even if, as I very much doubt, there were short-term diplomatic advantage in doing so. We emphatically rejected such an invitation in the internal market Bill, and I hope that if the need arises we shall do so again.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich. It will not surprise your Lordships that my speech will focus on matters of policing.
I declare an interest as the former national president of the Police Superintendents’ Association. It is a public service of which I am still very proud and in which I spent 35 years of my life serving the public. It was an exciting time. I am saddened, to say the least, that the police service has had such a torrid time with reputational damage over the last few years, with a worrying fall in prosecutions of and convictions for rape and, in my judgment, an all-round generally poor performance in service to the public, culminating in the tragic murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police constable.
That left me wondering what the causes were. It is well known that the financial crash of 2008 led to austerity measures resulting in a reduction of police nationally from a high of 172,000 officers in 2010 to just 150,000 by 2017, a reduction of 22,000. It is not rocket science to understand that higher workloads due to increased road traffic, computer fraud, online grooming, organised crime, drug trafficking and modern slavery, together with the slashing of police budgets, could lead to only one thing: a drastic reduction in ordinary community policing, which, as we in this House all know, is the backbone of policing by consent.
As a result, local police stations were closed, police visibility was reduced, response times have become a scandal and the investigation of burglary quite often amounts to the issuing of a crime number for insurance purposes. I have even seen a recent example of a valuable motor car being stolen from a gated property in Bury, with images of the theft taking place provided on CCTV by the victim, where the police could not even be bothered to examine it because of a lack of manpower. That is a disgrace.
To be fair, the Home Office is a large, diverse department of state and the Home Secretary is responsible to Parliament for the provision of police services. The task should have been made easier by the election of police and crime commissioners, but I will leave that issue to one side as I believe that, with many PCCs representing political parties, there is a risk of drawing police into party politics. It is manifestly clear that the Home Secretary should fight the police’s corner, but unfortunately many officers feel that she has let them down. The Police Federation recently wrote an open letter expressing a lack of confidence in the Home Secretary, which shows how strained relations have become.
There is an understandable and strong belief that the police are not valued by this Government. That is perfectly clear when we see that, since 2010, workloads have increased dramatically while the police have seen a staggering real-terms pay cut of 20%. There is an independent pay review mechanism for the police, just as for Members of Parliament, yet when that review body recently announced a modest pay rise for police officers the Government announced a public sector pay freeze. It did not go unnoticed that the freeze did not apply to honourable Members in another place. Where is the fairness in that?
I will say no more about pay as the police service has closed ranks and is seeking a judicial review of the so-called independent pay machinery. This of course is a Government who illegally prorogued Parliament and openly admitted to being prepared to break international law. When Owen Paterson was found to have breached lobbying rules, the Prime Minister tried to change those rules—not to mention all the dissembling that has taken place by the PM on the protocol, which has already been mentioned. Of course, this Government do not like judicial review, as we have seen. I am tempted to join the revolutionary movement of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, because clearly the changing balance is all in the Government’s favour.
Moving on, you cannot make a silk purse from a pig’s ear, and this applies to the recruitment of police officers. I am not talking about academic qualifications but about moral fibre, good judgment and probity. There has been quite a bit of publicity recently about a number of serving officers with criminal convictions. A serving officer was known to be committing indecent exposure, yet no action was taken. Serving officers have taken photographs of murder victims and there was a WhatsApp group in which Metropolitan Police officers expressed misogyny and homophobia. Wayne Couzens, the convicted killer of Sarah Everard, was nicknamed “the rapist” by colleagues while serving as a police officer.
There appears to have been an appalling fall in standards of recruitment. What has happened to the recruitment of mature ex-servicemen who already come packaged with maturity and discipline? I believe the necessity of probation training leading up to a degree qualification discourages many excellent people who simply want to be a police officer on the streets; they do not want to be an academic or in senior management.
Finally, we have seen a shocking pattern of conduct by the present Government, who should be setting standards of behaviour: breaches of the Ministerial Code, misleading the House of Commons and I dare not even mention partygate. I have concluded that it does not help to set standards when those expected to enforce the law see a Government whose conduct suggests that they clearly think they are above the law.
Does the Minister, a canny lad from the north-east, agree—I think he probably will—that the police should do better than this, and that the British people deserve a police service that is properly funded, remunerated fairly and one that they can trust, believe in and be proud of? In essence, a service that this country can—
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, it might be worth noting the advisory time limit. We are only half way through the debate.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
May I just finish with one final question to the Minister? The gracious Speech stated that the Government will “support the police”. In the noble Lord’s reply to the debate, will he indicate when and in what way?
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, but I want to shift the focus back to DCMS because we now, happily, have the DCMS Minister in front of us. The noble Lord has a tough gig in this Session with a near-record number of Bills to field badged under the DCMS banner. I give him fair warning that there is such a thing as legislative overload. When I completed my two-year stint at the Home Office, I had rather a nice letter from the Prime Minister congratulating me on taking through 19 Bills—apparently it was a record at the time. I warn the noble Lord that it comes at a cost, and I can see the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, nodding her head at that.
My focus today is on three measures in the DCMS package that have caught my eye: the fan-led review, Channel 4 privatisation and online safety. The first, the football fan-led review, which brings forward a regulator, is much welcomed by all sides of your Lordships’ Chamber. It is long overdue and I am delighted to see it in the gracious Speech. Our concern will of course be the detail. Will the regulator be genuinely independent? What will its powers be? How will the fit and proper persons test be framed? Will it screen out the Abramovichs, Oystons and Ashleys of this world? Will the office be capable of protecting our rich heritage of clubs and stop the Burys of the football world going out of business?
In the mid-1990s Brighton and Hove Albion, my club, was bankrupted by the owner of Focus DIY. It was forced to sell the ground, obliged to play home games 70 miles away in Gillingham and rescued only by a combination of the council that I led, the fan-led campaign and inspiring individuals such as Martin Perry and Dick Knight. Now, of course, we play in the Premiership and regularly beat teams such as Man U. We needed a regulator back then and we certainly need one now. Over the last 30 years a whole litany of clubs have faced bankruptcy, been pushed out of business and now find themselves in the lower leagues. We could have done with a regulator then. It took years to sort out.
The Online Safety Bill has also had too little attention from the Government in the recent past and has been too long coming, but it is here now. Some say that the Bill we will get this Session is too weak; others say it goes too far. My noble friends Lord Stevenson and Lord Knight spent a long time on the Joint Committee trying to get it right. My hope is that the redraft has not been filleted by the government lawyers to appease the big tech companies.
For our part on the Labour Benches, we will constructively engage to improve the Bill where weak and seek to achieve the right balance. We will follow the duty of care principles the Bill is supposed to enshrine. I agree with my honourable friend in another place, Lucy Powell, who argues for a systems-based approach on outcomes, which, as she says, should
“solve the free speech question”—[Official Report, Commons, 19/4/22; col. 102.]
and enable the strengthening of the Bill. I hope the noble Lord will commit to following that course.
Finally, I come to the cultural vandalism on an epic scale that is the Channel 4 privatisation. This measure has attracted criticism from businesses far and wide across the media world and its supply chain. It threatens, as others have said, the whole eco-structure of broadcast media. It makes a mockery of the Government’s levelling-up agenda, of which Channel 4 is both an active proponent and an important part, and will do great harm to the creative industries in the UK, which, as most of us acknowledge, are one of our nation’s great success stories.
On these Benches we will simply oppose that part of the media Bill. In bringing this forward, the Government have ignored the findings of their own consultation, ignored the cultural sector as a whole and simply chosen to follow an ideologically driven policy. One report suggests that, if this unpopular privatisation proceeds, 1,300 jobs and 140 companies could be at risk. Who believes the Government’s bribe that they will reinvest the proceeds of the sale of C4 back in the sector?
Government Ministers say the move is designed to secure the future of the channel, but for whom? They say it will allow it to compete in the global media market with the likes of Netflix. At this stage in the market’s development, that is not necessarily the best look. Channel 4 is not looking to compete with Netflix; it is a stand-alone success of its own, and profitable too. We should value it for what it is, just as we do the BBC. This privatisation is solution looking for a problem, when actually the problem is the solution. It is without even manifesto cover and has been rejected by three Conservative Prime Ministers. We in this House would do well to follow their lead. It is a measure without friends.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, this is a Government who have devalued many of the democratic principles that underpin our constitution. The claim that
“Her Majesty’s Government will ensure the constitution is defended”
is one of which we should all be sceptical. Crucial to our constitution is the maintenance of balance between the powers of the Executive and the legislature. Perhaps not since Charles I has the Executive branch of government sought in peacetime to curb the powers of Parliament and to remove so many of the checks and balances in our constitution.
We saw this in the way Parliament was declared to be prorogued in 2019, illegally and dishonestly, in a clear attempt to avoid proper parliamentary scrutiny of what has turned out to be a terrible Brexit deal. We saw it in the way that courts and individual judges could be challenged for upholding the law concerning Parliament’s role in triggering Brexit, and in the failure of the Government to defend the independence of those judges from attack by their media allies. We saw it in the last Session, with government Ministers taking effective control of the previously properly independent Electoral Commission.
The Prime Minister has also changed the election rules so that he can choose when to fire the starting gun in a race in which he is competing. The next general election will be fought on constituency boundaries using electoral registers that exclude around 15% of the people who should be included on them. This does not just deprive many people of the opportunity to vote; it means that more Conservative-leaning seats are being created by the Boundary Commissions and fewer seats are created where they are less likely to win.
The most obvious methods of getting everyone entitled to vote on to the electoral registers and enabled to vote are ignored, while new barriers are being put in the way of the 2.2 million who do not have the government-prescribed forms of photo ID. Unsurprisingly, the 2.2 million are less likely to vote Conservative and, based on the initial introduction of photo ID in Northern Ireland, 1 million people on the voting registers may be unable to vote at the next general election.
The Government also appear to be acting to block legitimate freedom of information requests, with a special unit advising on how to try to dodge replying. I will give an example. I and most opposition parties were suspicious about the basis of a sudden government ban on volunteers delivering leaflets in the run-up to last year’s elections. It was strange that the then Minister for the Constitution suddenly announced the ban a year into the Covid pandemic, the nature of which must have changed suddenly for a dramatic change to the rules governing elections to take place. The ban on volunteers delivering leaflets primarily affected the opposition parties. There was no equivalent ban on existing commercial organisations distributing leaflets, primarily used by the Conservative Party.
Frequent Parliamentary Questions sought evidence to justify the strange distinction between different forms of campaigning that had similar levels of risk. But no evidence from any source based on scientific, medical or health advice was ever produced, so I turned to making a freedom of information request for this evidence in January 2021. Fifteen months after I made it, the Cabinet Office, after much obfuscation and contradictory responses, still refuses to disclose this information. I am still waiting, and the Information Commissioner is now also seeking answers.
Underpinning a democratic constitution is media freedom. We have relied in this country on excellent public service broadcasting to inform people about issues which help to determine their votes, but this Government have spent years trying to tame the BBC and prevent it being too critical of government policies such as Brexit by threatening the source of its income. Now they seek to privatise Channel 4, the only justification for which is that it has been a thorn in the side of the Government.
At the same time, we have seen government appearing to hand out taxpayers’ money to sections of the newspaper industry without proper transparency. The Byline Times yesterday quoted Dominic Cummings claiming that the Government made “bungs” dressed up as Covid relief. He says:
“Newspapers negotiated direct bungs to themselves”
with the Prime Minister and that there were “no officials” present on these calls, but that the officials were subsequently told to send the money
“dressed up as ‘COVID relief’”.
The Government refuse to say how the money for the All In, All Together advertising in certain newspapers was distributed. There was a total of perhaps £50 million or even £100 million. Taxpayers will in effect have been giving money to some of the billionaires who control too much of our press, and perhaps buying favourable coverage for the Government.
Finally, important questions about party financing are raised today by an article in the New York Times showing how £450,000 was transferred to the Conservative Party prior to the last general election from the account of a pro-Russian politician in Ukraine. A basic principle of a democratic constitution is that it should not be for sale.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)
My Lords, many speeches have already touched on the promise—or do I mean threat?—of a new human rights Bill. I proposed to focus on just one topic that I fear may feature in such a Bill: the role of a Parole Board.
Shortly before we prorogued, the Justice Secretary published a document, Root and Branch Review of the Parole System. I confess to having found that a difficult, not to say alarming, document, not least for the IPPs—that unfortunate group of prisoners, many of whom remain detained 10 or 12 years after serving their due punishment, and indeed 10 years after the whole discredited regime was abolished in 2012. One such high-profile IPP prisoner was Tracey Connelly, Baby P’s mother, who in 2009 got such a sentence with a five-year tariff for not preventing that most ghastly and tragic of deaths. I hold no particular brief for the mother, but I do hold a brief for the Parole Board.
In 2013 the mother was released on licence but two years later, in 2015, she was recalled for an unspecified breach of licence conditions. She then failed successive Parole Board reviews until at last, in March of this year, the board decided to release her, subject to stringent licence conditions. At this point Mr Raab, adopting what one can see only as an essentially populist stance, intervened, as I accept was his right. He sought a reconsideration of that release decision by a Parole Board member, a retired judge, arguing—as he had to—that the decision was irrational. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the challenge failed, and the mother, having served in all some 11 years, is now finally to be released on conditions. Is that approach, one wonders, now to change?
During the last 30 years, it has been clearly established that under the Strasbourg convention—the human rights convention—in indeterminate sentence cases it is for the judiciary, not for the Executive, as it always used to be, to determine both the appropriate tariff term for punishment before parole can even be considered, and also the time when the prisoner should finally be released on licence. It is the Parole Board, an independent quasi-judicial body, which has the latter role. Is that now to be changed?
In the root and branch review, Mr Raab said that the Government would introduce “a precautionary principle” into the assessment of risk and a
“Ministerial check on release decisions”—
later called an oversight—in cases involving
“those who have committed the most serious crimes”.
These, the “top-tier cohort”, are those convicted of murder, rape or terrorism and
“Causing or Allowing the death of a child”.
As to these, Mr Raab said that
“the Justice Secretary will have the power to refuse release, subject to judicial challenge, on … clearly prescribed grounds, in the upper tribunal.”—[Official Report, Commons, 30/3/22; col. 831.]
Well, I fear that we are in for an ever-increasing prison population.
When I went on the High Court Bench, almost 40 years ago now—although not as long ago as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf—the average term served by murderers was roughly some 12 years. It is now often more than double that. For the remaining IPP prisoners, unless the grave injustice that they are already suffering is to be increased yet further by some newly introduced “precautionary principle”, they need the Parole Board to exercise some measure of understanding and compassion. Let us hope that the report on IPPs, now awaited from the House of Commons Select Committee on Justice, will see it that way too.
Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser of Craigmaddie, on her excellent speech seconding the Motion for a humble Address, which included many references to Scotland and reminded us that she likes to highlight Scotland at every opportunity. This House can be an odd place for Scottish Peers, as previously much of the legislation that had an impact in Scotland was dealt with in the Scottish Parliament, while most of the legislation scrutinised in this Chamber was applicable to England. In the past two years this has changed. Whether you describe it as a power grab or not, we have certainly seen incursions into devolved areas of competence, and I think we will see even more in the programme outlined in the Queen’s Speech.
Like others, I hoped that in this Queen’s Speech we would hear about steps to bring our constitution into line with 20-plus years of devolution; instead, we have a stand-alone Bill to abolish the Human Rights Act and replace it with a so-called Bill of Rights. Because the business of devolution has not yet been completed, the role of the devolved parliaments is not acknowledged in making fundamental changes to our constitution, such as introducing a Bill of Rights. No other nation with devolved Administrations has such a centralised system as the UK. Does the Minister recognise that drafting a Bill of Rights should be done jointly with the devolved Administrations and, of course, consulting much more widely in civic society?
The Human Rights Act was adopted just at the point when devolution was being put in place and is central to the relationships between the different parts of the UK. Will the Government take notice of the concerns expressed by all three human rights commissioners about scrapping the Act? The Joint Committee on Human Rights report on 13 April 2022 stated that:
“The HRA plays a unique role in the constitutional arrangements of the devolved nations. The role played by the ECHR and the HRA has helped embed a human rights culture in the devolved nations and plays a particularly important role in the peace settlement in Northern Ireland.”
Part of the relationship between Westminster and the devolved Administrations was based on the assurance that the ECHR would be integrated into the devolved settlements. The Good Friday agreement binds the UK internationally to the multi-party deal, which was endorsed in joint referenda on both sides of the Irish border. This agreement was lodged as a treaty with the United Nations. The section of the agreement guaranteeing the rights of minorities states that the British Government commit to
“complete incorporation into Northern Ireland law of the European Convention on Human Rights … with direct access to the courts, and remedies for breach of the Convention”.
Can the Minister assure us that this will remain the case?
Northern Ireland’s ambiguous situation in terms of the protocol will be further undermined by this Bill. This is not just a discussion about the niceties of international treaties; we must remember the daily experience of violence that existed before the Good Friday agreement. The HRA is also woven directly into the fabric of Scotland’s constitutional settlement. The Scottish Government believe that changes to the existing statute will have very real implications for devolved institutions; therefore, no changes affecting Scotland should be made without the explicit consent of the Scottish Parliament.
Before the Queen’s Speech, the Welsh Government appealed to the UK Government to abandon these proposals and recommit to the retention of the existing HRA. They stated that, as many of the Bill’s provisions will impact on the operation of devolved responsibilities, they will bring forward a legislative consent Motion. I have argued on a number of occasions that this Government have no understanding of devolution, and probably very little support for it. However, they are in real danger of making people from the devolved nations so alienated that separation would seem the most obvious response. Can the Minister give any reassurance that they will take the legislative consent process more seriously on this occasion than they have recently?
Lord Farmer (Con)
My Lords, the gracious Speech prioritises growing and strengthening the economy and helping to ease the cost of living for families. This will require strengthening families. The Centre for Social Justice established that family breakdown—divorce and separation, father absence and dysfunctional family relationships—is not just a consequence of financial hardship but drives poverty and financial stress. As well as leading to much emotional and physical harm and significant health costs, it undermines individuals’ productivity and creativity, which has a knock-on effect on the economy.
During the pandemic, parents who had never needed help with the practicalities of family life, as well as in their relationships with their children and each other, began to reach out to local services and charities because they were at breaking point. Their significant financial and other anxieties have not receded but increased. That is why, in the Government’s efforts to level up and support more people into work, their policy on family hubs is particularly important and needs cross-departmental collaboration. Family hubs help to ensure that children have the best start for life and help parents to get out of debt, address substance misuse and get into employment. They could support the separated families in which one-third of all children grow up, and of which almost two-fifths are involved in acrimonious court proceedings.
The levelling-up Bill will place a duty on the Government to set missions and produce an annual report on their delivery. Action for Children’s suggested measures for levelling up for children include investment in education and for a number of children who are school-ready. I would make requirements on the number growing up with both their parents, a regional version of the family stability indicator that was part of the Government’s social justice strategy. Nationally, around a quarter of families are headed by lone parents, where children are particularly at risk of poverty and disadvantage. In 2013, the CSJ took the most local view possible and published an analysis of lower super output areas across England and Wales. Ranking all LSOAs by levels of lone parenthood, the top area had 75%, and in the top 10 the proportion was around 66%. Others, such as the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, acknowledge such differences in family structure among factors driving inequality of children’s outcomes.
Reducing regulation on businesses must include farming. Freedom from European regulation may have come in the nick of time, because our farms must perform to the max, given the ugly spectre of world famine that stalks the war in Ukraine. Agricultural innovation is urgently needed to build a more sustainable future but, in the developing global food crisis, particularly for grain, the Government must prioritise food production instead of imposing any new restrictions—for example, on fertilisers and pesticides.
Turning to justice and home affairs, I very much applaud the speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, who talked about prevention upstream and downstream. Numbers of victims will continue to increase and streets will not be safer unless crime is prevented, including by improving rehabilitation. Considerable attention is paid to the plight of women in the criminal justice system. My review pointed to the abuse and violence many have suffered as potent criminogenic factors. A similar narrative would fit the reality of many men and boys in trouble with the law, but no one is articulating it. There are roughly 77,000 men and 3,800 women in prison—a stark difference. Yet, given our swollen male prisons, this is an area where significant changes are needed.
On criminalisation, the Government should tread very carefully—I am backing my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay here—when introducing an offence spanning non-physical conversion therapies intended to change sexual orientation. The Government will need to be crystal clear what they mean by “conversion” and “therapy”, so that when under-18s explore their sexuality with their parents, or perhaps a youth leader in a faith organisation, such people who are sincerely motivated by young people’s welfare are not unintentionally criminalised. A wide spectrum of responses exists between unquestioningly affirming their sexual orientation and rejecting it out of hand. Treating young people’s transgender issues separately is right, but many of the same concerns are relevant to sexual orientation and should not be batted away as homophobic.
Finally, much has been said about the Online Safety Bill and that it might curtail freedom of speech. However, there is much disquiet about children’s and young people’s access to pornography. Moreover, responses to “tractorgate” in the other place reveal how adults, as well as children, suffer when abusive, violent, misogynistic and racist porn is prolific because it is so addictive. As with gambling, libertarian arguments sound very hollow when the utter human misery associated with porn addiction becomes apparent, from the inability to form relationships and/or perform sexual functions because of its effects, to the social isolation and financial burden. This is not about making moral judgments, but recognising insidious and very real harm.
Lord Stephen (LD)
My Lords, to participate in this debate is a great privilege. However, I will concentrate my remarks on an issue much too ignored in the gracious Speech: the constitution of the United Kingdom and, mostly but not exclusively, the situation in Scotland. There are other major constitutional issues of great importance: the much-neglected and much-needed reform of this House; the need for electoral reform; Ireland and the historic changes in Northern Ireland, so eloquently addressed by my noble friend Lord Alderdice; and the need for a full, written constitution and to rebalance the powers of the Executive and Parliament to strengthen the position of Parliament—something which is very far from the Bill of Rights being proposed. These are all neglected largely, mostly or entirely in the gracious Speech.
Scotland also deserves specific comment and attention because, we must remember, the SNP remains committed to holding an independence referendum before the end of 2023. I believe that it should not happen and that the SNP should be held to its own pledge, given at the time of the 2014 referendum, that this should be a “once in a generation” event. It should be no surprise that this commitment has been ditched by the SNP. What is surprising is that the UK Government refuse to rule out another referendum, using some formulaic words about “evidence of support” to avoid giving a simple no. Will the Minister use this one simple word this evening in his summing up and make it clear that the United Kingdom Government are against this second referendum happening?
Perhaps Ministers in London believe that this issue is now on the back burner. I give them this warning: do not underestimate the laser-like focus of the SNP and the Scottish Government, which is always on this issue. Equally, do not underestimate the ability of the SNP to attempt to turn its own efforts to hold another referendum into a divisive and damaging debacle all of its own, from which it will attempt to extract the maximum political advantage.
According to the opinion polls, support for independence has twisted and turned up and down since the 2014 referendum. Ironically, the high point in favour of independence was just after the referendum. More recently, during the Covid debacle, with partygate and the performance of Boris Johnson and his Government, support for independence increased. It is perhaps ironic that support has now declined based on a war taking place in Ukraine. However, one thing remains clear and constant: this continues to be a damaging and divisive issue in Scotland—now every bit as much as it was back in 2014. Never believe that somehow the 2014 independence referendum was some sort of outpouring of civic good will, democracy and constructive, eloquent debate, contrasted so often by the SNP with what it describes as the bitterness and disgraceful tactics of the Brexit referendum. There is no such contrast to be made. I sense that the next 12 months will become increasingly tense, confrontational and difficult—and manufactured to be so.
The good news is that, according to the latest polls, less than 30% of people in Scotland want to hold this referendum in 2023, far less vote for independence. Therefore, it is not the settled will of the Scottish people even to hold a second referendum, far less to vote to leave the United Kingdom. What people want is a Scottish Government focused on better education, getting to grips with the backlog in the NHS and tackling the cost of living crisis. Instead, we have seen the attainment gap widening. Drugs-related deaths in Scotland have tripled, and our maths and science education has slipped to an all-time low in international comparisons. As a former Education Minister, that last statistic especially pains and appals me, in the land of James Watt, Alexander Graham Bell, John Logie Baird and Alexander Fleming.
I will stop here, although there is much to be tackled on the constitution. I wish that the gracious Speech had tackled some—rather than none—of these issues. Some decade of this century, there will be great reforms. However, I now fear that it will not be this decade. I make one final, brief plea: we really need to tackle the centralised nature of government in this country. I cannot overemphasise the importance of reform and much greater decentralisation. This is best done by introducing a federal structure for the government of these islands, one which must surely tackle the issue of a federal structure for England. This would be good, healthy and positive for Scotland, Wales and Ireland—and very good for England as well.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, I will talk about the arts, arts education and levelling up. There was no mention of the creative industries in the Queen’s Speech. This is a serious omission as it has become increasingly clear in recent years that these industries will play a major part in the future of this country. However, I too am glad that a DCMS Minister is responding.
The term “creative economy” is mentioned in the detailed document, in relation only to public broadcasting and the proposed privatisation of Channel 4 in particular. I will say no more about that, other than to ask the Minister to take particular note of the point about foreign ownership made by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, and to speculate whether Channel 4 would not be eventually swallowed up by one of the giants with which the Government misguidedly would like our public broadcasters to compete.
As we emerge from the pandemic, the arts in particular should play a significant part in this process, in terms of creativity, opportunities, access, education, community and the financial returns which, in normal times, should benefit not just the country as a whole but our regions as well. The arts sector has of course been grateful for the necessary help provided during the pandemic, but the fear is that we will return to the cold reality of longer-term cuts. This is evidenced by the National Campaign for the Arts Arts Index survey of 2020, which showed that public funding for the arts per head of population fell by a huge 35% since 2008 and, interestingly, that business sponsorship of the arts has fallen by 39% since 2013. Further cuts would be destructive at a time when the arts are still struggling to get back on their feet, including on the repayment of emergency loans. This fear includes London, where there is huge concern over the 15% reduction of funding the Arts Council has been instructed to make on its NPOs, some of which may fold as a result.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, pointed out, the principle of levelling up across the country is important, but robbing Peter to pay Paul is not the right answer. It is a policy that ignores the importance of the interactive cultural relationship between London and the regions. Earlier this year Sadiq Khan said that this will damage the UK’s—not just London’s—recovery from the pandemic. He also said:
“London has some of the most deprived communities in the country. Cutting arts funding for these communities is the opposite of levelling up”.
Of course, what we actually mean by funding is investment.
We have a Brexit freedoms Bill but, as UK Music pointed out in its helpful briefing, we should not ignore the importance of Europe as a market and a partner. For the music industry, which was worth £5.8 billion to the economy pre-pandemic, there continue to be concerns about touring in Europe. We need an UK-EU visa waiver agreement. Dual registration will not solve the cabotage problem for orchestras. The answer has to be a cabotage exemption from the TCA. I ask the Minister: what progress has been made on Eurostar becoming a CITES-designated port and will the Government explore a cultural exemption for ATA carnets in relation to the non-portable instruments and equipment? In the other direction, because of hold-ups and increasing red tape, there are now real concerns about whether visa-national acts, booked for festivals in the UK this summer, will be able to meet their engagements. This is something the DDCMS should perhaps keep an eye on.
The higher education Bill, the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill and the Schools Bill ought to overtly recognise the importance of the creative industries. The idea that there should be
“a school system that works for every child, regardless of where they live”
is excellent, but it will work only if there is a properly balanced education that seeks fulfilment for every child, and that must include the arts. School should be a place where children want to be, and they will want to be there if there is something that interests them. Boredom is an acknowledged major cause of absenteeism in both primary and secondary schools. The creativity crisis—as it has now been dubbed—in schools should be the first thing that the Government address. It is a crisis that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, as shown by this year’s University of Nottingham Art Now survey for the teaching of art and design. This means, in the long term, the scrapping of the EBacc and proper funding for the arts in schools. A good place to start would be to reintroduce the arts premium that the Government promised previously. Taking music as an example, research by the Incorporated Society of Musicians found that departmental mean budgets for independent schools are about five times greater than those of either maintained schools or academies. This is unacceptable and it does not need a Bill to move schools away from the narrower, more academic road they are going down—an approach that does not suit all children.
There are also concerns about the arts in higher education and what it will mean in practice when the Government talk of
“improving the quality of higher education”.
The cuts to funding arts courses and the fixation on maths and English as being key to higher education will doubtless make an impact on those who wish to pursue careers in the arts, including drama.
Levelling up should not just be about local business or the nature of the planning system. I go back again to funding. The Institute for Government found that there has been a 37% real cut in central government grants to local authorities between 2010 and 2020. The pandemic has stretched councils even further in the last couple of years. These cuts need to be reversed so that our local theatres, libraries, museums, public spaces and other community assets can thrive again, and local people can be proud of their environment. At the local and regional levels, that is what levelling up is about.
Lord Mann (Non-Afl)
My Lords, a rabbi, an imam and a bishop walked into a bar—or rather, they will next Tuesday. There will be no alcohol served at Yorkshire County Cricket Club, for it will be the first ever Eid Milan celebration to be hosted by the club. It is a significant moment in the progress of the cricket club and I hope—as I see a DCMS Minister here, although I do not expect a response today—that the opportunity for Yorkshire County Cricket Club to reach out and involve all communities, not least through an expanded and effective training centre in Bradford at the old Park Avenue cricket ground, will be deemed worthy of government support in every sense. This kind of initiative seems to me to define levelling up.
To anyone who thinks that racism in cricket is a purely Yorkshire problem, and purely to do with the Muslim community, let me say—without going into greater detail—that although its impact is not as great, the anti-Semitism at Yorkshire Country Cricket Club over the decades is as shocking as the anti-Muslim prejudice. The sexism and sexist behaviour have been as damaging as that done to the Muslim community. Anybody who thinks that Yorkshire is an outlier simply does not know what has been going on across English cricket. I would go as far as to say that Yorkshire is not even the worst offender. But something has been done; it would be smart of the Government to remain on board, as they have been, in the journey—as it is called —towards opening up and making that great game of ours accessible to all communities. We might even start winning a few Test matches if we did so.
It is not just in cricket where the Government have a potential story to tell. I am amazed that the Government have not been celebrating the successes of the youth hostel movement in its DCMS Youth Investment Fund, and the DCMS Youth Investment Fund. The NCS engagement with Youth Hostel Association has already proven a big success. The YHA is a body perhaps best exemplified by the King George VI Memorial Youth Hostel—it is not the only King George VI Memorial Youth Hostel but the one in Buttermere has the finest location—which has been used for 66 years by vast numbers of young people from all faiths, creeds and backgrounds. They use it to this day. It would be smart of the Government not just to take more credit but to ensure that more resources go into the YHA, because the hit it took from Covid means that fewer young people can get out into the countryside and fewer school kids get life-transforming residential trips in the great outdoors. Support for this would be worthy of any Government. The opportunities are already there.
The third issue I want to raise is football. I am pleased to report to the House that, for the first time in the history of our football, training is being given in contemporary anti-Semitism to professional football clubs. There is a keenness there to learn. That has happened in recent months and is going to be expanded, because there is a big demand across professional football, but perhaps even more importantly, it will be expanded into grassroots football, where it will make a very big difference. There is nothing the Government specifically need to do—there is no request for funding; football can sort that out—but again, there is an opportunity. If I were a Minister, I would be saying that I might need to go along and see this, report back and steal the example for our other hatreds, both in football and in other sports. Those great sports, not least football, could be used to get out to the masses—the football supporters, for example, whether spectators or online—that others can never reach.
When it comes to regulation in football, I just caution the Government. I am not generally in favour of creating laws, because laws are static, whereas negotiation and agreement—let us call it MoUs—can be more effective. If the Government want to redistribute income across football, legislation will be needed and there will never be consensus there. On such issues as safety, it is vital, but when it comes to governance of a sport, far more effective is a flexible model that, crucially, can change in the future without the interference of politicians. That is what I would do, and I hope there is good dialogue on that over the next year.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, it should surprise no one in this House that I am going to speak on the Government’s disgraceful plans to remove rights, undermine vital citizens’ protections and attack liberty, while at the same time pretending to be great champions of freedom. The background briefing to this part of the gracious Speech about creating a Bill of Rights describes meeting the needs of society, commanding public confidence, protecting the human rights framework from abuse and imbuing the justice system with a dose of common sense. The pens of spin doctors must have been very busy, because it will do none of those things—none.
We have a justice system, as others have mentioned, that is falling apart. We have seen the destruction of legal aid; the demolition of the probation service; the de-professionalising of the legal profession; the overpacking of prisons; attacks on our judges; disrespect for lawyers who act for the poorest—and we hear not a word about addressing the massive backlog of tens of thousands of cases waiting to be tried. Weasel words are uttered about creating a new law for victims. How do you help victims when they have to wait years for the resolution of their cases? This should come as no surprise, as this Government have shown so brazenly their contempt for law and rules, whether regulations on parliamentary conduct, national statutes or international laws. They can put in place Covid regulations carrying policing penalties one minute, and breach them the next. They can have their name on a UN convention, such as the genocide convention or the refugee convention, and ignore their obligations. They can sign a treaty on our departure from the European Union one minute, and seek to unilaterally dismantle it the next. They can make strong statements about eradicating bullying from Parliament one minute, yet when one of the Cabinet cohort is found guilty of chronic bullying, it carries no consequences. The arbitrators and victims are the ones who end up out of jobs.
Rules exist about not profiteering from being a parliamentarian, yet when one of the Government’s loyalists is found to have contravened the rules repeatedly, the Government try brazenly to rewrite the rules. Of course, for some, the law is to constrain just the little people. Populist Governments the world over do not want rights to be equally available to everyone: that is one of their hallmarks. What this Bill of Rights pursues is a society in which not everyone is equal in their access to justice; where the Government can act in ways that undermine people’s rights without fear of oversight by the courts; a place in which the state does not owe a duty to safeguard our rights, whether in the everyday circumstances we all experience or in the extreme situations that we hope will never happen to us or to our children. This is about an abject undermining of the rule of law, let us be clear, yet the United Kingdom wants to be recognised throughout the world as the great protector of the rule of law.
Not all of your Lordships who are members of the Conservative Party condone this behaviour. Quite a number of your Lordships are disgusted by it but, sadly, too few of you speak out. I pay tribute to those of you who do. Unfortunately, however, the hard right has control of your party. This is a callous, swaggering Government of the hard right, full of notions of entitlement and motivations of power and greed—and, let us be clear, a disregard for law—and they are capable of shocking disregard for truth. The country is facing potentially cataclysmic financial problems and yet the Government have no answers to that. Their lethargy regarding the desperate hardships so many are facing is astounding, yet they are quick off the mark to savage the right to protest, one of the fundamental rights in a democracy, and quick to reduce human rights. Make no mistake—that is what the Bill of Rights plan is set to do.
There are also serious questions. How can you possibly diverge from the jurisprudence of the European court and remain part of that framework? What will the impact be on Northern Ireland when it was fundamental to the Good Friday agreement and the peace process that there would be the human rights protections of the European Convention on Human Rights? What is the response to the Scottish and Welsh Government’s opposition? I do not think the Government have given much thought to the impact on the devolved nations and how it reinforces the message that Westminster does not give a hoot about their concerns or desires. This is of course all about giving red meat to their own hardliners. Will the Minister commit to a robust pre-legislative scrutiny process as recommended by the JCHR? Will the Government publish the Bill beforehand so that we can all have the opportunity to scrutinise it, and will there be a rigorous equality impact statement?
This Queen’s Speech is a pathetic response to a real and serious set of crises facing this country—the economic, criminal justice, NHS and care, energy and climate crises—but at the heart of it is an even more serious crisis: a crisis of our politics and the absence of ethics at the heart of government. That is the scandal we are now facing. This Bill of Rights is a supreme example of levelling down. Shame on you.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, 38 Bills—surely this raises the question about whether legislation is being overused, a technocratic substitute for moral authority. I was struck by the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, when he wittily moved the Motion for the humble Address, quoting the then Lord Mancroft from 70 years ago:
“we have been … over-legislated … glutted, filled … and stifled with legislation.”—[Official Report, 4/11/1952; cols. 4-9.]
I have to say, I empathise. Is the only way for society to show disapproval to resort to banning or criminalising, or the only way to endorse certain behaviours or social norms to set them in legal stone, avoiding the harder job of winning hearts and minds? For example, I have always been a critic of the boycott and divestment movement. I think we should vigorously argue against academic arts organisations and councils boycotting specifically Israel, and I will point out how discriminatory and censorious such policies are. However, do we need a Bill to ban boycotts? It just seems such an illiberal way of confronting anti-Semitism in public bodies.
Similarly, as someone who for years has been raising the alarm about the increasing cancel culture on campuses, I have often faced gaslighting denials, even in the face of, for example, gender-critical academics being driven out of their jobs and increasing numbers of speakers at universities being no-platformed. Yet I still feel queasy about the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill; a law to ban campus censorship just sits uneasily and could easily be used to avoid tackling deeper cultural trends, such as the bullying of many students to conform to the orthodoxies of identity politics such as being told that they have to repeat the mandated mantras of language codes such as the use of pronouns, the eradication of the word “woman”, and so on.
In the context of this concern about overlegislation, the Brexit freedoms Bill is to be heartily welcomed: at last a chance to roll back unnecessary laws retained from the UK’s EU membership. However, an email I received yesterday from the European Movement alarmingly declared that this Bill epitomises “the calamity of Brexit” and strips back all our rights. Surely this confuses political rights with laws. I should like to see the spirit of the Brexit freedom Bill expanded: that we look at scrapping all those stifling laws that we do not need here at home, not only those drawn up in Brussels. That rights become a matter for civil society, not the law courts, would be my aim.
The legalistic mindset also seems to inform much of the response to the replacement of the Human Rights Act by an updated and slimmed down Bill of Rights, but I welcome the move, which recognises the dangers of a dependence on lawyers as the main guarantors of rights and welcome an antidote to judicial overreach. The incremental increase in litigiousness as a political tool can be and is used as a barrier to enacting decisions made democratically by the elected Government of the day, even when it is not a Government that the majority in this unelected House voted for or that the majority in the legal profession voted for.
I have heard this new Bill of Rights sneeringly dismissed as bowing to populism, as though being popular with the voting public should be a badge of shame, but there is something chilling about human rights lawyers suggesting that the only defence of rights is an Act that was brought in only in 1998 by Tony Blair. It is as though all those hard-won rights achieved by rank-and-file activists, trade unionists and all those who have fought for racial and sexual equality for decades before the HRA existed are irrelevant. These rights were not gifts handed down from on high and will not disappear without the HRA.
I urge that we burst the myth that we need to rely on the law to defend freedom, a point viscerally illustrated recently. Where was the HRA or its advocates when we saw the widespread suspension of all civil liberties during the lockdown period: people dragged before the law courts for social gatherings and inhumanely denied rights to visit loved ones locked away in care homes or dying in hospital? Indeed, under the HRA, we have seen increasing criminalisation of speech.
So I welcome Dominic Raab’s emphasis on using the Bill of Rights to guarantee free speech. How refreshing to hear a government Minister of any party prioritise codifying the importance of free speech in enhancing public debate. As a director of the Academy of Ideas, which organises such public debates, I say “Hear, hear.” But as we have already heard so well-articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, another piece of legislation might well cancel out any free-speech gains of the Bill of Rights.
The Online Safety Bill should really be renamed the online censorship Bill. The ministerial boast that the Bill will make the UK the safest country in the world online uses “safety” as it is used by safe space warriors at universities, as a synonym for censorship and silencing. Of course it is proportionate for the law to tackle protecting children from pornography, those vile suicide sites, online grooming and harassment, but the bulk of the Online Safety Bill targets adults’ freedom to say and read lawful but harmful speech, as explained by the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar. Surely it is legislative overkill when the law is used to curtail lawful expression and a non-legal term such as “harmful” is expanded into the subjective category of psychological. To note, in today’s free-speech wars, that equals offensive speech some deem traumatic.
We are told the Bill will empower users, but instead it will empower—indeed, incite—big tech to remove what it decides is misinformation. But what is misinformation? The Wuhan lab leak? The biological fact of sex? Passages of the Bible? Who decides? The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill is, we are told, designed to ensure that academic staff feel safe to question and test received wisdom and put forward controversial and unpopular opinions. Good, but is that open-ended approach to ideas allowed only for academics? Surely all citizens should be equally free to question received opinion and have access to controversial views, yet the Online Safety Bill will deny them that equal right under the law.
To conclude, the law cannot guarantee free speech or freedom, but it can be used to curb and criminalise these liberties. We in this House must be wary of this when scrutinising the contradictory legislative priorities contained in the Queen’s Speech.
Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, whose contributions are always interesting, direct and not uncontroversial. Those Members of the House who were here for the opening speeches will have heard the brilliant exposé from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, of the inadequacies and weaknesses of the current arrangements for scrutinising secondary legislation and, indeed, the increasing imbalance in power between Parliament and the Executive. I entirely agree with and support what he said. He went on to suggest that, as chairman of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, I should be cast in the role of Wat Tyler. For those noble Lords who are not familiar with the details of our history, Wat Tyler was stabbed to death by members of the Executive—in this case, the King—at Smithfield on 15 June 1381. I think I had better get to my case quickly, before my noble friend sends the heavy mob here.
Several noble Lords have been kind enough to refer to the SLSC’s November report, Government by Diktat: A Call to Return Power to Parliament—the title really says it all—as well as the report from our sister committee, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, Democracy Denied? This issue of scrutiny has been a problem for some years, but it is a problem, a weakness, which the conditions of modern life and the practices of the Government in recent years have made starker. Our committee followed up with a further report two weeks ago, What next? The Growing Imbalance between Parliament and the Executive, following on from what we said in November. A number of noble Lords have referred to it—the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, in particular—and I do not want to go through it. It is available in the Printed Paper Office for those who wish to consider this in more detail. However, among the most important things are the failure to provide impact assessments or examples of an actual consultation, poor-quality explanations of the purposes of the regulations and, last but not least, a continuing failure to distinguish between guidance, which is advice, and regulation, which is the law. Overall, I respectfully suggest to your Lordships’ House that this whole approach shows that the Government have insufficient respect for and understanding of the powers and privileges of the two Houses of Parliament.
Noble Lords will remember that, a few moments ago, I said that our latest report was entitled What next?. The Queen’s Speech outlines at least two examples which, if enacted as forecast, will represent a further power grab by the Executive—the Government. The first is the sexily titled Brexit freedoms Bill. The Government appear to plan to take wide-ranging powers to rescind, amend or alter legislation arising from our membership of the European Union and to do so only by secondary legislation, with all the inadequate scrutiny procedures that that implies. This will not be so much a Bill with Henry VIII powers and clauses; it will be a Henry VIII Bill in its entirety. I am not sure that those of us who voted for Brexit, as I indeed did, understood that “taking back control” did not mean taking back control but transferring it from Brussels to Whitehall without any parliamentary input along the way.
The second example is the Online Safety Bill, which I think my noble friend Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay will have the pleasure of taking through your Lordships’ House very shortly. It is not my role to get involved in the delicate balance and trade-offs between free speech and censorship. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, made a very far-ranging exposé of this. However, a 226-page Bill, which leaves all the key policy details to be filled in later by secondary legislation, cannot be an appropriate way to proceed.
What is the answer? It is not—I repeat, not—to scrap the whole system and start again. First, the system works perfectly adequately in respect of negative SIs, the less controversial ones, and they account for over 70% of the work carried out by the SLSC. However, there is an important need for government departments generally to up their game on timeliness, assessing impact, consultation, clarity and a greater readiness to respond to and engage with concerns raised in the two Houses of Parliament. Where they are unable to do that, the instrument should be withdrawn until the department is able to respond properly.
But thirdly, and most importantly, Governments argue now that the rate of change in modern life outpaces the ability to bring forward primary legislation fast enough and therefore that secondary legislation must fill the gap. I have some sympathy with that view but, if you are going to grab a little, you have to give a little. Therefore, the challenge for us all now—Back-Bench Members of both Houses, the Government, Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition and the other opposition party Front Benches—is to devise a system to identify those key clauses and establish a new procedure to scrutinise, examine and, where necessary, amend them, including increasing the ability of external bodies and individuals to make their views known. Will it make the Government’s job easier? No, it will not—but it may well mean better law. Above all, obtaining a proper degree of parliamentary and public consent is a key element in maintaining general confidence in our democratic system.
Lord Parekh (Lab)
Lady Fox? No? My Lords, I am sorry—there seems to have been some confusion, because there is a speaker before me in the list, but I had not realised that she was not going to turn up.
Anyone who cares about Britain is bound to be disturbed by the current state of inequality and injustice in our country. Inequality between individuals is too obvious to need spelling out—for example, the vast inequality of incomes between some who earn millions and some who starve—and the figures are too well known for me to retell. The recent case of a woman who travelled by bus all day to avoid having to spend money on heat is too well known and is emblematic of what actually goes on.
We have inequality not just of individuals but also of regions. As a recent survey by the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out, Britain comes out as the worst of 27 nations that it studied. Even the Prime Minister said that Britain is
“one of the most imbalanced societies and lop-sided economies”,
and, as he said, even well-designed policies will take decades to produce results. We have not even started with any of the policies which will help us to resolve these inequalities.
The cost of living is rising, and inflation is higher than ever before—it is certainly higher than in the 1960s. This inequality, as it continues to grow, becomes a source of a lot of unease in society. Society then breaks up into different communities, each going its own way. There is arrogance at one end of the social spectrum and anger at the other, and there is instability and a great degree of smouldering unease.
If these inequalities are going to be tackled, we require systematic, equal opportunities. We have to start in early childhood—which one sees very little mention of in the Queen’s Speech. Inherited disadvantages are perpetuated over generations and congeal into even stronger and deeper disadvantages. The class of birth is also the class of death; as many surveys have shown, social mobility in England has been rather low. When people protest against this growing inequality and the suffering it causes, the Government seek restrictions on what protest is allowed. These restrictions —far more than ever before, in fact—mean that a lot of people get arrested and that our prisons are fuller than ever before, becoming a training ground for future prisoners with more serious crimes.
As a result of that sort of situation, the legitimacy of our laws and political system is questioned. When that is questioned, there is a culture of cynicism. Our laws and political system are seen as instruments of oppression and repression, not of emancipation or law and order. No politician is trusted. They are exposed for breaking rules that they want ordinary citizens to follow. Public discourse becomes rather coarse and crude as a result. I find it impossible to believe that, when the Prime Minister gets up every morning, the references to him that one would find rather obnoxious—“He’s a liar”, “He’s this”, “He’s that”—do not destroy his confidence. Hardly any Ministers are referred to in a manner that one would regard as acceptable. I am not interested in what is true and what is not true; I am interested in how an individual is constantly referred to and how they might feel about it.
The result of all that, where every Minister is denigrated and treated as a cheat, is that the press becomes partisan. This was wonderfully discussed by Professor Brooks in his recent book, The Trust Factor. He points out that trust is the lifeblood of democracy. He says:
“We know no system is perfect”.
We know that no problem has only one answer—we all recognise that—but, as Professor Brooks says,
“we expect our leaders to be honest”
and dependable. However, when that does not happen and leaders are not honest, straightforward or transparent in their answers, we tend to become nihilistic and suspicious and fall for any story that is going round about any politician. Abusing and dehumanising opponents through simplistic stereotypes and clichés becomes a common way of referring to them.
This kind of situation, where you justify and suppress inequalities so that you can not only tolerate them but aggravate them, restricts liberty and, through that, results in the destruction of the very political system in which we take pride. This simply cannot go on. The problems of the legitimacy of our system and the inequality within it are urgent. Therefore, the remedy must also be urgent. We do not seem to realise even remotely what is happening to us.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, the responsibilities of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport have an impact on all our lives in both our leisure activities, from sport to theatre, and our working lives, with the crucial reliance on communications and data. The creative industries boost our economy and the BBC boosts our standing overseas. However, despite all this and much more, it is an undervalued and under-resourced department. As a result, opportunities are missed, such as the role that the creative industries could play in rural areas to help the levelling-up agenda.
Of course I accept that the department is doing things, including reforms in areas such as data, media, digital competition and online safety. However, even in some of these areas, it is simply not going fast enough. For example, I am pleased that the Government recognise the need to tackle tech giants’ anti-competitive practices and say that action is urgent but, instead of enacting the proposals for the Digital Markets Unit, we are offered a draft Bill—hardly urgent action.
I have spoken many times in your Lordships’ House about the need for urgent action to reform gambling; I declare my interest as the chairman of Peers for Gambling Reform. This is yet another area where we have seen dither and delay—sadly, that delay is costing lives—while gambling companies make multi-billion-pound profits. We have well over a third of a million problem gamblers; amazingly, 60,000 of them are children. Some 2 million people are impacted by it all and, sadly, more than one gambling-related suicide occurs every single day. We cannot continue as we are, with outdated legislation designed before the advent of the smartphone. Can the Minister at least tell us exactly when the much-delayed White Paper will be published?
There are many gaps: there are no measures to improve the protection for our world-beating creative, design and brand industry, the success of which is continually threatened by digital piracy and counterfeiting. It is now 18 months since the Government’s Digital Markets Taskforce recommended solutions, so can the Minister tell us whether the Government plan to progress these recommendations and, if so, when?
Our world-leading sports industries rely on income underpinned by intellectual property rights, yet their digital rights are poorly protected and their TV rights are now under threat, as we increasingly see drones feeding TV pictures to the betting community without the permission of the organisers. Bizarrely, this is entirely legal at present. Sporting bodies have developed sensible proposals to rectify the situation, so will the Minister at least agree to meet them?
The Government claim they are prioritising improvement in intellectual property protection in those countries with which we are negotiating trade agreements, yet industries that rely on IP are not convinced. They point to the CPTPP, from which it is clear that, rather than a rule-maker, we will be a rule-taker and there will be little deviation from the existing agreement with its poor IP protection. That is hardly prioritising intellectual property in trade negotiations.
Even over Brexit, because the DCMS lacks any clout in Whitehall, it was ignored when the deal was being negotiated. As a result, BEIS failed to protect our second-largest sector, the creative arts, which covers one in eight businesses. The perfectly sensible cultural visa waiver scheme offered by the EU was rejected for mistaken ideological reasons. The consequent increase in complexity and red tape for touring musicians and other performance artists will not be fixed, as the Government try to claim, by what my noble friend describes as the “quagmire” of differing bilateral deals with individual EU countries.
Finally, given that so much needs to be done, can the Minister explain why vital legislative time is to be used to provide a solution where there is no problem and no public support? The Secretary of State claims that the privatisation of Channel 4 is necessary because the current ownership model has “serious challenges”, yet your Lordships’ Select Committee, like many others, stated:
“We are not convinced … by those who claim that privatisation is an urgent necessity”.
I will not repeat the many eloquent arguments made by other noble Lords, but will ask just one question. The remit of Channel 4 includes several quotas, such as the percentage of production that should be made outside London. But Channel 4 committed to exceeding them and Ofcom confirms that it has. The broadcasting White Paper specifically says:
“The government will require this new owner to adhere to ongoing commitments, similar to those Channel 4 has today”.
Can the Minister explain whether this means that a new owner must maintain the quotas Channel 4 has achieved or the lower ones set out in the remit? Surely, if it is the lower ones, this totally contradicts the Government’s promise that they expect the new owner to continue to
“deliver outcomes in line with those we see today”.
With so much else that needs fixing, I fail to understand why an underresourced and undervalued department is wasting time on an unnecessary and unpopular project.
Lord Green of Deddington (CB)
My Lords, it was suggested earlier that Cross-Benchers are a bunch of left-wing intellectuals. I do not think I have ever been accused of being left-wing and certainly not an intellectual. That may explain why I intend to strike a very different note.
I intend to tackle a subject that many of your Lordships love to hate. You have guessed it: immigration and, in particular, its impact on and consequences for the future of our society. I will do that in about four and a half minutes, I think.
This Government promised at the last election to take back control of immigration and to reduce it. Regrettably, they have failed to do so. The truth is that, quite apart from the chaos in the channel, which I shall leave aside, immigration in its normal sense is running out of control. Last year more than 800,000 long-term entry clearances were issued, the highest total since 2005. How many migrants left in that year? We do not know. Why not? It is partly because Covid disrupted travel patterns, as we all know, but also because the official statisticians chose to abandon key parts of the International Passenger Survey, even though they had nothing reliable to replace it with. What we see is a rapid increase in the inflow and no reliable information on the outflow in the past year or two.
Looking back over the past 10 years, we know that the Conservative Government who promised in 2010 to reduce net migration to fewer than 100,000 a year allowed it to rise to an average of 230,000 over that period. Looking back over the past 20 years, three metrics illustrate the impact of immigration on such a scale. They are not very often referred to but they are not in doubt and they are not challenged. First, the UK population has grown by nearly 8 million and 80% or more of that increase was due to immigrants and their subsequent children. Secondly, the share of births to one or more foreign parent has almost doubled in England and Wales to about 35%. Thirdly, the ethnic minority population of Great Britain—I include in that migrants from the EU—has almost doubled to 21%. We now find that in London immigrants by that definition are 56% of the population—a majority. Birmingham at 48% and Manchester at 43% are not far behind.
What of the future? The share of ethnic minority children in state-funded schools is now about one-third. Twenty years from now, on reasonable assumptions, they could well become the majority in our schools. Meanwhile, on a wider scale, three well-known academic projections have put the white British population 40 years from now at between 55% and 65%. That means, whether you like it or not, that our grandchildren would, in their lifetimes, have become a minority in what I would call their own country. Just think about that for a minute. Is it really what we want to see for the future of our country? Some will say yes, but an awful lot of people, especially the less rich and the less comfortable, would not welcome it at all.
We are already seeing the impact of these very rapid changes on our political system. I will not say much about that as it is really not my business, but all parties are increasingly concerned to attract the immigrant vote. As a result, the Immigration Rules, already under pressure from industry, have been steadily weakened. We are getting close to the point where there is no effective control. Meanwhile, although the salience of the matter varies with time and with what else is going on, in 2021 a YouGov poll found that 55% of the public said that reducing immigration should be a high or medium priority for the UK. As I have pointed out before in this House, that amounts to about 30 million adults. The Lib Dems do not like that, but it is the case.
It is no use blaming the white British. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, in her recent comprehensive study of immigration into the UK, put it rather well. She said this:
“It isn’t racist … to say that the pace of change from immigration in recent years has been too much for some communities … People are understandably uncomfortable when the character and make up of a town change out of all recognition in five or 10 years.”
That was her view, and I happen to share it.
To conclude, this massive, continuing inflow could well lead to serious social tensions in Britain, as we are already seeing in France. Even in Sweden there have been serious riots. Indeed, its Prime Minister said recently that integration is failing and that certain communities in Sweden live “in completely different realities”. Noble Lords may think that some places in the UK are similar. I hope that in the coming Session this House will turn its attention to the crucial impact of current levels of immigration on the whole future of our society. It is not too late to act, and policies are available. What is needed is the political will to address an issue that so many have preferred to avoid.
Baroness Goudie (Lab)
My Lords, the Government propose to move away from human rights to a Bill of Rights. One is bound to ask: what is wrong with human rights? Why is there a distancing from human rights in the title?
After the horrors of world wars, an international approach and reaffirmation of human rights principles were needed. In Europe these have never been more necessary than at present. The European convention and the establishment of the European Court of Human Rights were supported across the board from the United Kingdom. Largely, what was done was to embody and import common-law principles. These are complicated and reflect the principles we have enjoyed since the Magna Carta. The United Kingdom can be proud of its achievement.
Building on this, the Human Rights Act 1998 was to bring convention rights home. We should regard as a success the crucial task of enabling and ensuring the effective enforcement of those rights. It has withstood the test of time, skilled in the balance it struck between the important principles of the sovereignty of Parliament and the independence of the judiciary.
Decisions of the Strasbourg court are to be taken account of, no less and no more, but in the case of primary legislation, even the power of the UK court does not go beyond making a declaration of incompatibility. The rule of law is maintained. It is not broken and so does not need to be fixed. On the contrary, it is not to disrespect the role of democracy and of the majority to ensure that minorities are included and not abused or oppressed. Civilised conduct is promoted and totalitarianism is confronted. Democracy does not accept a lack of constraint and restraint upon executive access. The public interest criteria and the collective interest are not neglected in striking a proper balance.
When appropriate, the UK courts decline to follow Strasbourg cases. They do not do so slavishly, and they explain why. The Government have failed to make a case for departing from the recommendations of the Gross report, which was a well-reasoned and persuasive analysis.
Finally, and importantly, in parallel with our Human Rights Act there has been the peace process in Northern Ireland, to which the human rights convention made a significant contribution. At a time when the process is under threat, not only from the consequences of Brexit but from the Government’s attitude to the Ireland/Northern Ireland protocol—to which they agreed, as an international treaty—it is crucial that human rights are not thwarted.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
My Lords, I want to take up the last point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, about the protocol in Northern Ireland. Page 447 of the 2011 edition of Erskine May states:
“By long-standing convention, observed by successive Governments, the fact of, and substance of advice from, the law officers of the Crown is not disclosed outside government. This convention is referred to in paragraph 2.13 of the Ministerial Code.”
In a complete reversal of that convention, the current Attorney-General has announced in the Times today that she has been advised that legislation to override the Northern Ireland protocol is legal because the EU’s implementation of the protocol is disproportionate and unreasonable. That is no doubt intended to trigger and justify the Brexit freedom Bill that is part of the Government’s programme. The public are entitled to know who gave that advice and what the standing of that person is, whether a Civil Service lawyer employed as a member of her staff or specialist counsel. In either event, the Attorney-General gives political cover to her advisers and takes the responsibility. She cannot get away with a breach of the convention by saying, “It wasn’t me, guv”.
The charge that the EU’s implementation of the protocol is disproportionate and unreasonable is of course pure Lewis Carroll; like the rest of this Government, it is Boris through the looking glass. Far from being intransigent, the EU has sought to keep Boris to his promises. He signed the deal. Everything was “oven ready”. Last October, Maroš Šefčovič, the EU negotiator, put forward four papers with proposals to mitigate some of the practical problems that have arisen. Those have been rejected out of hand. He has indicated that he is open to further talks.
The truth is that this Government have deliberately misled the public about the meaning of the protocol. I shall give a clear example. The Government have suggested almost from the beginning that Article 16 provides a mechanism for the UK to walk away from the protocol. “Invoke Article 16!” is the cry. But Article 16 is a commonplace dispute resolution mechanism providing that, in the event of difficulties, one or other of the parties may suspend the operation of the protocol for a temporary period in order to remedy a precise situation by way of agreed measures—measures that will least disturb the wider operation of the protocol. If invoked, Article 16 does not blow up the protocol; it continues to be in force. It is not an escape hatch.
Yet this Government’s rhetoric has misled the main unionist party into fighting an election last week in Northern Ireland on a totally false basis, and to maintain its intransigence even now after it has suffered a historic defeat. In the face of that, the Attorney-General is advising that an Act of Parliament pushed through by a Conservative majority can break treaty obligations undertaken and recognised in international law. The sovereignty of this Parliament depends upon the rule of law, and the doctrine of sovereignty cannot possibly justify unlawful acts.
Noble Lords should not take it from me. When he resigned last September, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen of Elie, an exceptionally experienced and competent lawyer—said to be the best in Scotland, or at least the most expensive—said in his resignation letter:
“Over the past week I have found it increasingly difficult to reconcile what I consider to be my obligations as a Law Officer with your policy intentions with respect to the”
internal market Bill.
“I have endeavoured to identify a respectable argument for the provisions”
in question
“but it is now clear that this will not meet your policy intentions.”
Sir Jonathan Jones, the chief government lawyer, had already resigned for the same reason. The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, has 50 more reasons—in the Covid tickets issued today—for his resignation last month. He said then that
“the scale, context and nature”
of the Covid breaches in government was
“inconsistent with the rule of law”.
The Attorney-General is embarked on a course which can lead only to lengthy proceedings once more in the Supreme Court. When the Government lose, no doubt they will squeal, as they have in the past, that the judiciary is getting involved in politics. Protecting the rule of law is not politics. The Lord Chancellor swore to protect the rule of law on his appointment, and the Attorney-General herself swore that she would
“duly and truly minister The Queen’s matters and sue The Queen’s process after the course of the Law, and after my cunning”.
On 17 January 2019, I said that Brexit would lead to the breaking-up of the United Kingdom, and I repeated the point in September 2019. If the Government continue in their confrontational way to destroy the protocol, I fear that that is precisely what will happen.
Baroness Henig (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord.
A previous speaker referred to the “fine but empty words” of the Queen’s Speech. I would rather describe it in the graphic language I heard a lot of when I lived in the north, as “All fur and no knickers.” Yes, we have headline-grabbing proposals—a British Bill of rights, a Brexit flexibilities Bill—but what are they actually going to achieve in practice, other than to bypass parliamentary scrutiny even more, as we have already heard, and further enhance executive power? One looks in vain for concrete measures to deal with the escalating cost of living, with the problems that people are actually grappling with in their daily lives—help for local communities. It is all headline stuff, and there is so much that the Government could and should be doing to address mounting threats and problems.
First, I turn to an issue high on the Government’s agenda: making our streets safer. I should in doing this draw the House’s attention to my interests as set out in the parliamentary register, and in particular to those relating to private security. For a decade and more, leaders across the private security industry have campaigned for licensing of companies as a major part of a strategy to drive up standards across the industry. This is a key issue for public safety; in the last 10 years, nearly 20,000 police officers have disappeared from our streets, and it is private security that has taken on more and more of the responsibility of policing public spaces and private venues. So it matters to all of us that security guards on the front line are properly trained, effectively deployed and supervised, and paid at least the national minimum wage.
Ministers in this House as long ago as 2015 assured us that regulation of private security companies was a priority. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, declared it to be something that they were committed to and said that it would happen early in the next Parliament. Really? I must have missed it. No, these were empty promises; no measures were actually introduced. Then five years ago the Manchester Arena bombing happened, along with other terrorist attacks—and once again we were promised urgent action. Thanks to the persistent campaigning of Figen Murray, the Government were pushed into consulting on the Protect duty—but it has taken five years. I saw no mention of a Protect Bill in the Queen’s Speech, but the Minister referred this morning to a draft Bill. Its introduction is long overdue, and I look forward to hearing more about its provisions. It is far more important to have a Protect Bill than to target peaceful protesters, but such a Bill will require extensive action. Probably around half a million or more premises and venues up and down the country will need to be risk assessed, and there will have to be regulation of companies carrying out safety recommendations to ensure adequate public protection. So I await with impatience further information about the proposals in the draft Bill.
I turn now to the fan-led review of football—because, again, we see the same pattern. We see headline proposals for establishing an independent regulator for football, but no actual Bill. There are a lot of issues raised in the Crouch report that the Government accept, such as on corporate misgovernance and incompetence, the need for fans to have input into decisions that affect them and their clubs, and also, of course, the importance of football clubs for local communities.
We know that without urgent action there will be more football clubs going into liquidation: more Oldhams, Burys and Macclesfields. What happens to local football clubs matters to local people. As times get tougher, people will live even more of their lives through their local football club. I know this as I have supported my local football club, Leicester City, for over 65 years, through thick and thin—interestingly, along with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, who is not in his place but who has supported them for more than 70 years. My point is that our football heritage matters to people, which is why the Government, through DCMS, should be taking urgent action to implement the sensible and pragmatic proposals of the Crouch review, not putting them off and instead pursuing the vindictive privatisation of Channel 4, which makes no sense either economically or culturally.
Finally, I turn to the pervasive issue of fraud. In this digital age, we are all at risk of internet, computer and mobile phone fraud. Not surprisingly, the number of victims of fraud across the country has rocketed; 40% of all crimes committed now are crimes of fraud. However, many people are so ashamed they have been taken for a ride that they do not tell anybody about it, so the crime is probably underreported. What are the Government proposing to do to tackle this epidemic of fraud? Not very much, it seems. There is a reluctance even to acknowledge fraud as a crime. When the Prime Minister declared recently that crime levels were going down, apparently he left out fraud cases, which seems rather surprising.
Your Lordships will be reassured to hear that a Lords Select Committee is now on the case. Under the dynamic leadership of the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, the Fraud Committee, of which I am honoured to be a member, is busy uncovering the true extent of the problem, and it will come up with a range of suggested measures to tackle it by the end of the year. I just hope that we are more successful in getting a positive commitment to urgent action from the Government than the members of the fan-led review of football. We need to do something to tackle fraud. Undoubtedly, this crime is going up and up and something needs to be done about it.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Henig. I have three points to make. First, as other noble Lords have said, I deplore the number of times we were asked by the Commons response to our amendments to a number of Bills in the previous Session to break the rule of law. The noble Lord, Lord Wolfson, did the decent thing and resigned from the Government over the issue. I suggest that the Government Whips and those who voted in favour of the Commons rejection of our amendments ought to examine their consciences to see how happy they are to have voted for so many breaches of the law.
Secondly, in the gracious Speech, mention is made of a Bill of Rights. Are the Government really happy about this, when the Secretary of State for Justice, who is presumably responsible for its introduction, has expressed the view that human rights should not apply to prisoners?
Thirdly, my noble friend Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick referred to a question I asked a number of times in the previous Session. My noble friend indicated that, in the 2019 Queen’s Speech, mention was made of a royal commission into the criminal justice system. As successive Ministers have made clear, this is obviously not going to happen—no announcement has been made of either the name of the chairman or the terms of reference, and the team formed inside the Ministry of Justice to handle the royal commission has been broken up. Surely, the Government should now do the decent thing and apologise to Her Majesty for asking her to make an announcement which they had no intention of implementing.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I shall focus mainly on the Government’s digital proposals. As my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, and many other noble Lords have made clear, the media Bill and Channel 4 privatisation will face fierce opposition all around this House. It could not be clearer that the policy towards both Channel 4 and the BBC follows some kind of red wall-driven, anti-woke government agenda that has zero logic. The Up Next White Paper on PSB talks of
“embedding the importance of distinctively British content directly into the existing quota system.”
How does the Minister define “distinctively British content”? Is it whatever the Secretary of State believes it is? As for the Government’s response to the consultation on audience protection standards on VOD services, can the Minister confirm that Ofcom will have the power to assess whether a platform’s own-brand age ratings genuinely take account of the values and expectations of UK families, as the BBFC’s do?
Having sat alongside the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on the joint scrutiny committee on the draft Online Safety Bill, I agreed with all his remarks today. I welcome the fact that its provisions are directed primarily at the business model of the social media platforms—in particular, the inclusion of scam advertising within the Bill and the inclusion of pornographic sites—but it is vital, if we are to have privacy protecting age verification, that principles for age assurance are included in the Bill. I welcome the intention to legislate for the new criminal communications offences recommended by the Law Commission, but without these being passed into law, the Bill will be completely defective, and we must incorporate the hate crime offences too.
But there are key issues that will need dealing with in the Bill’s passage through Parliament. As we have heard from many noble Lords, the “legal but harmful” provisions are potentially dangerous to freedom of expression, with those harms not being defined in the Bill itself. Similarly, with the lack of definition of children’s harms, it needs to be clear that encouraging self-harm or eating disorders is explicitly addressed on the face of the Bill, as my honourable friend Jamie Stone emphasised on Second Reading. My honourable friend Munira Wilson raised whether the metaverse was covered. Noble Lords may have watched the recent Channel 4 “Dispatches” exposing harms in the metaverse and chat rooms in particular. Without including it in the primary legislation, how can we be sure about this? In addition, the category definitions should be based more on risk than on reach, which would take account of cross-platform activity.
One of the great gaps not filled by the Bill, or the recent Elections Act just passed, is the whole area of misinformation and disinformation which gives rise to threats to our democracy. The Capitol riots of 6 January last year were a wake-up call, along with the danger of Donald Trump returning to Twitter.
The major question is why the draft digital markets, competition and consumer Bill is only a draft Bill in this Session. The DCMS Minister Chris Philp himself said in a letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell—the Chair of the Communications and Digital Committee—dated just this 6 May, that
“urgent action in digital markets is needed to address the dominance of a small number of very powerful tech firms.”
In evidence to the BEIS Select Committee, the former chair of the CMA, the noble Lord, Lord Tyrie, recently stressed the importance of new powers to ensure expeditious execution and to impose interim measures.
Given the concerns shared widely within business about the potential impact on data adequacy with the EU, the idea of getting a Brexit dividend from major amendments to data protection through a data reform Bill is laughable. Maybe some clarification and simplification are needed—but not the wholesale changes canvassed in the Data: A New Direction consultation. Apart from digital ID standards, this is a far lower business priority than reforming competition regulation. A report by the New Economics Foundation made what it said was a “conservative estimate” that if the UK were to lose its adequacy status, it would increase business costs by at least £1.6 billion over the next 10 years. As the report’s author said, that is just the increased compliance costs and does not include estimates of the wider impacts around trade shifting, with UK businesses starting to lose EU customers. In particular, as regards issues relating to automated decision-making, citizens and consumers need more protection, not less.
As regards the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill, we see yet more changes to the Electronic Communications Code, all the result of the Government taking a piecemeal approach to broadband rollout. I do, however, welcome the provisions on security standards for connectable tech products.
Added to a massive programme of Bills, the DCMS has a number of other important issues to resolve: the AI governance White Paper; gambling reform, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Foster; and much-needed input into IP and performers’ rights reform and protection where design and AI are concerned. I hope the Minister is up for a very long and strenuous haul. Have the Government not clearly bitten off more than the DCMS can chew?
Lord Woolf (CB)
My Lords, I am the latest in what I will call the pack of former senior judges who have addressed this debate. I do not propose to do more than to indicate that I agree with everything that they said. On those subjects, I have nothing to usefully add.
However, I feel that I should also mention just one or two of the other speakers who are not members of the pack, but who have also made contributions. I specifically endorse what was so ably said by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester about a subject very close to my heart: overindulgence in the use of prisons. On that subject, we also heard from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and I particularly thank him for what he had to say throughout his period as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons. Ever since, he has been magnificent in the way he has fought for a very important cause.
The next person I wish to thank is the person who came to the help of the profession. I am referring to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. As she explained, at the present the time the legal profession has real concerns about its position. The action it has taken is unprecedented so far as I know during my career in the law. I believe it was taken only after it was felt that unless it took action that was inconsistent with the normal practice of the Bar, it would never see the redress that is needed to try to deal with the problems of legal aid and fees for those appearing in the criminal justice system. Criminal justice is extraordinarily important to this country, and our reputation with regard to the quality of the justice we provide is the highest. It would not be of that high level if it were not for the quality of those who do not go in for highly paid work in the commercial field but instead devote their skills to the great difficulty of ensuring the defence of those who are charged, whether correctly or not, with criminal offences. I strongly urge the Government to seek the first possible opportunity to assist in resolving that problem.
One of the great things about our legal profession so far as my experience goes—it is long experience, but not necessarily as wide as I would like—is that most of the time, the relationship between the profession and the Government has been cordial and appropriate. That should be maintained, because more can be achieved in improving the quality of the justice provided in a period when relations are cordial than when another situation exists.
Finally, I shall mention just one matter in order to assist a noble Lord who fell into the difficulty I fell into on a recent occasion. If you do not turn up in time for the opening of a debate, whether you have a good excuse or not, and whether you have caused any inconvenience or not, your name as a speaker is removed and no matter how strongly you protest, you cannot get it restored. If that person had spoken, he would have urged those responsible for the consultation on the Government’s proposal for a modern Bill of Rights to publish a report on the consultation before the introduction of the proposed Bill.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a pleasure and privilege to follow the excellent speech of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, and to be speaking in this debate. I start by saying that of course it is possible to be concerned about the impact of immigration without being racist, but the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Green, was not about pressures on schools and hospitals in poorer parts of the country. It was mainly—and let us be honest about this—about the colour of people’s skin. It could have been made by people opposed to Jewish immigration to Britain before the war; by Enoch Powell and his supporters in the 1960s and 1970s; or by anyone, throughout the years, who wants to pretend that they are not a racist but are speaking up for the concerns of ordinary people in poor areas—a group he knows very little about. He is on completely the wrong side of history. People in Dudley, where I live, and places like it are not bothered about the colour of people’s skin any more and do not share this miserable obsession with what people look like.
I welcome the measures the Government set out in the Queen’s Speech to tackle crime and improve law and order. We live in a democracy—of course people have the right to protest, and I have been on plenty of protests over the years—but there is a huge difference between a properly organised march against a war or a protest against racism and bringing motorways or city centres to a standstill. People do not have a right to prevent hard-working people getting to work or patients getting to hospital. The freedom of the press is one of the pillars on which a free society and democracy depend, so people do not have the right to blockade printing presses either.
The Government also say they will bring forward measures to tackle economic crime, which are very much needed. When I was contacted by people in Dudley as a Member of Parliament, I was shocked by the terrible response that victims of fraud received. Recent figures show that just one in 500 frauds is prosecuted by police, despite an increase in this crime of 20%. Overall, the number of arrests and prosecutions are down; just one in 16 crime suspects was taken to court last year. The rate of offences that lead to a charge is at a record low, so the Government need to deliver on their promise in the Queen’s Speech to make the streets safer.
Given this commitment, there is one issue I want to raise. I want to speak about Dea-John Reid, a 14 year- old lad from Birmingham who was killed by a gang in the city last year. What can the Government do to secure justice for him and his family? It is a shocking story. One evening in May last year, after an altercation between two groups of teenagers, Dea-John was chased down a busy street by five males, including two grown men—adults—shouting racist abuse. One of them, who was 14 years old at the time, killed him with a knife. A 14 year-old black boy was chased by a gang and stabbed to death. His mum, Joan Reid, said he was
“hunted by a lynch mob reminiscent of … Mississippi Burning”.
Following the earlier altercation, the boy who killed Dea-John had phoned 38 year-old George Khan, who was drinking in a pub with 35 year-old Michael Shields. They collected the three boys in Khan’s car and “set off”, the court was told,
“to hunt down the Dea-John group … Khan carried the plan to seek retribution forwards and actively encouraged the attack”,
the prosecuting barrister said. According to witnesses, Khan pointed and shouted “Oi, you n-word”. Dea-John and his friends ran, but he went a different way to get away. Khan and the defendants ran after him. A witness said that the men had their tops off, used them to cover their faces and were carrying weapons. One was carrying what looked like a screwdriver. Khan allegedly shouted, “Bang him out” and—I apologise for this—“f- him up” to one of the teenagers. They were grown men. If that is not incitement, what is? This 14 year-old boy had asthma, ran out of breath, was caught, stabbed and killed. Imagine it: he was chased by a racist mob, cornered, stabbed and killed on the streets of Birmingham last year.
This is incredible. Four of the five defendants, all of whom chased him, were found not guilty by an all-white jury. The fifth, now aged 15, was convicted of manslaughter and will be free in less than three years. The judge said that, if he had been an adult, he would have been on trial for murder.
Someone in Birmingham said to me, “A gang shouting racist abuse—a black boy stabbed. What lessons have we learnt?” I remember Birmingham in the 1980s and how failings in the criminal justice system resulted in riots on the streets. There can never be any justification for that. His Mum, Joan Reid, called for calm in the black community in Birmingham—and they listened because they trusted the authorities. But the deal is justice for Dea-John and his family, so why are those men walking free?
I want the Government to look at what measures in the Queen’s Speech can secure justice for this boy and his family. Will Ministers look at this and will the Attorney-General refer it to the Court of Appeal? I know that obviously we cannot have political direction of the police and courts, but this cannot be allowed to stand—not in Britain in this century. So will Ministers call in the chief constable and the CPS in the West Midlands to find out what has gone on here? Are there other charges that could be brought, such as affray or racially motivated assault? I want to know what the Government can do to secure justice for that little lad and his mum. I want Her Majesty’s Government to address the concern that I have raised in the legislation they propose to bring forward in delivering on the gracious Speech.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My Lords, it is of course an honour to speak in the debate on the gracious Speech. I rise to speak about women and equalities, and the effects this Speech will have in that area. I fear that the Queen’s Speech, unfortunately, will do nothing to make Britain a more equal place. By failing to deliver for women and disabled people, making no mention of LBGT+ people and having no plan to break down the barriers that black, Asian and minority ethnic people face, it holds our whole country back.
More immediately, the Government are breaking the promise to ban all forms of conversion therapy. Ignoring the advice of experts from the BMA, the mental health charity Mind and many others, they are ploughing ahead with an absurd consent loophole that will make a mockery of any ban and discriminate against trans people. And disabled people barely get a mention anywhere, even though they are far more likely to bear the brunt of the cost of living crisis.
Turning to the record of the Home Office and the Department of Justice on women and equalities, the brief to which I am turning my attention as a member of the Opposition’s women and equalities team, I want to raise the rights Bill, as other noble Lords have, and the long-awaited victims Bill that were in the gracious Speech. These changes seem to me—I speak, of course, as a non-lawyer and not part of the club—to have an adverse effect, and possibly adverse impacts, on victims of crime, particularly of crimes of violence against women and girls and similar offences against men. That seems contrary to the Government’s policy of ending violence against women and girls—the latest strategy is very welcome —and having a justice system that works for victims.
What the Government propose at present seems to remove the ability of victims to assert their rights. Can the Minister assure the House that this is not an unintended consequence, since surely the Government intend to enhance victims’ rights, not reduce and damage them? The draft rights Bill contains the potential loss of positive obligations, which is a most serious issue for victims of crime, as my noble friend Lady Kennedy said in her speech. Positive obligations require the state not to breach human rights and also impose an obligation on the state to be active in protecting people’s human rights.
I thank the Victims’ Commissioner’s website for this example of positive obligations, because it seems obvious. One of the best-known instances of the use of violence against women victims, and the obligation to protect them, was the claim brought against the Metropolitan Police concerning the taxi driver rapist John Worboys’ victims. The Supreme Court held that the police’s significant failure properly to investigate Worboys’ actions had breached the state’s obligation to protect the women from inhuman and degrading treatment—that is, rape—within Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The question I have to ask the Minister is: would the Worboys case be possible under the Government’s proposals as they stand?
That becomes even more pertinent when one reflects on the Government’s abject failure to protect women and girls from sexual assault. We know that 20% of women have been raped or sexually assaulted as an adult, yet rape convictions continue to decrease. There were 1,917 fewer rapists convicted in the year December 2019 to December 2020 than in 2016-17—a decline of 64%—although the percentage of victims dropping out of increasingly lengthy investigations and trial processes has rocketed from 25% five years ago to 43% in 2020. The murders of Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and many others have reignited the national conversation about the safety of women and girls in Britain. That begs the question of the Minister: does this Queen’s Speech seriously address those concerns?
Let us look at women in prison. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester, who spoke about the imprisonment of women with children for non-violent offences, was absolutely correct to say that it is costly, counterproductive and cruel to them and their families. The Ministry of Justice’s 2018 Female Offender Strategy has been critiqued by the National Audit Office, and more recently the Public Accounts Committee, for its lack of value for money, lack of effectiveness and lack of durable change. Given the shortfalls of implementation to date, what steps will the MoJ take to respond to ensure that its strategy is successful in meeting its aims in the future?
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons yesterday published a report on HMP Bronzefield, Europe’s largest female prison, finding that 65% of inmates released from there did not have sustainable accommodation when they were released, thereby increasing the likelihood that they would end up back in prison.
Black, Asian and other ethnic minority young women face greater barriers in accessing safety and support, and overlapping forms of stigma and discrimination put them at greater risk of criminalisation. Can the Minister say when Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service will release its new young women’s strategy, and what resources will be dedicated to its implementation and delivery? What steps will the Government take to reduce the risk of increasing levels of racial inequality and disproportionality in future, as part of their current and future legislative programme?
Finally, in this proposed legislation, will there be a scrutiny that can depend on equality impact assessments that we can see in advance? Across this House we will certainly be looking for that.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
My Lords, in her speech the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, gave us the theme of the constitutional importance of the House of Lords, which is one of the things I wish to discuss today.
I listened carefully to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, who made a great speech. He prayed in aid Lord Hailsham of years ago and his “elective dictatorship”, and I recognised the speech, because it is one I have made many times—or at least a version of it. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, prayed me in aid when he talked about my being involved in ping-pongs three or four times—not for many years now. Then the noble and learned Lord the Convenor of the Cross Benches himself talked about Henry VIII powers, skeleton Bills, rebalancing Parliament and the Executive and the constitutional importance of understanding that balance, and the complexity of legislation. Surely the noble and learned Lord is the inheritor of the late noble and learned Lord, Lord Simon of Glaisdale, who placed such importance on these issues. Who would disagree with the noble and learned Lord? I would not, and I suspect that most of the House would agree with him that some of these things need to change. The question is how to do it.
Occasionally, we need reminding that the Government have no majority in this House—and nor should they. The Government can be defeated here on virtually every Division. That adds a responsibility on us not to do that, but to pick our targets with care where there is support in the party in government in the House of Commons and where there is a chance that the Government might listen. On the other hand, here is how not to do it. In the last Session of Parliament, there were 129 government defeats. There were 12 in one night on the borders Bill and, on 17 January, 14 in a day on the police Bill. The previous record for that number of defeats was in 1975-76. Of the 12 government defeats on 4 April, the Cross Benches voted 61 against the Government, no doubt independently and not en bloc, as a pack or all together.
Increasingly, on Lords consideration of Commons amendments, which should be a small, short procedure, we instead hear noble Lords rather pompously say, “I think we should ask the Commons to think again, one more time”. Then away it goes, back down to the House of Commons, to be soundly defeated and returned here a few hours later, utterly pointlessly. Speeches are repeated at length. So much self-discipline has—
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
Well, the noble and learned Lord has been repeating some of my speeches.
The more we defeat the Government because we can, the more the Government will ignore us and look at ways to stop us. It will not be the old debate on who should sit here. We tried that 25 years ago, with the Government who the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, supported so much. It did not do us much good then and it will not do so now. Instead, this time, they will turn to what my noble friend Lord McNally used to call a wing-clipping exercise and look at our powers. It would be a terrible mistake and one that I would deprecate, but this is the route we are heading down: reducing the Parliament Act delays, limiting the times an amendment can be rejected or opposing a limit of a few weeks to return a Bill to the House of Commons, leading inevitably to guillotines in this House. We should never have this in the House, but this is exactly what will happen if we continue in the way we are.
It sometimes feels as if we have developed a kind of anarchy in the House of Lords—an incontinence of Divisions. I understand that, during the period of lockdown, it was too easy to just press a button from a deckchair in your garden, but this kind of thing needs to stop. We are at last returning to voting in the Division Lobbies, so if we had 13 Divisions in a day, we would not move out of the Lobbies very much at all.
We also need to remember that here in the Lords we do not represent anybody. We have no responsibility or accountability. We have the huge privilege of being legislators here, but we have not been elected. We have constitutional purpose; it is quite limited, but it is important. A lesson is that you can never win a general election from the House of Lords. We scrutinise, revise and debate the great issues of the day. Of course we can defeat the Government, and we should vehemently argue against them and oblige Ministers to come forward and explain what they are doing, but we must always remember that the House of Commons is elected and we are not.
The Government, for their part, need to improve the quality of legislation.
Lord Strathclyde (Con)
I completely agree with that. We also need to have clearer instructions to Ministers and officials, and not try to solve every problem with unnecessary and burdensome legislation. On the question of statutory instruments, I thought that the Convenor of the Cross Benches, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, spoke with great sense: if we do not like how we think secondary legislation is going to be used, we should make the Government justify why they should have it in the first place and, if they do not, consider voting against them.
My noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar explained how we live in liberty under the law. He is right, and I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, will reflect on his words and think carefully about pressing her amendment to a Division.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, this has been a long and interesting debate, covering many varied and important issues across a range of portfolios. There have been a number of memorable speeches, to which I have listened intently and of which I have taken note—but the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, will be relieved to hear that I will not single out any particular revolutionary from the rest of the pack.
From my perspective, there appears to be a consistent and worrying theme that runs through the Her Majesty the Queen’s gracious Speech, undermining the preservation of long-standing institutions; a central tenet of conservative philosophy has been sacrificed for short-term political expediency: the exercise and retention of political power by the Executive. The Government appear to be clamping down on dissent and challenge, whether it is through the privatisation of Channel 4, the Bill of Rights or the Public Order Bill, which copies and pastes the parts of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act that relate to the policing of protests and which this House, with good reason, rejected in the previous Session. Let me say to those who feel that the Government have been defeated too many times that, the more controversial and unreasonable the legislation, the higher the number of government defeats will be.
It is interesting to note that, in the Government’s background briefing on the Queen’s Speech, the section on cutting crime is subtitled “Making the Streets Safer”. By this, the Government, like the Prime Minister, mean that crime is down 13% for the year ending December 2021 compared with December 2019—but that is only if you exclude fraud and computer misuse. Just because criminals change their modus operandi, it does not mean the Government can simply exclude these types of crime from the statistics. Including these offences, crime actually went up, but where in the Queen’s Speech—indeed, where in the history of this Government —are the effective legislative measures that are needed to prevent and detect this increasingly large proportion of crime committed in the UK, which predominantly affects the old and the vulnerable who can least afford the sometimes considerable losses involved?
Yesterday, the Home Secretary claimed in the other place that the Conservatives were the party of law and order. There was some dispute in the other place about the crime statistics, so let me use the statistics that the Government placed in the background briefing to the Queen’s Speech. Homicides are up 14%; violence against the person offences are up 13%; sexual offences were up 22% last year compared with the year before. The offences that have the biggest impact on individuals are all increasing, according to the Government’s own figures. Stop and search is also up 22%, which raises the question of how effective it is compared with the damage that it causes. Last year, 80% of burglary investigations were closed without a suspect being identified. More than 90% of thefts from vehicles and bicycle thefts went unsolved. Crime is rising because, eight times out of 10, the thief gets away with it.
Making sure that victims are told quickly that their case is going nowhere is not the right response. We are not interested in empty rhetoric; we are interested in evidence-led measures that are proven to work, such as restoring a uniformed presence on our streets and restoring the support staff who help to solve crime.
Where in the Queen’s Speech are measures to tackle old people being conned into transferring their life savings into criminals’ accounts; to tackle violence, particularly male violence against women; and to address the misogyny that is everywhere, from the Houses of Parliament and the police service to the streets—misogyny that makes it unsafe for women to go jogging on their own and makes female Conservative MPs feel uncomfortable when sitting on the green Benches?
Instead, we get the return of the draconian clampdown on protests, which the Minister described as measures to prevent protestors using “guerrilla tactics”, meaning protestors attaching themselves to each other, to objects or to buildings, as the suffragettes did to secure votes for women—exactly the same measures that this House has already rejected.
The noble Baroness, Lady Evans, the Lord Privy Seal said on Wednesday:
“I have no doubt that this ambitious programme will, as ever, benefit from your Lordships’ wisdom and expertise, and that your Lordships will help to ensure that the legislation can be as effective as possible.” —[Official Report, 10/5/22; col. 17.]
If only that were the case. The reality, not only on crucial aspects of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill but on other legislation last Session, was more accurately described by the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, who, in the same debate, remembered a conversation with a former Minister who recalled being able to take issues back to his department, where he would be listened to if he made a case for change, though not since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. Modesty forbids me naming names, but this House has expertise in policing protests that was not listened to. Not even serving police officers have been listened to. The majority of those consulted by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services say that it was not a lack of legislation that was hindering their ability to police protests effectively but a lack of police officers.
The Government’s attempts to bring police officer numbers closer to what they were a decade ago are running into trouble, with the temporary leader of the UK’s largest police force saying that they are struggling to meet recruitment targets. Even if they succeed, thousands of police community support officers, a crucial visible uniformed presence on the streets, and thousands of support staff, who enable police officers to be released from back-office roles, will not be replaced. Part of the Government’s public order proposals is to introduce serious disruption prevention orders, effectively banning people from being able to exercise their rights under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to freedom of speech and the right to assembly.
I found it breath-taking that, in the space of a minute, the Minister talked about deporting refugees to Rwanda and government compassion for those fleeing war in Ukraine. Having successfully undermined the rights of genuine refugees fleeing war and oppression, through the passing of the Nationality and Borders Act, the Government now seek to further undermine the rights of UK citizens to protest, and other rights enshrined in the Human Rights Act, seeking to replace the latter with a Bill of Rights.
If people have misunderstood what the Bill of Rights is about, that is the fault of government hype. The ability of individuals to challenge infringement of their rights will be made more difficult by, for example, the proposed requirement that the claimant prove significant disadvantage before a case can be heard in court. I know from personal experience that already most requests for judicial review are turned down on the papers, and many are refused at hearings in person, with very few getting through to a full hearing. The reasons for needing a Bill of Rights are spurious.
The Online Safety Bill is welcome but falls short of the Government’s aim to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. The issue of legal but harmful content has yet to be effectively addressed and the protections for children from pornography, self-harm and grooming all fall short of the standard the Government have set for themselves. To think that short cuts in data protection will reap a Brexit dividend ignores the potential impact on the data adequacy certification that the EU requires to enable the exchange of personal information, essential to both the security of the UK and its economic well-being in relation to its dealings with the European Union.
There is also the privatisation of Channel 4, a jewel in the crown of this country’s broadcasters, which supports independent producers throughout the UK and has headquarters in Leeds. It is the very model of levelling up, is in the rudest of rude financial health and does not cost the taxpayer a penny. Not only does Channel 4 commission a diverse range of award-winning content but it is fiercely independent, making it altogether different from any other broadcaster. Its privatisation will make it altogether the same as any other commercial broadcaster.
I have two sentences on banning conversion therapy. No one should be pressured into being someone they are not. Everyone should be helped to be who they really are.
Many on the Benches opposite talk about the conventions of this House. By convention, Governments listen to the wisdom and expertise in this House and respond positively. By convention, Governments do not change primary legislation by statutory instrument and, by convention, this House does not pray against them. It is not us on these Benches who are undermining these conventions; it is this Conservative Government.
This Government are not listening. They are not listening to the police, to victims of violent crime, particularly women, or to the vulnerable, whether victims of scams, harmful online content or the cost of living crisis. They are not listening to the millions who watch and enjoy Channel 4 or those who cherish the BBC. This Government are not listening to the wisdom and expertise in this House. It is a very dangerous path for the Government to go down. They need to stop and think very carefully before they go any further.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to close today’s debate, which has indeed been long and interesting, from the Opposition Benches.
I will go through the Bills fairly sequentially, starting with the draft victims Bill. Under the Conservatives, the criminal justice system is failing too many victims and letting criminals off the hook. Chronic underfunding and broken promises mean that victims are denied justice and have lost faith in a system that was set up to protect them. Since 2019, crime is up by 18% but prosecutions down by 18%. The number of arrests has dropped by 35,000. Anti-social behaviour is rife and fraud is soaring. The victims Bill has been promised in four Queen’s Speeches and three manifestos but not delivered. Even now it is only a draft Bill because the Government are failing to find adequate time. Meanwhile, many thousands of victims drop out of the criminal justice system because they do not see a route to justice.
The Labour Party has a ready-made Bill ready to go to end violence against women and girls, clear the backlog by increasing Nightingale courts and fast-track rape and sexual violence cases. The Government have listened to the Labour Party on strengthening rights of victims elsewhere, including victims of anti-social behaviour, but rejected making misogyny a hate crime. It has taken six consecutive Justice Secretaries to bring the victims Bill forward to this draft stage. Victims are still waiting for the Bill but we in the Labour Party will work constructively to make it a reality.
I move on to the proposed reforms to the Human Rights Act, the so-called Bill of Rights. Many noble Lords spoke about this: the noble and learned Lords, Lord Judge and Lord Hope, the noble Lord, Lord Beith, my noble friends Lady Chakrabarti, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws and Lady Goudie, and my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton. They all spoke critically of the proposals in this Bill.
However, we in the Labour Party ultimately believe that this is a short, short-sighted and weak distraction technique which distracts from the fundamental problems currently besetting our criminal justice system, and that it should be viewed in this context. We cite the following three cases where ordinary people’s rights have been protected through the Human Rights Act: first, the quashing of the original Hillsborough inquest verdicts; secondly, the “Do not resuscitate” orders which were wrongly placed on Janet Tracey without discussing it with her first; and, thirdly, the black cab rapist case, where two women complainants won their case because the police failed to properly investigate their cases. This was mentioned by my noble friend Lady Thornton.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, spoke about the Root and Branch Review of the Parole System, which I presume will be in this Bill but am not actually sure. It is a very important review, and I take the point he makes about the potential effect on IPP prisoners. Nevertheless, if we want to keep more people out of prison, we need a Parole Board and parole service which are absolutely on top of this game—as they were before they were put through so many reorganisations over the last decade.
In this House, we have three principal legal eagles: the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge—Pannick, Hope and Judge. I sometimes think that that is some sort of commentary on the Government’s approach to human rights reform and constitutional issues. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Thornton for thinking up that joke.
I turn next to the Public Order Bill, which was introduced in the House of Commons yesterday, as we have heard. The Government could have legislated to protect women by requiring specialist rape and sexual offence units in every police force area and by creating a national register to monitor serial sex offenders. They could have backed Labour’s plans to make it easier for police to close drug dens and introduce a national register for those convicted of county lines drug offences. They could have consulted on options to increase arrests and deal with the record low charge rate. Instead, having already completed one Bill on protesters’ rights, they are now simply doing the same thing again by reintroducing measures which they tried to tack on to the Bill last year. We will look at the detail of all legislation in the Queen’s Speech, but we have been calling for the Government to work with the police to use their existing powers, such as injunctions, to deal with people who block access to motorways. This point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick.
I now turn to the National Security Bill. The legislation has been promised since 2019. It was requested in the Russia report, but the Government have failed to bring it forward despite significant concerns about threats from states such as Russia and China, especially after the Salisbury poisoning. We believe, as I am sure all noble Lords do, that legislation must keep pace with the changing threats to the UK, and we welcome moves to update the law to keep us safe from state-backed sabotage. The Labour Party will scrutinise the Bill to ensure that the introduction of a foreign influence register scheme will be robust enough to deter and disrupt state threat activity in the UK.
I turn to the economic crime and corporate transparency Bill. This Bill must finally end Britain’s role as a global hub for dirty money and set a new standard for transparency and probity, while supporting honest businesses to trade and flourish. I might just point out that many Russians whom I know came here because they wanted an honest environment in which to work and a banking system and a legal system in which they could trust. The Labour Party’s amendments to the last economic crime Bill would have brought in reforms to Companies House and left oligarchs with nowhere to hide. We are relieved that the Government have finally taken action to increase enforcement powers over crypto assets and on information-sharing around economic crime. We welcome the efforts to broaden the Registrar of Companies’ powers.
On the modern slavery Bill, I agree with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, who asked about the checking procedures to see whether the requirements of the Bill are actually being observed. We think that legislation is long overdue, since it could be argued that the UK is no longer a world leader in this type of legislation. We would certainly welcome moves to strengthen protection and support for victims. We in the Labour Party previously tabled amendments to the Nationality and Borders Bill to ensure that victims were given the protection they need. In my experience as a youth magistrate, where the provisions of the Modern Slavery Act are very commonly invoked, it is a massive source of delay in getting cases through the youth system so anything that could be done to speed up those procedures would be welcome.
I turn to the draft Protect duty Bill, sometimes called Martyn’s law. We would back this Bill. I think my noble friend Lady Henig spoke about this. We will seek to ensure that it is clear where responsibility lies. There are multiple groups and the host areas have a proper duty to ensure that people are protected from potential terrorist attack.
On the Online Safety Bill, which is a carry-over Bill, I agree with my noble friend Lady Merron when she described this area as the new front line. Any noble Lords who have teenagers or even children who are in their 20s or 30s will know that young people spend a huge proportion of their time online. The Bill was first mooted a decade ago and it is nearly four years since it was promised. We will support the Online Safety Bill and look at ways of improving it as it proceeds through our House.
In conclusion, we believe that the Government have the wrong priorities. They are focusing on the Human Rights Act while crime rises, victims lose faith in the justice system and rapists go free, and on Channel 4 privatisation instead of online harms, gambling and protecting people from fraud. We believe that the Government have turned up late on all the key issues. We have been waiting for years for action on victims, children’s safety online, football governance and dirty money being laundered in the UK. The Government have failed to keep up with a changing world, and this programme is them playing catch-up.
I am proud to be British for lots of reasons, not least because of the cultural sector, but I want to be proud of our criminal justice system as well. I spend a lot of my time working in that system, but I feel that we let people down. I know that is absolutely not the intention of anyone who works in the criminal justice system, but we really need to try to build up the rights of all those who find themselves in the criminal justice system. That should be the prime objective of this Government.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)
My Lords, I echo the thanks that have been raised by many noble Lords to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales for delivering the gracious Speech on behalf of Her Majesty, supported by His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, in their capacities as Counsellors of State. I am sure that this year in particular we all want to send not just this humble Address but also our warmest wishes and our ever-deepening gratitude to Her Majesty, particularly as we prepare to celebrate the momentous occasion of her Platinum Jubilee, a unique event which it is the privilege of DCMS to help the country to mark. It is also one of the topics that was discussed at a meeting of the Cabinet today in Stoke-on-Trent along with the many ways in which the legislative programme outlined in the gracious Speech will help to make that part of the country and the rest of the UK safer, stronger and more prosperous.
Noble Lords have rightly noted that there are more DCMS Bills in this Session than ever before, and I look forward to spending a lot of time at this Dispatch Box in the company of your Lordships. It speaks to the huge contribution that DCMS and the sectors that it has the privilege of representing have to play in extending the prosperity and well-being of our nation. I pay tribute to its Ministers past and present and to the officials who have worked on the Bills that we will consider this Session so far.
The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, wanted to see even more DCMS measures. I note that the Opposition in another place did not select culture, media and sport as a topic for a debate on the gracious Speech, so I am very glad that we have had the opportunity to make good that omission today in a debate that has reflected, as ever, the breadth of expertise and wisdom of your Lordships’ House. Indeed, I see that today’s debate has attracted the largest number of speakers in any debate on the humble Address, so I will do my best to cover as many as possible of the points that have been raised.
Not for the first time, many of the speeches today dwelt on the role and nature of your Lordships’ House. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, may or may not have been in revolutionary mood, but he was certainly in an existential one, and he was far from the only noble Lord feeling that way. I have had the privilege of being in your Lordships’ House for only two and half years, but this is my third Queen’s Speech and, even in the short space of time that I have been here, I have seen multiple examples of the ways in which your Lordships amend, scrutinise and improve legislation. I had the privilege of speaking on what is now the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act and the Domestic Abuse Act—two important legislative measures which are far better for having gone through your Lordships’ House—so I am not as gloomy as the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and others about the difference this place can and does make. However, I agree with my noble friend Lord Strathclyde that there are also occasions on which your Lordships’ House must accept, however reluctantly, that it has not persuaded another place to think again and must recognise the mandate the elected House has for the legislation it sends this way.
I hope that one such incidence in this Session will be the measures in the Public Order Bill which were noted by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. The Government fully support people’s right to engage in peaceful protest, and we recognise that that is a cornerstone of our democracy, but guerrilla tactics by a small minority of protesters cause misery to the public, cost millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money and put lives at risk. We cannot have sections of our transport and other key national infrastructure brought to a halt by small groups of protesters. Nor can we have the sort of scenes we saw in the pandemic, when people who were on their way to get their vaccinations or to visit sick relatives were prevented from doing so.
The Public Order Bill will criminalise the dangerous and disruptive protest tactics of locking on and obstructing major transport construction works. A key concern raised by noble Lords in January, when these measures were being considered in the context of what is now the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, was that they had not been subject to proper scrutiny in another place. That place will now have an opportunity to do so. In the meantime, the actions of Just Stop Oil have provided further evidence of the need for these measures.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, rightly talked about the long-standing rights to freedom of expression and assembly. Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights set out that everybody has the right to freedom of expression, assembly and association. However, these rights are not absolute, and they have to be balanced with the rights and freedoms of others. These new measures will balance the rights of protesters with the rights of others to go about their business unhindered. The measures will achieve this by enabling the police to manage highly disruptive protests and, as with existing public order powers, the police will need to act compatibly with the human rights of protesters when using them.
The European Convention on Human Rights was mentioned by a great number of noble Lords in their contributions on the Bill of Rights. I echo the plaudits of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester and others for my noble friend Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, who showed again with his contribution today his great sense, shrewdness and good humour— things which will be very much missed on the Government Front Bench, but we are very glad to have his continued participation today. He was absolutely right to point out that human rights did not begin in 1998, that the United Kingdom will remain a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights—which was signed and ratified by a Conservative Government—and that convention rights will remain enforceable in our courts.
I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames, who asked about Article 46. We fully acknowledge our international obligation under Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights to abide by an adverse judgment of the European court against us, but the Human Rights Act 1998 has been in force for almost a quarter of a century. It is entirely right that we should look at it again to see whether there is a need to update this important area of law.
The Bill of Rights will ensure that our human rights framework continues to meet the needs of the country and society it serves. We have a long and proud history of protecting and extending freedom in this country, and our proposals aim to build on this noble tradition. In doing so, we want to strengthen the credibility of and support for human rights, so that they are not dirty words in the minds of the public. As the introduction of our Magnitsky sanctions regime shows, this Government will continue to champion human rights, both at home and abroad.
The noble Lords, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick and Lord Ramsbotham, asked about the work to establish a royal commission on criminal justice. Understandably, that work slowed at the onset of the pandemic, as the Ministry of Justice stood up significant work and investment to keep our criminal justice system moving. That point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, as well. More than £1 billion has been allocated to boost capacity and accelerate recovery from Covid in Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. In this financial year, we expect to get through 20% more Crown Court cases than we did before Covid-19.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, asked about no-fault divorce. In April, the Government commenced the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act, the biggest change to divorce law and practice for nearly half a century. Now that we have implemented the Act, we have turned our minds to consideration of the legislation surrounding financial provision on divorce. We deliberately kept that as a separate issue, and we will be announcing our intentions for the work in due course.
I welcome the support from the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and others for the National Security Bill. As he pointed out, our espionage laws date back to 1911 and do not account for how threats to the UK’s national security have evolved and diversified in the more than a century since. Russia’s action in Salisbury, China’s attempts to interfere in our democracy, and persistent efforts by foreign actors to steal intellectual property generated in the UK demonstrate why we need new laws to help the intelligence agencies and police to detect, disrupt and prosecute state-threat actors who seek to harm the United Kingdom. This legislation will support the extensive previous and ongoing cross-government efforts to counter state threats, including the recent economic crime Act, in the light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the economic crime and corporate transparency Bill, which is also being introduced in this Session.
The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, asked when we would introduce a registration scheme. We will do that after introduction of the Bill, so we can take the time needed to ensure its effectiveness and that it properly protects the interests of the UK. He asked also whether it was our intention to reform the Official Secrets Act 1989. We have heard the strong views and concerns raised on the 1989 Act and reform of it in our public consultation; we need to take the time to give proper consideration to those concerns, so while the Bill will address the provisions of the 1911, 1920 and 1939 Official Secrets Acts, we are not proposing to reform the 1989 Act through this Bill. It is clear that reform in this area is complex and engages a wide range of interests; it is only right that proper consideration should be given to the views expressed in the consultation. Moreover, in light of the ongoing situation in Ukraine, we need to prioritise a wider package of measures to tackle state threats in order to ensure that our law enforcement and intelligence partners have the tools they need to keep us safe.
I was very glad to hear the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, and others, for the Protect duty Bill. I was pleased, too, to hear her entirely justified tributes to Figen Murray, the mother of Martyn Hett, one of the many people and groups whose lives have been scarred by terrorism, with whom the Government have been working to develop proposals to improve security and ensure robust yet proportionate measures at public places. These are being considered further, in light of consultation responses, alongside other things, including the first volume of the Manchester Arena inquiry report—but the Government remain committed to the Protect duty and will bring forward legislative proposals as soon as parliamentary time allows.
Of course, those on the very front line of keeping us safe are the police, as the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate, my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower and others pointed out. We have now recruited more than 13,000 additional officers and remain on track to deliver 20,000 additional officers by March 2023. The Government are also giving the police the resources they need to fight crime and keep the public safe, which is why in February the Government published a total police funding settlement of up to £16.9 billion for the financial year 2022-23, an increase of up to £1.1 billion when compared to the previous financial year.
My noble friend Lord Bridgeman and my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern raised sensitive but important topics. My noble friend Lord Bridgeman discussed sharia marriage. The law has long made provision for couples, including Muslim couples, to marry in their place of worship in a way that gives them legal rights and protections. The Government share the concern that some people may none the less marry in a way that does not, and without appreciating the consequences. We will continue to explore limited reform and non-legislative options in this area with the greatest of care. This work will be informed by the forthcoming reports from the Law Commission on weddings and from the Nuffield Foundation on religious weddings.
My noble and learned friend Lord Mackay, as well as others, addressed the conversion therapy Bill. The purpose of that Bill is to ban conversion therapy practices that are intended to change someone’s sexual orientation. It will stop abhorrent practices which do not work and cause extensive harm, and will protect people’s personal liberty to love who they want to love. It will do so by strengthening existing criminal law, ensuring that violent conversion therapy is recognised as a potential aggravating factor on sentencing, and by introducing a criminal offence banning non-physical conversion therapies to complement existing legislation which protects people from acts which inflict physical harm.
This offence will protect people under the age of 18 regardless of circumstance and people over the age of 18 who do not consent and who are coerced or forced to undergo conversion therapy practices. We are conscious of doing this while protecting freedom of speech, ensuring that parents, clinicians and teachers can continue to have candid and important conversations with people seeking their support. This is, as noble Lords noted, a complex area, but some 16 countries have placed some sort of nationwide ban on conversion therapy practices, including Canada, France, Germany and New Zealand, so there are examples to which noble Lords will be able to turn when scrutinising this Bill. Recognising the complexity of the issues and the need for further careful thought, we will carry out separate work to consider the issue of transgender conversion therapy in further detail.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, raised the no less complex issues of legacy in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Troubles legacy and reconciliation Bill will address the legacy of Northern Ireland’s past by focusing on information recovery and reconciliation, providing better outcomes for victims, survivors and their families, delivering on the Government’s commitment to veterans and helping society to look forward. In line with the Sewel convention and associated practices, the Government will continue to work constructively with the devolved Administrations to secure their legislative consent where that is achievable and appropriate.
The noble Lord, Lord Stephen, raised the spectre of a second Scottish independence referendum. People across Scotland, quite rightly, want to see both of their Governments working together on issues that matter to them, including driving down NHS backlogs, protecting our long-term energy security and supporting our economic recovery so that everybody has opportunities, skills and jobs. That is the priority of Her Majesty’s Government.
I turn now to the bumper crop of DCMS measures in this Queen’s Speech, beginning with the Online Safety Bill, which attracted the attention of most noble Lords. The Bill had its Second Reading in another place on 19 April. This ground-breaking legislation delivers on our manifesto commitment to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. For the first time, tech companies will be accountable to an independent regulator to keep their users, particularly children, safe. At the same time, the Bill will protect and defend freedom of expression and the invaluable role played by our free press. We are entering a new age of accountability for tech to protect children and vulnerable users and to restore trust in this important industry. The Bill will defend freedom of expression and the vital role of a free press, while unleashing a new wave of digital growth by building trust in technology businesses.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and others dwelt particularly on the importance of protecting freedom of expression, and the Bill contains strong safeguards for this. No platforms will be required to remove legal content and all services will need to have regard to freedom of expression when implementing their safety duties. Under the Bill, major platforms will no longer be able arbitrarily to remove content just because they deem it controversial or offensive. If users feel that their post has been taken down unfairly, for the first time they will have the right to appeal. Major platforms will also have to protect journalistic and democratically important content, to protect the free press and political debate. Ofcom will also have to ensure that all codes of practice it prepares are designed to reflect the importance of freedom of expression.
The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, asked about the role of Ofcom, which will have a range of powers at its disposal to help it assess whether companies are fulfilling their duties. These powers will help ensure that Ofcom is able to effectively assess whether companies are fulfilling their regulatory requirements, including in relation to the operation of their algorithms. If companies fail, Ofcom can make them take specific actions to improve their services, including using proactive technologies to identify and remove illegal material and stop children seeing harmful content.
The noble Lord also asked about post-legislative scrutiny for the Bill. I commend his optimism and enthusiasm for seeing it on the statute book. Having benefited greatly from the pre-legislative scrutiny provided by the Joint Committee of both Houses, we are keen to use the expertise in both Houses of Parliament to deliver post-legislative scrutiny as well. We will welcome further views during the passage of the Bill on the best way to achieve this, but I should say that we do not support the creation of a Joint Committee with a wider remit on digital regulation more broadly. Such a committee would cut against the work of existing parliamentary committees which are already well placed to scrutinise digital regulation.
The noble Lord asked about Twitter and the Equality Act. For activities which are carried out in Great Britain and fall within the sphere of the Equality Act—for instance, employment and the provision of services—Twitter would not be exempt from compliance with the Act. I will happily discuss his concerns further with him if he wishes.
A number of noble Lords touched on the media Bill. The UK’s broadcasting landscape is a domestic and international success story. Our public service broadcasters are at the heart of that success. This Bill will allow our broadcasters to continue to thrive in an age of rapid technological change and fierce competition, particularly from global platform giants. We want to find a new owner for Channel 4 so that it can become bigger, better and stronger in that rapidly changing industry.
This Bill will enable our broadcasters to thrive. That will be good for audiences, who will be able more easily to access and enjoy quality British-originated content, good for our economy and good for our ability to project British values globally. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, was right to point to the work of our public service broadcasters in providing high-quality impartial content which is accessible to all. This is more important than ever in that changing media landscape.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, raised a number of issues. First, on the importance of Channel 4 to independent production companies, it has played a crucial role in supporting the growth of our independent production sector. Thanks to that, the sector is now booming, with revenues growing from £500 million in 1995 to £3 billion in 2019. Independent production companies are less reliant on Channel 4 as they increasingly benefit from commissions from other sources. We want Channel 4 to have the resources to be able to continue to commission the very best content for its viewers. Channel 4 still has a part to play in supporting independent production and the creative economy. Our plans do not compromise our commitment to the independent production sector.
The noble Baroness asked also about Channel 4’s important role across the United Kingdom. The Government greatly value Channel 4’s role in supporting the growth of a creative economy right across the UK. I had an example of that during the Prorogation break in Bradford, when I met Channel 4 as part of my visits to the four shortlisted cities for the 2025 UK City of Culture. I should at this point mention County Durham, Wrexham and Southampton, which are the other three. There is no reason why Channel 4’s important role in supporting our creative economy across the UK should change. Its work with creatives up and down this country has made it the success that it is today, and we would expect a new owner to want to grow and develop those relationships. Channel 4’s network outside London and its ability to speak to such a diverse range of audiences is an attractive asset to nurture and develop for any potential buyer.
The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked about quotas. Channel 4’s existing obligations in terms of regional production outside London and England will be maintained, as will its remit to provide distinctive, educational, innovative and experimental programming which represents the breadth of our society, and the obligations to show original programmes and provide news and current affairs.
The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, in a rare Thatcherite moment, asked about the potential for sale to a foreign investor. We expect a lot of interest in purchasing Channel 4 from a range of buyers. The right buyer for Channel 4 will be one who wants to build on Channel 4’s strengths and help accelerate and unleash its potential. Bids will be assessed carefully, and any new owners will have to pass Ofcom’s fit and proper persons test.
The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, spoke about the draft digital markets Bill, and, as I see from the Official Report, so did my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston in yesterday’s debate. Digital technologies make a huge contribution to our economy and the Government are committed to unlocking their full potential. The new regime will put in place clear rules for the most powerful tech firms and robust new powers to enforce those rules, including significant fines for breaches. The noble Viscount and my noble friend Lady Stowell asked why this is only draft legislation. This regime will tackle technical and complex issues and have an impact across our economy, so it is vital that we address the far-reaching market power held by a small number of firms which is harming consumers and businesses. The regime must also be proportionate and pro-innovation. The UK should be the best place to start and grow a technology business. The draft measures will allow interested parties to continue to engage on the details of the regime to ensure that the legislation strikes the right balance, and that is why we will publish draft legislation in this Session ahead of introducing legislation as soon as parliamentary time allows.
The noble Lord, Lord Bassam of Brighton, and others mentioned the fan-led review of football. The new independent regulator will be given the task of applying an enhanced owners’ and directors’ test, both ahead of the acquisition of the club and on an ongoing basis. This replaces the existing tests and will include a new integrity test for all owners and executives, and enhanced due diligence, including sources of funding on acquisition. Further details will be set out in the White Paper, which we will publish this summer.
Coming very soon is the gambling Act White Paper. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, knows, this is the most thorough review of gambling laws since the 2005 Act and we need to get it right. In the coming weeks we will publish a White Paper setting out our conclusions and vision for the sector; it will set out our policy proposals and we will work with others, including the Gambling Commission, to implement the changes as soon as possible.
The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and others asked about touring for artists. The UK took an ambitious approach during our negotiations with the European Union, which would have ensured that touring artists and their support staff did not need work permits to perform in the UK. Regrettably, this was rejected by the European Union. Our trade deal with the three EFTA countries was based on the very same offer and shows that it is workable and that we are fighting to help musicians and performers to tour abroad. The Government are committed to supporting this important sector to adapt to the new arrangements, and we are working with the sector and directly with member states to clarify what creative workers need to do to continue touring in these important industries.
The noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, asked specifically about the work to designate the St Pancras station for Eurostar as a CITES point of entry. Defra is working with the Incorporated Society of Musicians, the Association of British Orchestras, the Musicians’ Union and others who are undertaking surveys to gauge numbers likely to use St Pancras as such a point of entry if it were to become CITES-designated. The results are due soon and once received Defra will work with Border Force to understand the operational implications of designating St Pancras. We will provide further updates in due course. I am grateful to the noble Earl and to Deborah Annetts from the Incorporated Society of Musicians for their engagement on this important issue.
I am close to the end of time. I have not had a chance to touch on the data reform Bill, the electronic trade documents Bill, or the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill, but taken together, the legislation in this gracious Speech is an ambitious legislative agenda which will support households by delivering economic growth, up and down our country. We will deliver on our promise to level up the United Kingdom. Our policies will deliver economic prosperity by giving local leaders the power they need to rejuvenate their communities by providing every part of England that wants a devolution deal with one by 2030. We will bring forward media legislation to boost that important sector and promote British-originated content. Our post-Brexit freedoms will enable us to make key data reforms to our regulatory environment which will promote growth and innovation and create a truly global Britain. In the face of growing international threats, we will also enhance the protection afforded to our people, our networks and our infrastructure against risks arising from insecure smart products. Our programme will deliver pioneering legislation, ensuring economic safety and security for this country, both online and on our streets. I look forward to debating much of it with noble Lords over the Session ahead.
Amendment to the Motion
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb
At end to insert “but regret the failure of Her Majesty’s Government to provide for a constitutional convention to create a 21st century democracy where every vote counts; instead seeking to further concentrate power in the executive by weakening judicial oversight of government decisions and undermining the right to peaceful protest; and further regrets Her Majesty’s Government’s failure to provide safe and legal routes for people to claim asylum in the United Kingdom”.
HM Passport Office: Backlogs
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will repeat the Answer to an Urgent Question asked earlier today in the other place:
“Due to Covid-19, over 5 million people delayed their passport applications in 2020 and 2021”—
I do know how to clear a Chamber. The Answer continues:
“With demand for international travel having returned, Her Majesty’s Passport Office is currently receiving a higher number of passport applications than ever before. Some 9.5 million applications are expected in 2022, compared with approximately 7 million in a normal year.
Since April 2021, 500 new staff have joined and a further 700 will join by the summer. As a result, the vast majority of passport applications are being processed within the 10-week timeframe and over 90% within six weeks. Less than 1.4% of the passports printed last week for UK applications had been in the system for longer than 10 weeks.
With a record number of applications in the system, customer inquiries have increased accordingly. However, the passport advice line, which is run by Teleperformance, is not currently meeting the needs of passport customers. Clearly, this is not acceptable. The Home Office has clear standards for the level of service that suppliers are expected to provide.
Her Majesty’s Passport Office has engaged with Teleperformance at its most senior levels to emphasise the need to significantly improve performance as soon as possible. Alongside steps to bring the operation of the passport advice line, email and call-back functions within the required standard, Teleperformance is urgently bolstering staff numbers in response to the recent surge in customer contact, with 500 additional staff due to be added by mid-June.
We recognise that colleagues will wish to raise cases and queries on behalf of their constituents. HM Passport Office staff have therefore been deployed to answer passport-related inquiries to the Home Office’s dedicated MPs hotline and, for the most urgent cases, they will also be available to conduct in-person passport surgeries at Portcullis House.
While we acknowledge that there have been issues with customer contact that must and will be resolved, I take the opportunity to recognise the work of HM Passport Office staff who continue to ensure that the vast majority of passport applications are processed in under 10 weeks. Their efforts, alongside the extensive work that went into preparing for record demand, have ensured that passport applications continue to be processed in higher numbers than ever before.
Across March and April 2022, HM Passport Office completed the processing of nearly 2 million applications. As this output demonstrates, HMPO staff are firmly focused on maintaining a high level of service and are fully committed to ensuring that people receive their passports in good time for their summer holidays.”
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Answer to the Question in the other place. I start with an anecdote: last Monday, a friend of mine showed me a picture of an 11 year-old Ukrainian boy in Wandsworth in his brand-new school uniform. He started at Southfields Academy, in Wandsworth, on Monday; I understand that so far it is going very well. He was standing there, proud as punch, in his new school uniform. My friend said that Wandsworth Borough Council has been very helpful in setting up all the various measures they had to put in place to host this family. I will not try to claim that as a Labour success, given that it happened only on Monday.
I thank the hard-working staff at the Home Office for trying to deal with this backlog. We believe that this is a problem of leadership and planning, not of the staff themselves. We also believe that the surge in applications for passports was wholly predictable. Too often, we have to come to this House to ask about delays—on passports, on Ukraine visas and on asylum claims, including those of Afghan interpreters, for example. The costs to the people involved in this application process are difficult to describe because of the extremity of the situation in which they find themselves. Does the Minister believe that the management and leadership process in the Home Office is fit to deal with the current shortcomings and future requirements that will be made of it?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
First, I join the noble Lord in being happy about his story of the Ukrainian schoolboy standing proudly in his school uniform on Monday. I praise the noble Lord for not trying to claim it as a Labour victory; whenever these things happen, we are all happy that they turned out well.
It might be helpful to outline the context in which we find ourselves. As I said, HMPO processes 7 million passport applications in a normal year. Due to Covid, only 4 million applied in 2020 and 5 million in 2021. That means that more than 5 million people delayed applying for a British passport throughout 2020 and 2021. Therefore, the unprecedented figure of 9.5 million applications is forecast for 2022.
As I said, some of the problems with phone lines are completely unacceptable, but I think HMPO staff have performed to their best. In this context, 90% of applications being issued within six weeks, between January and March this year, is an excellent figure. In fact, over 98% were processed within a 10-week timeframe, but I am not going to stand and deny that there have been snags in the system. As I outlined, we are working very hard to resolve them.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
My Lords, the Minister is aware that, far from enjoying exactly the same benefits as members of the EU, our citizens must now have three months’ validity on their passports. The Government should have been more concerned with the process of issuing passports than with what colour they are. Have there been any discussions between the Government and EU countries about relaxing the three-month rule while the UK sorts out this dreadful crisis?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I can take that point back. I may be completely wrong here but I thought the EU insisted on six months. I am glad someone is nodding, so I am not going mad: the EU insists on six months. There might be a pragmatic solution. We are probably undergoing a hump in the process and things will smooth out, particularly by engaging more staff.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend mentioned that the performance of the contractor answering the telephone lines was unacceptable. Does the contract with Teleperformance have any penalties, so that there is a financial consequence to the company if standards are not maintained?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
As always, my noble friend asks a very good question. I do not know the answer to it. I know that we have been engaging with the contractor and outlining that what is happening at the moment is utterly unacceptable, and I know that steps are being taken to rectify that.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I hope that commercial confidentiality will not be cited as a reason for not replying to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Young. Following my noble friend’s question, have the Government had any discussions with the travel industry to ensure that passengers who are unaware of either these problems or the need to have a period remaining on their passport are alerted to the issue?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
In relation to this issue, I know that HMPO has sent nearly 5 million text messages to UK customers who hold an expired or soon-to-expire passport to advise them to allow up to 10 weeks when next applying—so communications are going out from our side. I do not know about other countries.
Lord Dholakia (LD)
My Lords, how many additional civil servants have been taken on to deal with the backlog? Is Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who criticised the Passport Office so bitterly, now satisfied with the work of this organisation?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
HMPO’s staffing numbers have increased by 500 since last April, and it is in the process of recruiting a further 700 people. In total, as of 1 April this year, there were more than 4,000 staff in passport production roles.
The Earl of Erroll (CB)
First, I am reassured. The reason I knew it was six months—I will point out another wrinkle in this—is that I was going abroad in March, so I anticipated this issue and sent my application off early. It was very efficient and I got my passport back really quite quickly. The only problem was that the courier kept trying to deliver it to the wrong address because of the postcode—but do not worry about that. There was no way of putting in an extra message for the delivery driver saying, “Please go to the gate at something or other”—because I live in the countryside. Anyway, leaving that aside, the process was very efficient.
But there is another wrinkle. Normally, when you renew early in the UK—I realise that this particularly concerns us Scots, who worry about money—that extra period is put on to your passport. The expiry date is taken from when the current passport expires. The EU counts it from when it arrives—that is, the renewal date—so be careful, because you lose that bit that you used to get credited with on your passport under the old British system. Personally, I think that it is unfair. I am delighted that the passport can just put it on, but you do need to warn travellers that they might need to add a bit more on.
The thing I really want to ask, though, is this: what plans are there to deal with the extra 1,200 staff who have been specially recruited to deal with the problem? That is quite a swelling of the Civil Service at a time when I thought we were trying to economise and cut back. Are these people full-time staff that the Civil Service will have to retain for ever and somehow find other employment for—or what plans have we for downsizing again when the crisis is over?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
Again, the noble Lord makes a good point. I will inquire as to whether we have recruited permanent staff or agency staff. If they are permanent full-time staff, they can of course be flexible to meet the needs of other parts of the Civil Service.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, at the end of 2020, when the Passport Office realised that it was 2 million short of its normal applications, why did it not encourage people to apply early, anticipating the problems that we now see?
Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
I do not know the answer to the question of why we did not encourage that. Obviously, we project numbers each year, but those numbers clearly did not transpire last year and we are now facing 9.5 million applications this year.
The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Henig) (Lab)
The time allowed for this Question has now elapsed, so we will go on to the next business.
Hong Kong: Arrests
(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House I shall now repeat the Answer to an Urgent Question given in the other place by my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Europe and North America, James Cleverly. The Answer is as follows:
“The Hong Kong authorities’ decision to target leading pro-democracy figures, including Cardinal Zen, Margaret Ng, Hui Po-keung and Denise Ho, under the national security law is unacceptable. Freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest, which are protected in both the joint declaration and the basic law, are fundamental to Hong Kong’s way of life.
We continue to make clear to mainland Chinese and Hong Kong authorities our strong opposition to the national security law, which is being used to curtail freedoms, punish dissent and shrink the space for opposition, free press and civil society. In response to the imposition of the national security law, as well as to wider recent developments in Hong Kong, the UK took three major policy actions. First, on 31 January 2021, we launched a bespoke immigration route for British nationals overseas and their dependants. Secondly, we have suspended the UK-Hong Kong extradition treaty and, thirdly, we have extended the existing arms embargo on China to cover Hong Kong. China remains in an ongoing state of non-compliance with the joint declaration, which it willingly agreed to uphold.
As a co-signatory to the joint declaration and in the significant 25th year of our handover we will continue to stand up for the people of Hong Kong, to call out the violation of their rights and freedoms and to hold China to its international obligations. The Foreign Secretary is in regular contact with her international counterparts on issues relating to Hong Kong, and we continue to work intensively within international institutions to call on China to live up to its international obligations and responsibilities. As the Foreign Secretary set out in the latest six-monthly report, published on 31 March, the UK will continue to speak out when China breaches its legally binding agreements and when it breaks its promises to the people of Hong Kong.”
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Answer. Of course, John Lee, Beijing’s handpicked choice as chief executive, as Hong Kong’s top security official, oversaw the Government’s strong-handed response to the 2019 pro-democracy protests and the first year of its national security crackdown. Lee has already indicated his intention to bring further restrictions on Hong Kong’s freedoms and suggests that these arrests will not be the last. When this issue was raised in the Commons, James Cleverly was unable to explain why the Government have not yet implemented Magnitsky sanctions against Hong Kong and Chinese officials responsible for these serious breaches. Will these arrests bring a change of approach by the UK Government? Will we see speedier action? The Minister in the other place was also unable to confirm whether any urgent representations had been made to the Chinese embassy on this matter. I hope the Minister can assure us today that this has happened.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, on 9 May we released a joint statement with our G7 partners and the EU underscoring our grave concern over the selection process for the chief executive in Hong Kong as part of a continued assault on political pluralism and fundamental freedoms. Together, we urged the new chief executive, John Lee, to respect protected rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, as provided for in Hong Kong’s own Basic Law. The current nomination process and the resulting appointment are clearly a stark departure from the aim of universal suffrage, as set out in Hong Kong’s Basic Law. This further erodes the ability of Hong Kongers to feel or be legitimately represented.
On sanctions, on 6 July 2020, the former Foreign Secretary announced the global human rights sanctions regime, which was welcomed across both Houses. We will continue to consider designations under the global human rights sanctions regime, but I am not able to speculate—and nor should I—on who may be designated in future. That would undermine the impact of those designations, but I note the noble Lord’s comments.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, I agree with the Minister when he says that this is unacceptable and I support the three measures, but while these gross breaches of human rights are being carried out, the UK is actively promoting financial direct investment from Hong Kong authorities into the UK and UK investment into Hong Kong. Investment from the UK to Hong Kong has gone up by 8.6% and from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom by 31%. I have been trying to pursue this with the Government. Are there any triggering mechanisms on human rights abuses that the Government would act on to close market access for Chinese investment into the UK? We are not acting strongly enough.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, the Government monitor the operation and functioning of the financial sector and its participants on a regular and ongoing basis, across a wide range of matters. Fundamentally, it is for businesses themselves to make their own judgment calls and the Government do not comment on issues relating to individual companies. The sentiments and the message of the noble Lord will have been heard by colleagues in the Foreign Office.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, given that the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund did little more than fund legal aid for protesters from the 2019 pro-democracy movement and closed its operations in 2021, is it not an outrage that one of those arrested, along with other trustees, should be 90 year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen? With Cardinal Zen being, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, has said,
“one of the most important figures in the Catholic Church in Asia”,
I ask the Minister to state in his own words, as clearly as possible, that this is utterly unacceptable and further undermines the rule of law in Hong Kong. What interventions have been and will be made to protect religious freedom or belief in the territory?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I strongly echo the right reverend Prelate’s comments. I know that any government Minister would willingly do so as well, were they standing at the Dispatch Box. What has happened to Cardinal Zen is truly appalling on every conceivable level. It fundamentally undermines every aspect of the agreement we reached with China at the handover and any sense of plurality or freedom of religion in Hong Kong. We are committed to defending freedom of religion for all and promoting respect between different religious and non-religious communities. Freedom of expression, religion or belief is explicitly included in the joint declaration, which China agreed to uphold. China is in clear breach of that declaration. We have seen its use of the national security law to curtail freedoms and suppress any dissent.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (CB)
My Lords, I am sure the House will welcome the integrity shown by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Reed, and Lord Hodge in no longer legitimising Hong Kong’s broken judicial system by continuing to sit on those courts. Other Members of this House continue to give cover to it by continuing their connection, and we wait for them to reconsider their roles.
My brief question to the Minister is this: will the Government consider the report by Hong Kong Watch that proposes to conduct an audit of UK assets owned by Hong Kong officials and lawmakers? According to Hong Kong Watch, five officials and six lawmakers who are complicit in these ongoing human rights crackdowns hide their wealth in this country. If we are to prepare for future Magnitsky sanctions, we need to start conducting that audit now.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
I thank the noble Baroness for raising an important point. On 14 March this year, the current Foreign Secretary issued a statement on the unjustifiable action taken against the UK-based NGO Hong Kong Watch. The action is clearly an attempt to silence those who stand up for human rights in Hong Kong. Attempting to silence voices globally that speak up for freedom and democracy is unacceptable and will never succeed. I will of course convey the noble Baroness’s request back to colleagues in the FCDO.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I too roundly condemn the arrest of the five members of the humanitarian support fund. So that the House knows, they have been charged with an offence under the national security law, the new law that has concerned this House in previous debates. The allegation is that they have been in collusion with foreign forces, which means that many of us who would want to be in contact with people are not because we are fearful, as parliamentarians in this country, of in any way putting in difficulty people in Hong Kong who are pro-democracy. I strongly endorse what the right reverend Prelate said about the cardinal, which is a shameful business.
Margaret Ng is a world-renowned rights defender— a great lawyer and barrister, and for 18 years a parliamentarian. As a great democrat, she is celebrated for her work and honoured for it globally. Only in 2019 were she and Martin Lee honoured by the International Bar Association as senior counsel in Hong Kong. Judges from this jurisdiction should no longer be sitting in Hong Kong and I hope that the Government will make a statement about their position. We should also now be calling a halt to, or pause on, trading negotiations with Hong Kong and China until the situation in Hong Kong improves.
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, we have repeatedly stated our very strong opposition to the national security law and will continue to voice our concerns about the legislation, which is in clear breach of the joint declaration. I think it is not a coincidence that the four people about whom we are having this urgent debate were arrested. These are people who have stood up for democracy; they are therefore standing up for Hong Kongers as a whole. The authorities there have made a decision, which is clearly unacceptable, to target those leading pro-democracy figures. The right to peaceful protest, which is protected in both the joint declaration and Hong Kong’s Basic Law, is fundamental to Hong Kong’s way of life. We will continue to raise our concerns at every opportunity.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
Before the noble Lord sits down, I did not ask my question. Will there be sanctions against—
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a patron of Hong Kong Watch and vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Hong Kong. Is it not outrageous that this has happened to a venerable and holy 90 year-old man, with immense global moral authority, and his fellow trustees? Is it not a terrible indictment of the CCP, illustrating the fear that has led it to criminalise most forms of dissent under the national security law, which was introduced by Carrie Lam and John Lee? I say to the House that as someone who, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, has been sanctioned by the CCP, I find it passing strange that Carrie Lam and John Lee have not already been indicted under Magnitsky sanctions, even though the Minister cannot name them as people who will be, given their responsibility for the destruction of “one country, two systems”.
I agree with what was said about the need for an asset audit, which I have previously called for, on CCP apparatchiks who own property assets in London. I hope that the Minister, who has said that he will take this back to the department, will do so as a matter of urgency. Given that the UK trade and economic deals through JETCO were suspended in response to the national security law, and with human rights in freefall, does the Minister agree that there can now be no possible reason to suspend the prohibitions on those trade arrangements?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, again, I strongly endorse the noble Lord’s comments on Cardinal Zen. Arresting a 90 year-old person of any standing, but particularly someone of his standing, is obscene. It has been condemned, and rightly so, across both Houses and the world. I suggest that the noble Lord wears his own proscription by the CCP as a badge of honour. I cannot go into any more details around the sanctions regime but I assure him, and others here today, that I will convey the strong feelings of the House to colleagues in the FCDO.